Success Story

Proving beyond doubt that Mary Harwick was Mary Ann Bass' mother involved proving my assumption that the portrait in the Reese Bible of the bearded Wm W. Bass was Mary Ann's brother.  This was accomplished some weeks ago.  Schoolteacher William Bass was found back in Warren in 1850 living with Henry and Mary Bell plus with another brother, medical student Edgar Charles Bass.  That led to a contemporary biography that I found on the prestigious Dr. Edgar Bass, clearly stating that his parents were Lovell Bass and Mary Harwick.  So I had my proof.  Time to move on...

However, I had come across a fascinating 1878 letter posted on a Bass family tree in Ancestry.com.  The letter was addressed to my William Bass by a relative talking about the family history and the recent death of an "Aunt Mary".  The relationship details were difficult to decipher simply because the writer just didn't explain enough, and the writer's identity was hidden by his/her scrawled signature.  William Bass probably easily understood everything in the letter.  But it was all a mystery to family descendants more than a hundred years later.

I read this letter many times trying to glean any Bass family information.  I figured a couple things out concerning the letter.  It was sent from New York state, near the town of Warren.  The Aunt Mary who died was my Mary Harwick, the mother of William and Edgar Bass.  I sent Ken, the Bass tree owner my comments.  Ken was astounded and we traded a flurry of e-mails.  My info immediately led him to more clues in other family papers in Ken's possession.  He showed me evidence that Mary Harwick, now that he knew his great-great grandmother's name, was the same person as Mary Bell.  For a moment it seemed that we were both up to speed on the data.
  A week later, I was updating my Reese tree with the Bell family information.  I was reading Ken's old letter again and noticed a couple more things. Just details, really.
  Don't think that I sit at my computer all day on a Saturday.  I did manage to get outdoors in the nice weather to weed my flower gardens, mow the lawns, and do a bunch of other errands.  I relaxed in the evening at my desk browsing through cemetery burial listings on genealogical sites for the Warren, New York area.  I found Henry Bell's grave which connected to something else in the letter.  My details were piling up.
  I wrote Ken again summarizing these small items, and asked him to check the original of that old letter.  Could the writer's signature possibly be Harwick?  That got quick a response, and Ken sent me a scan of the original letter.  Yes, we agreed.  Now that we had enough clues, we could see that the scrawled signature said Menzo Harwick.  In a burst of activity we found Menzo's family in the U.S. Census, including Menzo's siblings and his father David, who would be Mary Harwick's brother.  David's 77 year old father Peter, was living with the family in 1850 in Warren, NY.
  Now the old letter is starting to make sense.  The jigsaw pieces are coming together, forming a clearer picture.  Mary Harwick was Menzo's great Aunt who was Lovell Bass' 1st wife.  The Lovell Bass and Mary Harwick in the Reese bible were my friend Ken's great great grandparents.

   BUT WAIT!  There's more!  Old Peter is Mary Harwick's father too.  The names mentioned in the letter, Philip and Hannah Bronner have to be old Peter's parents!  Ken is researching the Harwick family furiously now.  He soon finds more documents proving the Philip in the letter is Philip C. Harwick,  a Revolutionary War soldier,born in Germany in 1742.  Philip Harwick and his 2nd wife Hannah Bronner, are Ken's great-great-great-great grandparents on the Harwick side.
    A huge success for the Reese Bible!