Out of the Attic – Rebekah Lodge
Veteran members of the Society will remember a time when transcriptions of family records – bible pages, newspaper articles, obituaries, funeral programs, commencement programs, and so on – were regularly found in the pages of our publications. We’d like to revive this practice and start featuring family records in our monthly eNews. We need your help to accomplish this.
Rummage around in your genealogical “attic” for unique family records. Then email us a transcription. Include an introductory paragraph to explain what the record is and where you found it. We’ll do the rest.
Send your records to newsletter@dallasgenealogy.org.
by Barbara Ware, PhD
While going through a metal box of items belonging to my great grandmother and great aunt, I found several items dating from 1900 to 1956, including school, county, and state tax receipts, poll tax receipts, International Order of Odd Fellows (IOOF) cemetery lot purchase receipts, deeds, a National Guard discharge certificate and other WWI era documents.
Two interesting items were a dues receipt and a certificate naming Lydia Russell as Past Noble Grand of the Elizabeth Aston Rebekah Lodge No. 98, in Farmersville, Texas. Lydia Pardue Strode Russell was my great-grandmother. She was born March 10, 1867, in Altoga, Texas. I was born 79 years later, the day before her birthday. I treasure the photograph of us sharing a birthday when I was a year old. Although I had seen the Rebekah Lodge building in downtown Farmersville decades ago, I had no idea about its connection to my family. I began a search about the organization and my great grandmother’s involvement.
Other than the two documents, the only other connection I have found so far was an online newspaper article in the “Altoga” column of The Weekly Democrat-Gazette (McKinney, Texas) on Thursday, July 1, 1909. In part, the article reported that an IOOF Lodge was organized in Altoga. “Miss Nettie Ashby of Farmersville came over and made an interesting talk on behalf of the Rebekah Lodge, she being deputy for that organization. Talks were made by John Church and others, including Mrs. Lydia Russell of Farmersville.”
Daughters of Rebekah was formed by the International Order of Odd Fellows in 1851, as an auxiliary for wives and daughters of IOOF members. According to the Daughters of Rebekah documents in my box, my great-grandmother served as Vice Grand Noble, Grand Noble, and Past Grand Noble. These positions are the top leadership positions in a lodge. Like IOOF and other fraternal organizations, Rebekahs have various degrees. The organization claims to be the first and oldest sorority in the world and/or the first fraternity to admit women and men.
The building shared by the IOOF and the Daughters of Rebekah in my great-grandmother’s day in downtown Farmersville now belongs to a retail business. The Odd Fellows later built a lodge near the IOOF Cemetery, where my great grandmother and three of her children are interred. The insurance payments and bills for her funeral and interment were also found in the box.
