To give you an idea of size, this small hand-carved heart is smaller than my thumbnail and the ring next to it, comparable. That both should have survived for 155 years is a minor miracle. Thankfully, both ended up in the Lucas County Historical Society collection.
I posted a snapshot of the heart alone to Instagram last week, then to Facebook --- purely because of the visual interest. Then decided I should tell more of its story --- and that of the companion ring, which is inset with a tiny scrap of shiny metal not visible here.
That task took me back to the deed of gift executed in 1969 by their donor, Miss Mary White (1893-1973), who when she retired in 1958 from Chariton's Garfield Elementary had been teaching in the schools of Lucas County for more than 40 years --- and beyond.
The young man who carved these items in 1863 was a young Union soldier, Joseph W. Oliver, private in Company B, 11th Regiment of Illinois Cavalry Volunteers and not yet 20 at the time, who was Miss White's great-uncle.
Joseph had been born during 1844 in Cass County, Indiana, then orphaned --- his father, also Joseph W. Oliver, died during 1849 when his son was 5; his mother, Rachel, died during 1856, when young Joseph was 12.
Joseph's older sister, Sarah Jane, had married Alexander T. Graves during October of 1855 at Newbern, located on the Lucas-Marion county line in Iowa, and Joseph came west to join them after his mother's death.
He was living with Alexander and Sarah in 1860 so it's not clear how or why he had ended up in Peoria, Illinois, when he enlisted for Civil War service during November of 1861. But young Joseph always was a roamer and a rambler.
He participated with his unit in the siege of Vicksburg, Mississippi, which lasted from the spring of 1862 until July of 1863, and was nearby when Confederate Gen. John C. Pemberton surrendered the city and his men to Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant on the 4th of July.
According to Miss White, her great-uncle then joined other Union troops in dismantling what was known as the "Pemberton Oak," under which Grant and Pemberton had negotiated the surrender. Armed with pocket knives, troops then whittled these scraps of timber during their spare time into keepsakes and mementos of that momentous occasion. Joseph whittled the tiny heart and the ring.
After his discharge at Memphis, Tennessee, during September of 1865, Joseph returned to Newbern to live and work as a farmhand for a time, bringing with him these small souvenirs.
They were given to his niece, Rachel Graves (1860-1924), daughter of Sarah and Alexander, and were among Rachel's treasures when she married Charles White during November of 1879, a union that produced three children --- Willis, who married and had a family but moved west; and Sarah and Mary, neither of whom married and who made their home together in Chariton until Sarah's death during 1963.
Mary was the last of her immediate family in Lucas County as she grew older and, as a result, entrusted an amazing array of family treasures to the historical society in 1969, four years before her death, including the heart and ring that had been passed down by her mother.
Her uncle, Joseph W. Oliver, didn't stick around Lucas County long --- but that's a considerably darker story best reserved for another time.
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