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From Schooley to Smitty to Bud to Junie: The Quirky Nicknames Behind My Family's Common Surnames

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52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 21 – May 20th – May 26, 2024

Nickname


Nicknames have been in constant use in my Allen family tree for well over 100 years. The surname of Smith (yikes!) and Allen are quite common in the United States.



The earliest ancestor that I discovered using a nickname was my 2X great-grandfather, Andrew Schooley Allen, b. September 1823 in Jerseytown, Pennsylvania, d. March 1913 in Milton, Pennsylvania. He commonly went by the name of “Schooley,” his actual middle name. Although I could not discern a positive reason for this pseudonym, I surmise he may have used it to honor one of his ancestors. His mother’s maiden name was Sarah Schooley, b. August 1798 in Pennsylvania, d. July 1853 in Montour County, Pennsylvania and his maternal grandfather’s name was Andrew Schooley, clearly his namesake.


Andrew Schooley, “Schooley’s” grandfather and my 4th great-grandfather,  was born 1770 in Roxbury, Morris County, the Province of New Jersey to Jedediah (Judiah) Schooley, 1735 – 1805, who was  born and died in the Province of New Jersey, and Elizabeth Parks, b. 1750. New Jersey achieved statehood in 1787, the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution and the first state to sign the Bill of Rights.


Jedediah was the son of William Scholey, b.1740 in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and Catherina Lerch, born and died in the Province of New Jersey. Jedediah’s brother’s name was Sgt. Andrew Schooley, b. 1750 in the Province of New Jersey.

Confused yet? I certainly was! One has to wonder why Andrew Schooley Allen chose to use the nickname, “Schooley” as there were a number of Schooleys in his family. Thankfully, Andrew’s wife, my direct ancestor, was named Sarah Schooley, b. 1798, d. 1853 in Montour County, Pennsylvania and she married my male direct ancestor, James Allen. Whew! But again, a common surname!

In 1801 Andrew Schooley relocated from New Jersey to Whitehall, Pennsylvania and built the first inn there in 1810  naming it the Red Horse Inn. Taverns or inns were generally kept by the most prominent citizens of a town and were not simply drinking places, but the center of social life for the inhabitants. Sadly, it was razed some years later to make way for a storeroom. There are no photographs that were taken of the inn as photography did not become commonly available until the late 1830s. The better class of taverns usually had a parlor for the women, with an open fireplace from which the roaring fire cast grateful warmth and cheerful illumination. Most of these parlors were well furnished and served as a place of resort for the family of the innkeeper as well as the traveler’s wife or daughter. His wife and children had to have led an interesting life mingling with travelers from afar.


The taproom was usually the largest room of the inn, had a bar, a great fireplace, and was furnished with wooden benches and tables. Often there was a rude writing desk for the accommodation of the early traveling salesman or lawyer. Of the furnishings of the fireplace were a pair of smoking tongs, to pull a coal of fire embers for the pipes of the travelers. Meals and drinks were also served to the lodgers.


Sarah Schooley Allen Headstone


Thus was the type of residence of “Schooley’s” grandfather, Andrew, and his mother Sarah Schooley in which they lived. James Allen, b. May 1789, d. December 1856, my 3X great-grandfather, was the husband of Sarah. Unfortunately, James died in a wagon accident in Jerseytown, Pennsylvania at the age of 68 when he



“accidently fell from the wagon upon his head and was immediately killed.” James’s death set off a series of events that resulted in a public sale of his personal property consisting of four horses, farming utensils, and grain in the ground. Sarah Schooley Allen

had passed away in July of 1853. The proceeds from his estate passed to his living children.



As fate would have it, I also have many ancestors with the surname of Smith and with the middle name of Smith! One of my paternal great-grandfather’s names was John Smith Allen, b. 15 June 1868, a retired railroad conductor, who went by the nickname of “Smith” or at times “Smitty.” His legal name was often recorded as J. Smith Allen. It is even on his tombstone in the Wildwood Cemetery in Williamsport. Sadly, his death certificate records that he spent four and one-half months in the hospital in the Williamsport Hospital before his death on14 November 1941 when he died, afflicted with several ailments. He was 73 years old. The afore mentioned “Schooley” was his father. I never met him, but I do remember meeting his wife, my paternal great-grandmother, Florence  Brenneman Smith Allen, when she was 93 years old. Oddly enough her surname was the same as her husband’s middle name. I cannot find any evidence that they were biologically related, however. The middle name of Smith was handed down to three generations of Allens after him.



Florence Brenneman Smith Allen’s brother, Ralph Joseph Smith, whom I also met when I was a child, went by the nickname of “Bud.” I never knew him by any other name but “Uncle Bud.”  Bud’s life was somewhat of a mystery to me. He was a veteran of the Spanish-American War! I remember him talking about his wife one day when our family visited. Uncle Bud and my great-grandmother, Florence, who resided together when she became too infirm to care for herself, in a then quaint brownstone in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. My parents told me that he had never been married. As I helped him set the dinner table one day, he told me his wife’s name was Helen.


Try as I might in my genealogical journey into my paternal family tree, I never found any evidence of a wife named Helen, but I did find a wife named Juanita. It seemed he married her, a widowed, single mother in 1920 after the recording of the 1920 U.S. Federal Census, and by the 1930 census he listed himself as “single” living in the family brownstone on Walton Avenue in Philadelphia with one of his brothers, Harry and his sister, Mary, as well as three male lodgers. Bud and Juanita were never got divorced (of which I could not find any information about) yet lived apart from her for many years until her death in 1963. Juanita seems to have led a rather sad life; I still continue to do research about her.


"Junie" as child in 1931


Lastly, my own father was known as “Junie” as a child. He was named after his father, a “Junior” added as a suffix to his name. Junie was how his sisters and his mother differentiated him from his father in their childhood homes. My brothers and I never knew about his nickname until we were older. We actually thought it was kind of funny!


The above photo is my absolute favorite of my father!!!


My ramblings in this blog post of a few nicknames in my paternal family led me to “Schooley, “Smith” or “Smitty,” “Bud,” and “Junie.”  There are more, some in my maternal family tree, but I’ll end this blog post here and pick it up at a future date.

 


 

 

 

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