A Correction to DeLos M. Scism's The Scism and Allied Families

2025-01-07, Tue

Knowing where I came from became more important to me after my mom passed away. If you're young and have living parents, you may not be especially focused on family history. But as we age and lose our families, that knowledge seems to become more important.

My mom was the youngest, and last surviving, child of her family, and I didn't grow up with an abundance of family history. So imagine my excitement when I found a book about my mom's mom's family!

That excitement turned a bit about 150 pages in.

On page 151 of DeLos M. Scism's The Scism and allied families: a history of the Scism and allied families containing genealogical and historical information, you'll find the first mention of my maternal grandmother, Mattie Scism. I never met her. She passed away when my mom was just a teenager, and I didn't come along until mom was in her late 30s.

But I met my Grandpa Bill—the William Warren mentioned as Mattie's husband on page 152—and four of Mattie and William's five children: my Uncle Clifford, my Aunt Gladys, my Aunt Bessie, and—of course—my mom, Margaret.

When it comes to my mom's siblings—excepting James, who died at birth—I not only met them, but knew them rather well. At least well enough to know that the bit about Uncle Clifford's marriage on page 152 is just horribly, horribly wrong.

The books states, and I quote, "Clifford married February 17 , 1940 to Alvia DeJournett , born August 3 , 1920." No. No, no, no, no, no.

Uncle Clifford married my Aunt Yvonne: Yvonne Wright, whose birthday was January 18th. They married in February of 1943. What actually happened on February 17, 1940, is that my Aunt Gladys—Uncle Clifford's sister—married my Uncle Alvin: Alvin DeJournett—not Alvia — who was, indeed, born on August 3rd, 'though I'm not so certain of the year.

It's disheartening, finding an actual book about one of the rarest leaves in your family tree,¹ only to find a mistake that is so glaringly obvious to anyone who knew Uncle Clifford, or Aunt Yvonne, or Aunt Gladys, or Uncle Alvin.

Somehow—I suppose because I want the information badly enough to do so—I find myself willing to believe that this known error is the only error in the book.

And I'm supplying this information not because I want to pick at DeLos Scism's work, but because I want to do what I can to correct a misremembrance of four people whom I loved.