Hazel Nelson – A Deck of Ancestors

52W Mark IV – Week 27: Card B1 Milton Leo Burgess and Hazel Nelson

Milton Leo Burgess (1891-1964)
Hazel Nelson (1899-1967)

We’re halfway through the 2025 edition of my take on Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge. With it I start the maternal side of my family and a new suit involving my mother’s paternal line. It’s also my Mormon lineage. In fact, my Gx4 Grandfather, William Burgess (1794-1880), joined the church in 1832, two years after it had been founded. Moreover, all eight of my maternal grandfather’s great grandparents joined the church in the 1830s and 1840s.

However, after five generations, that came to an end with my grandfather, Leo Burgess, as none of his four children were members of the church or raised Mormon. In fact, my grandfather was pretty much a lapsed Mormon, if there is such a term, by his late teens. He only returned to the church after my grandmother, Helen Lerner, passed away.

Leo’s parents, and the subject of the first card of this suit, were Milton Leo Burgess and Hazel Nelson.

Milton was born in Vernal, Utah, on September 9, 1891, the eighth of nine children born to Horace Conrad Liggett Burgess and Sarah Florilla Cook. Florilla passed away in January 1894, a few weeks after her last child, also named Sarah Florilla (“Rilla”), was born. Milton was only two years old at the time. Horace remarried shortly afterwards, to Julia Josephine Lundquist, with whom he had at least another eight or nine children. The family moved Canada when Milton was 14. They settled in Vulcan County, Alberta.

After completing a two-year mission to Australia in 1915, Milton settled in Glenwood, Alberta, which is about 22 kilometers from Cardston as the crow flies. There he worked as a farm labourer. Sometime afterwards, he met Hazel Nelson, who he married in Cardston on April 13, 1919.

Calling card of Milton Leo Burgess from his time as a Mormon missionary in Adelaide, Australia

^{Milton’s calling card from his time as a Mormon missionary in Adelaide, Australia}

Hazel’s family was amongst the earliest settlers of Cardston, Alberta, which Mormon immigrants from the United States founded in 1887. Her parents, John Alexander Nelson and Ella Elizabeth Thomas settled there in 1890. Six of their 12 children were born in Utah; the other six were born in Canada. Hazel and her sister Irene were born on December 15, 1899. They were the first twins born in Cardston. Sadly, Irene passed away five weeks later, but Hazel lived to be 67.

^{Because Hazel is listed first, I take it to mean that she was born first.}

The year after they married, Milton and Hazel had the first of their nine children, my grandfather Leo. Shortly afterwards, the family moved to Nampa, Idaho, where Milton worked at an orchard with his in-laws. In Nampa they had three more children before permanently returning to Canada in 1924.

By 1927, the family had settled in Magrath, where Milton and Hazel spent the rest of their lives. While he continued to do farm work over the decades, Milton had a wide variety of jobs. In the early 1940s he worked as a plumber. Milton later worked in a woolen mill, where he lost a finger of his left hand in a work injury. Milton also worked for a short time as a grave digger around 1950. By 1958, when he was 67, Milton retired.

My mother has told me many stories about him over the years. One story that she has recounted many times is that her grandfather would often talk about how, according to the bible, no man was meant to live more than 72 years. Milton died on September 10, 1964, the day after he turned 73.

I also have a small cache of letters Milton wrote to my grandfather in the 1940s. Most of them were gentle admonishments, such as disapproving of my grandfather working in establishments that served alcohol, coffee, and tea, or telling him that it was time to stop seeing the Catholic girl he had been dating and to find a nice Mormon girl to settle down with. Fortunately for me, my grandfather did not follow that advice, as that Catholic girl became his wife and my grandmother!

^{Screenshot of the entry for Hazel at Find a Grave, showing the headstone she shares with Milton.}

Hazel was 64 when Milton passed away. Around that time she moved to a seniors’ home in Cardston, which she derisively called “the old fools’ home”. There she met a widower, Albert Beaves, who she married in July 1967. Eight weeks later, Hazel passed away. My mother literally went from the funeral to the hospital, where I was born.

