Solving a Mystery

When I was in elementary school, the three types of books I liked—and the ones I was most likely to check out of the Huff Lane School library—were horse books, biographies, and mysteries. Horse books fed my passion for horses. I'd started seriously wanting a horse when I was seven but didn't get my first one until I was thirty-two. Biographies made me realize that people—even ones who'd lived and died long ago—could lead pretty interesting lives.  Mysteries intrigued me and kept me guessing until all the clues led to a solution. I especially  liked the way the girl detectives solved mysteries: first they noticed something amiss, then they looked for clues, and the clues finally led them to a solution. I wondered if I'd ever solve a mystery.

Recently, I did. The solution revealed some secrets about someone who had lived over a century ago—my 3rd great uncle, Matthew Harvey Nace, from Buchanan, Virginia. He was the relative no one would mention—he apparently did some dastardly deed and then disappeared. Every so often, I'd Google him (his first name sometimes appeared as "Mathew") without much luck. Then, I got incredibly lucky when I found a newsletter from Richmond's Hollywood Cemetery about a Nace monument being restored—a monument that Matthew Nace built for his wife Evaline, who died in 1854 after giving birth to their fourth child. (The infant, a girl, died six weeks later.) 

Nace Monument in Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, VA
Photo taken by Mike Ruble on July 28, 2018

Now I had some names and places, so I started Googling for other clues. And I found them.

Matthew and Evaline were married in Lynchburg in 1847. The 1850 census showed that 26-year-old Matthew, his wife Evaline Augusta Fuqua Christian, and daughter Fanny were living in Richmond where he was a merchant and one of his Christian in-laws lived next door.

Soon their son William (no doubt named for Matthew's father, William Nace) was born in December 1850 and their daughter Virginia Harvey in 1852. After Evaline's death, Matthew and his family moved to Brooklyn, New York. The 1855 Brooklyn census shows him living in a $10,000 stone house with his children, three Irish servants, his brother Robert, and an "L.P. Nace" who supposedly was a sister (although Matthew had no sisters). Matthew's job was "tobacco," and he was a partner in Nace & Coe—a company he was later accused of robbing and swindling. That, I concluded, was the dastardly deed.

His partner Israel Coe took out a newspaper ad after Matthew mysteriously vanished:

Matthew did write a letter to his former partner, and this letter—published Wells Vs. March case in Reports of Cases Argued and Determined in the Court of Appeals of the State of New York, Vol. 30, p. 346—explains a little more:

. . . and there Matthew Harvey Nace seemed to drop out of sight. But I kept Googling and occasionally checking info on Ancestry.com. I got lucky—and solved the mystery of what became of Matthew.

It turns out that Matthew didn't go directly to California—and he didn't sail. But he remarried (in Indiana), changed his name, ended up on the West coast, had a few more children, and had some interesting adventures. I've blogged about what I discovered about him on my Naces of Lithia genealogy blog. You can read what I learned about Matthew here: 

Part I: https://nacelithia.blogspot.com/2019/04/matthew-nace-mystery-part-i.html

Part II: https://nacelithia.blogspot.com/2019/04/matthew-nace-mystery-part-ii.html

Another discovery: https://nacelithia.blogspot.com/2021/02/matthew-nace-another-discovery.html

~

Mystery Vine

About a month ago, a mysterious vine started growing on a low-lying limb of the pin oak.

The vine grew pretty fast, but it wasn't kudzu. We decided to take a closer look.

It had big leaves and some small flowers on stalks.

A variety of bees seemed to like the flowers.

The vine has  tendrils that attach themselves to branches and leaves of the pin oak.

It also has odd little pods that grow beneath the leaves.

 I asked some friends on Facbook what it might be. Guesses included kudzu, wild grape, fox grape, moonseed vine, and moonflower. A few folks suggested wild cucumber, which seems the most likely possibility, but a wild cucumber has a different flower. Most likely my mystery vine is a bur cucumber—but my vine looks slightly different from pictures I found online.

Whatever it is, its days are numbered on the pin oak.

So—is it a bur cucumber, or what?

~

Firsts for Today

This morning, I harvested some kale from a plot I planted last month.

The dew was still heavy when I picked the kale—the first I've harvested from this particular plot..

I also picked a few peppers from the plants beside the kale.

Soon my bowl was full.

The kale wasn't the only first for today. Later this morning, I went for my first walk in the woods since March. This was the first time I'd actually felt like walking any distance. While I still ache and limp a bit, the sharp burning leg-pains of the last few months are gone. 

