(My note: apparently real life intruded on my blog writing over the last week and a half! My apologies that this is several days late!)
Amy Johnson Crow, of No Story Too Small continues the challenge to the geneablogging world to write a blog post weekly on one ancestor. This could be a photo, a story, biography, or a post on the weekly theme. To read her challenge please go to Challenge: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – 2015 Edition. Feel free to join in at any time! The theme for the week of March 5-11 was “Stormy Weather.”
It seems as if I’ve encountered some members of my family who had bad luck when it came to lightning. My great-great-grandfather, Franklin Blazer, was killed by lightning at the age of 33. I wrote about this recently at What Happened to Franklin Blazer? so feel free to go read it if you haven’t.
Another relative who lost someone due to lightning was my Great-Uncle Herbert I. Amore’s wife, Fannie Coder. I knew Aunt Fannie when I was a girl and saw her every year at the annual Amore-Baker reunion in Coshocton, Ohio.
Fannie Kathryn Coder was born to Jacob Coder and Ida May Huff on March 3, 1895. When she was born, her parents were not married and her birth was recorded as Cora Huff (illegitimate). The record was corrected at some later date as Fannie Coder. As yet I still have not located a marriage record for Ida Huff and Jacob Coder. On Christmas Day 1898 Ida married Hiram Thornton in Tuscarawas county, Ohio. Fannie is listed as “Fannie Thornton” living in the Hiram and Ida Thornton household in the 1900 census along with her infant half-brother, Robert Thornton.
On July 15 or 16 in 1901, a severe electrical storm must have caught several members of the family by surprise. Ida Mae, Fannie, baby Robert, along with Ida’s mother, Caroline Smailes Huff, and her 15-year old sister, Myrtle, took shelter under a straw shed. Lightning struck the straw and killed all but Fannie. Twenty-five years later, a small paragraph in The Coshocton Tribune (July 16, 1926; pg. 4) mentioned the tragedy.
Ten years after losing her mother, aunt, grandmother, and baby brother, Fannie married my grandfather’s brother, Herbert I. Amore. She needed approval due to her age (16). The Coshocton Morning Tribune reported (since both her parents were deceased) that a guardian was appointed in order for a license to be issued.
When Bert and Fannie celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary, the April 21, 1946 edition of the Coshocton Tribune ran an article about the milestone. Concerning the tragedy that happened, the paper reported:
Mrs. Amore relates that 45 years ago on July 15 she almost lost her life when lightning struck a straw shed in which she, her grandmother,
mother, aunt and brother had taken refuge during an electrical storm, about one mile north of Newcomerstown. The lightning killed all the others. She was reared in the home of her three uncles and their wives.
Fannie lived to the age of 96 years and passed away on April 26, 1991 in Coshocton, Ohio – 9 years after her husband died. The couple are buried at South Lawn Cemetery in Coshocton.
All My Branches Genealogy 