C as in Cyrus

Until a few days ago I had held intact the perfect ignorance of Calvin C. Shearer's middle name with which I began this blog. Now I know what the "C." stood for, but I'm no longer sure it was his middle name. Cast your eyes upon the page below, which appears to have been cut out of a family Bible and placed in the Shearer genealogy file at the Hobart Historical Society museum:


(Click on images to enlarge)
Images courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society.

Who wrote that, and what does it mean? — that he went around calling himself "Calvin C." just because if he used "C. Calvin" people would forever be asking, "Hey, why don't you use your first name?" Or did the writer, overpowered by the weirdness of spelling out "Cyrus," simply make a mistake? I don't know.

I also don't think I ever knew before that Calvin and Huldah had a little girl, Flossie (or "Flausy"), who died in infancy.

A few more pages from the same source:







There was also a "Family Temperance Pledge," but nobody signed it.



(Click on image to enlarge)

Little Flossie's grave marker in Hobart Cemetery, next to her parents'.