The trees were green and luminescent . . . 

. . . where the sun shone through the forest's canopy.

Along the trail, I passed an ambitious spider's web . . .

. . . and some moss . . .

. . . and a patch of ferns.

A lot of trees had fallen along the path since I last walked it. The woods looked so different from what I remembered. 

I saw a mound of earth beside the trail that I don't remember seeing before. It wasn't covered in leaves, so it couldn't have been there last winter. The soil was a different color and was filled with small rocks.

It looked like where a tree falls and the roots are exposed. But there weren't any fallen trees nearby. And no hole where the tree's roots would have been. Anyone know what it might be?

It looked almost like a grave. But who would dig one in the woods about a quarter mile from a country road? And why? Maybe it's buried treasure. Anyhow, it's a mystery.

The woods were incredibly quiet—no birds sang and I neither heard or saw any animals. 

Soon I walked out of the woods, where my husband waited. We drove to our nearby hayfield to get Melody a couple of bales. The hay is now dry enough for her to eat.

How did two senior citizens load hay without a tractor and spear? We parked the truck and flatbed below a bale. With gravity's help, it's easy for two people to push the bale in.

Soon we had two bales and were ready to head for home.

The kale I ate for lunch was delicious. Melody will have to wait a while for her hay, though.

~

Mysteries and Maybe Treasure

Today was full of mysteries. This morning, John went to Brown Farm to move the round bales off the field, and later I took Maggie and Hubert for a run along the creek. (The dogs run; I don’t.)

After they had run themselves out and soaked in the creek, we went to the old Smith home place to visit some cousins. Eventually the talk turned to graveyards. Cousin Mike told me there is a large graveyard on Brown Farm, but all the stones were stolen by moonshiners many decades ago. The flat tombstones made handy supports for the distillation equipment. Apparently there were—are!—a lot of graves now lying unmarked. He also said that some stones had been stolen from the old Smith cemetery—where our great-grandparents and great-great-grandparents are buried. This was the first I’ve heard of a cemetery on Brown Farm, much less of tombstones taken from there. Strange to think that we Smiths apparently have a long-standing tradition of having our tombstones stolen.

Years ago, I’d noticed a spreading patch of myrtle on one of the hillsides at Brown Farm. Since myrtle is a typical ground cover for graveyards, I’d looked for some stones but hadn’t seen any. Maybe this is where the graveyard is. For now, it’s a mystery.

When I returned home with the dogs, I noticed that my horses must have had company while I’d been away. The tell-tale horse manure on the grass outside their paddock certainly wasn’t theirs.

No way my mares could have done this.

Since two piles of poop had been deposited, might two equines have visited?

This pile is even farther from the fence.

If so, who were these critters? It’s a mystery.

Less than an hour later, things got even weirder. An elderly gentleman rang our doorbell. He explained that he was a dowser and had passed Smith Farm and “felt” something buried in the woods.

What's in these woods?

He wanted to go look around. John—having had enough problems with trespassers and vandals in the past—none too politely refused the request. I, however, decided to pursue the matter and invited Mr. Harrison to follow me to the farm. I’m always on the lookout for a good story, and I already know some folks with interesting, er, abilities. So, I was open to a weird experience.

He told me about how he’d aways been interested in treasure hunting, but he’d been doing this for about 30 years. He’d done searches in New Mexico and was interested in Bedford County’s Beale treasure. (His idea about the Beale treasure is that after Beale died, his associates dug up the treasure and transported it to Colombia.)

At the farm, Mr. Harrison took his rods and pointed them. The rods moved. I watched his hands to see if he might be turning them, but I couldn’t detect that he was. The rods seemed to swing of their own accord.


He said that something big was buried in the woods, and it had been there for 150 years. He wouldn’t tell me exactly where unless he could have access to it. I don’t care to have my woods dug up, so I declined.


Whatever—if anything—is buried under my woods will remain a mystery. My woods are enough of a treasure for me just the way they are.

~

People ask me where I get all my weird ideas for stories. Well, sometimes the ideas come and get me.

~

Searching for Tim Moffitt

When I was seven, Mary and Jim Moffitt and their son Tim moved onto Floraland Drive in Roanoke’s Williamson Road area. I lived in the house next door.

The Moffitts weren’t from around here. They were from “up north”—Pennsylvania. Mr. Moffitt worked for Kenrose Manufacturing, so I’m guessing he was transferred in. They took weeks-long vacations to Harvey’s Lake, Pennsylvania, every summer. Nobody else in the neighborhood took an actual vacation, unless you count an occasional day-trip to visit relatives in a neighboring county.