^{The newlyweds, Hazel Nelson and Albert Beaves, about July 5, 1967.}

^{“The Old Fool’s Home” – Chinook Lodge in Cardston, Alberta}

52 Weeks – Week 46: Tombstones

Pretty much anyone who has been doing genealogy for a significant period of time has likely visited their fair share of cemeteries. So it’s no surprise that one of this year’s weekly themes for the 52 Ancestors Challenge is “Tombstones”.

A couple of visitors I ran into at Mountain View Cemetery in Lethbridge, Alberta.

On Week 14, “Check it Out“, I considered some unique ways to consider my pedigree. For this week’s theme, I thought about my pedigree in terms of whose tombstone/headstone/grave marker I have visited.

What I was surprised to realize is that I’ve visited the final resting place of more of my great great grandparents than my great grand parents. I’ve been to where two of my great grandparents are buried, but to the site of three of my great grandparents. Granted, it’s a matter of three to two, but still, it seems like an odd statistic.

None of these include my Dutch ancestors. In general, Dutch graves are cleared after a few decades. I’ve only been to one church graveyard in the Netherlands, the Parochiële Kerkhof of St Jan de Doper (St. John the Baptist) in Noord Scharwoude, North Holland. My father has at least one aunt and uncle buried there, as well as a number of cousins of varying degrees.

I’ve written several times about my road trip to Fox Valley, Saskatchewan with my mother, where we visited the Rastadt and Fox Valley cemeteries. My great great grandfather Jacob Anton is buried at Rastadt, while his son-in-law (my great grandfather) Heronimus (“Jerome” or “Jerry”) Lerner is buried in Fox Valley.

Fox Valley is the oval on the left, with the Fox Valley cemetery immediately to the east. The Rastadt cemetery is located in the upper right hand corner.

*Rastadt, Saskatchewan Cemetery, April 1, 1997. Located at 50°30’00.9″N 109°15’32.3″W*
*You can find the* cemetery listing here.

Burial place of Jacob Anton (1865-1921), Rastadt Cemetery

There’s an error on the headstone. I guess you could say that it’s a grave mistake.

The inscription on my great grandfather’s headstone is wrong. It should read “Heronimus” rather than “Ronimus”. During our visit, we tried to determine if the first two letters (“HE”) had worn off the headstone or if it had been deliberately written this way. Because of the centering of the text, it appears to have been deliberate. The Medicine Hat News, of December 20, 1954, page 4 states, “Jerome Lerner, of Fox Valley, Sask., who died at Maple Creek December 6. Interment was in Fox Valley cemetery.”

The other great great grandparents whose grave I’ve visited are John Alexander Nelson and Ella Elizabeth Thomas. They’re buried at the Cardston Cemetery. I wrote about my visit there on Week 36.

Besides Jerome, the only other great grandparent whose grave I have visited is that of his wife, Emilia Anton. She is buried at Mountain View Cemetery in Lethbridge, Alberta, along her son (my great uncle) Jim Lerner.

Then again, for what it’s worth, my mother was at the burial of her grandmother Hazel Nelson the day before I was born. She was buried at the Magrath, Alberta cemetery alongside my great grandfather, Milton Burgess, so in a way I’ve been to the burial site of four of my great grandparents. I’ve been to Magrath many times, just never to the cemetery.

Screenshot of the entry for Hazel Nelson at *Find a Grave*. The headstone is for both Hazel and her husband, Milton Burgess.

However, I should add that I’ve been to where all four of my grandparents are interred, although I was only present for three of their funerals. I was in high school and writing final exams when my grandmother, Helen Burgess, passed away. Both pairs of my grandparents are buried in close proximity to each other at Mountain View Cemetery in Lethbridge. Among others, they’re also close to Emelia, as well as my aunt Helen Diana Burgess.

52 Weeks – Week 37: High and Low

Highs and lows bring to mind the Guinness Book of World Records. So for this week’s 52 Ancestors Challenge, I thought I’d consider some of the superlatives in my family tree. Bear in mind that this is for entertainment purposes only, because some of these superlatives have not been sufficiently researched or verified such that they can be taken as fact.