Mrs. Moffitt, unlike any of the other women in the neighborhood drove a car—something that was unheard of in our neighborhood. Even more unheard of, few years after they moved in, her husband bought her a car of her own! And, unlike the rest of the neighborhood composed entirely of Baptists and Methodists, they were Catholic.

Apparently, they never argued—unlike the previous residents of their house who had loud arguments ending when the wife threw the husband’s clothes into the front yard. Apparently, the Moffitts didn’t have telephone problems either. The previous residents must have had a lot of problems with their phone, too, because the same telephone repairman came once or twice a week and stayed for a long time while the wife was home and her husband was at work. (Our house was pretty close to theirs, so it was hard to miss the arguments in summer when the windows were open.) When the Moffitts moved in, things were a lot quieter.

Most other residents of the neighborhood were only a generation or two out of the country, so the Moffitts added the first exotic touch to a neighborhood that, in the years after the Korean War, was changing. They were the first in the neighborhood to have a rec room in their basement. Everyone knew basements were for storing stuff—and where the furnace and washing machine resided. Mr. and Mrs. Moffitt joined a country club and played golf—another unheard-of activity. In our neighborhood, husbands and wives just didn’t do anything recreational together (unless it was behind closed doors or unless you counted going to church or having arguments as recreation).

Heck, in the early 50s, husbands and wives didn’t do much of anything together. Men went to work. Wives stayed home and cooked, cleaned, washed, ironed, gardened, canned, sewed, etc. Rarely the twain met. Few of us kids saw our daddies during the daytime. Most of us rarely saw much our mamas from the front; they usually had their backs to us as they cooked at the stove, washed dishes at the sink, or treadled their sewing machines. We kids knew to stay out of adults’ way and not to slam the screen door when we went outside.

But I’m digressing. What I want to do is find Tim Moffitt and return to him a packet of pictures that his mother left with my mother nearly two decades ago. There must be a hundred photos in the packet—Tim as a little kid, pictures of Pennsylvania relatives, his parents when they were young, etc.

I know that when his mother was older and in her second widowhood, she moved to St. Louis to live with him (in the 1980s, I think). She left some things—clothes and these photos—with Mama, who still lived in Roanoke. She died a few years after she moved. When Mama came to live with me in 2001, I gave the clothes away (Robyn, who reads this blog—that’s where the vintage velvet blazer came from!) but the picture packet was in one of Mama’s innumerable boxes that we just hauled away to Penhook without opening.

Until recently.

I’d like to get these pictures to Tim. I lost touch with him in the 60s. I’ve tried a few email addresses that I found on the Internet but without results. I know that he graduated from VA Tech (1969?), married Jane Clausen from St. Louis (sometime in the 70s or early 80s?—there wasn’t a year on the clipping my mother saved), and worked as an engineer for University City until a year or so ago. I think my mother once said he and his wife had twins.

Somebody reading this blog must know where this Timothy Robert Moffitt is. (There are, I’ve learned, a bunch of Tim Moffitts scattered all over the country.) I’m posting some pictures to help you find him.

This 1950 shot of Tim and his mother shows the unfortunate look in little boys’ fashions at the time:

(If you find this blog, Tim, I apologize for including this picture, but you were kinda cute.)

This shot, inscribed “Timmy and Eddy Webb. Some cowboys! March 1952,” is typical of the 50s. Every kid back then must have donned cowboy attire and mounted up a bike or tricycle for a photo op:

Tim's on the left.

The brick wall to the right behind Tim in this 1955 photo is my family’s garage:


And there are many other pictures, some with possible historical significance. Like this shot of the Air Corps Technical School, Class No. 2—1935—Aircraft Armorers, Chanute Field, Rantoul, Illinois. It’s inscribed on the back: “Here’s the graduating class! Compliments of your son and brother, Raymond J. Blaum (Aircraft Armorer)”:

Raymond must have been Mary Moffitt’s brother; her maiden name was Blaum.

Tim’s mother gave me my first home perm when I was about 10, taught me to put on make-up when I was 13, and drove me to college when I was 17. She was a good friend to my mother and often drove her to the grocery store.

I’d like to return the favor. Or at least return the pictures.

~

Edited to add: He's been found. At least, he found me. See this blog entry: peevishpen.blogspot.com/2009/01/found-him.html