I cannot verify with certainty the longevity of the few centenarians in my database. According to my database, my longest-lived ancestor died at age 110. I don’t believe that for a second, so I won’t even name them. The person for whom I have at least a scintilla of information regarding their longevity is Joseph Metz, my first cousin three times removed. According to his headstone, as seen on Find a Grave, Joseph lived to be about 102 or 103. The longest-lived person in my database with the most reliable information regarding their lifespan is my fourth cousin three times removed, Fern Renner. She was better known to the world as Fern Welk, as she was married to the well-known band leader, Lawrence Welk.

My relative who was the oldest on their wedding day was my great great great uncle, Samuel Nelson, who married for the fourth time when he was 77. The bride, Cecilie Anderson, was 62. Samuel lived to be 93, making him one of my longer lived relatives.

The newlyweds, Hazel Nelson and Albert Beaves, about July 5, 1967.

My great grandmother, Hazel Nelson, married for a second time at age 67, not quite two months before she passed away. Her husband, Albert Beaves, was also a widower marrying for the second time. Albert was 85 years old at the time. He lived another nine years after Hazel’s death. Albert died when he was 94.

While Samuel Nelson had been married four times, the record for most marriages is my 7x great uncle, Archelaus Kenney, who apparently married five times. Not even any of the Mormon polygamists in my tree married that many times. However, I have not verified any of Archelaus’s marriages.

Otherwise, Samuel’s record was tied by his younger brother, my great great grandfather, John Alexander Nelson. However, while it appears that Samuel had been widowed each time he remarried, John was a polygamist. Another ancestor, my great x3 grandfather, Henry Lyman Cook, was also a polygamist who married four times. Other polygamist ancestors, including my great x3 grandfathers William Burgess, Jr. and Preston Thomas, only married three times.

^{A bunch of polygamists: John A. Nelson, Henry L. Cook, William Burgess Jr., Preston Thomas.}

It probably comes as no surprise that the women in my family tree have had fewer multiple marriages than the men. I can find few examples of women who married more than twice. One of the exceptions is my great x4 grandmother, Louisa Thomas, who married three times. Her first husband, Lazarus Beakley, died a year or two after they married, when Louisa was around 24 or 25 years old. Louisa’s second husband, my great x4 grandfather Conrad Liggett, died 18 months after they married, when Louisa was 26. Louisa married again at age 29, to Aaron Cook. Unfortunately, that was another short-lived marriage, as Louisa died when she was 35.

Of course, with marriage there are often children. Of course, the person with the most children in my tree is a father. My great great grandfather, Horace Burgess, had nineteen children. He had nine children with his first wife, my great great grandmother Sarah Cook. Their eight child and youngest son was Milton Leo Burgess, my great grandfather. After Sarah died, Horace remarried, to Julia Josephine Lundquist, with whom he had ten children.

The woman in my family tree who appears to have had the most children is Horace’s paternal grandmother, Violate Stockwell. Violate and my great x 4 grandfather, William Burgess Sr., had 12 children, including my great x 3 grandfather William Jr, who had 12 children with three different wives.

Delving far from what I’ve established through the genealogical proof standard, the earliest occurrence of a surname in my direct lineage is de Fleg, which dates back to the 10^th century, through my 9x great grandfather Thomas Flegg. My connection to Thomas is through Henry Lyman Cook. While I have done a pretty good job at demonstrating my connection to Henry, I have not really done much work on his ancestry beyond the basics.

Here’s a low: standing a meter below sea level in Waarland, Netherlands

I realize that in this examination of superlatives, I have only considered the highs. Of course, considering the people in my tree who are at the opposite end of most of the categories I have discussed are in the multiples. The one category that might lend itself to reasonable consideration of the low end is the surname that might be the opposite end of earliest occurrence. In other words, the surnames I have traced the least far back in time. I’ve identified all 32 of my great x3 grandparents. It is the next generation where I face my first brick walls. I am missing nine of my 64 great x4 grandparents, all on my maternal grandmother’s side of the family. They are all Germans from Russia, who are particularly difficult to research. These lines trace back to settlements in what is now Ukraine, when it was part of the Russian Empire.

Genealogy: all the highs and lows are fascinating!

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