The Sneeze That Started It All: What Early Film Can Teach Us About Our Ancestors

 

There is something almost absurd about it.

A man stands before the camera, takes a pinch of snuff, and sneezes.

That’s it. No plot. No dialogue. No sweeping score. Just a fleeting, human moment captured in less than five seconds.

And yet, Fred Ott's Sneeze filmed under the direction of William K. L. Dickson in the laboratory of Thomas Edison may be one of the most important genealogical artifacts ever created.

Because it is not just a film.

It is a glimpse of a life.

Fred Ott was not an actor. He was a laboratory assistant. A working man. The kind of person who rarely appears in the historical record beyond a census line or a payroll ledger.

And yet, in 1894, he became something extraordinary:

Visible.

For genealogists, this is the holy grail. We spend years chasing names through documents—birth certificates, death records, probate files trying to reconstruct lives from ink and paper.

But here, suddenly, is a person from the 19th century who moves.

He breathes. He reacts. He sneezes.

It collapses time in a way no record ever could.

We tend to think of genealogy as paper based. But early cinema offers something different... something visceral.

Films from the 1890s and 1920s were created by people who lived much closer to our ancestors’ world than we do. Even when staged, they reflect:

• Everyday gestures
• Clothing and posture
• Social norms and humor
• Physical environments

In Fred Ott's Sneeze, there is no grand narrative just a man responding to irritation in the most human way possible. And that is precisely why it matters.

Because your ancestors sneezed too.

They laughed, fidgeted, blinked in the sunlight, adjusted their collars. These small, unrecorded moments made up the vast majority of their lives—and they are almost entirely absent from traditional genealogy.

Early film gives some of that back.

Genealogy often gravitates toward the exceptional... the war hero, the pioneer, the scandal. But most of our ancestors were ordinary people leading ordinary lives.

Fred Ott reminds us of that.

There is no performance here, no attempt at legacy. Just participation in an experiment. And yet, over a century later, that moment feels intimate—almost personal.

It raises a quiet, powerful question:

What would it mean to see your own ancestors like this?

Not posed in a studio portrait but caught mid-motion mid-life. You don’t need a direct connection to Fred Ott for this to matter.

Instead, think of early film as contextual genealogy a way to immerse yourself in the lived experience of a time period.

Try this:

• Watch early films from the decade your ancestors lived in
• Pay attention to movement, not just setting
• Compare what you see to family photographs
• Imagine your ancestors in those same spaces

You may find that the past becomes less abstract and far more human.

There is something beautifully democratic about Fred Ott's Sneeze.

It preserves not a king, not a general, not a celebrity but a working man having a very human moment.

And in doing so, it quietly suggests that every life no matter how ordinary is worthy of being seen.

For genealogists, that may be the most important lesson of all.

Because in the end, we are not just tracing lineage.

We are trying to remember what it meant to be alive.

When Silent Film Meets Family History: Watching Wings and Thinking About My WWI Ancestors

I recently had the rare opportunity to see the 1927 silent film Wings on the big screen with my friend, Deb. Watching it that way—larger than life, with the aerial battles roaring across the screen—felt surprisingly emotional. It didn’t just feel like movie history. It felt like stepping briefly into the world my own ancestors lived through during World War I.

Wings is famous for its spectacular flying sequences and for being the first film to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Director William Wellman had been a World War I combat pilot and the films realism is incredible. But what struck me most while watching it wasn’t the filmmaking alone. It was the realization that when audiences first saw this film in the late 1920s, like Wellman, many of them had just lived through the war themselves. Some had fought in it. Some had lost children, husbands and sweethearts. For them, the story was not distant history.

That thought led me to my own family tree.

Many of us who research genealogy spend a lot of time looking at documents—draft cards, census records, military registrations, and old photographs. World War I shows up in those records in very quiet ways: a signature on a draft registration card, a unit listed on a service record, an occupation changed after the war.

My great Grandfather, Wilbur Gartman Saxon, registered for the war on the 12th of September 1918, but he was one of the lucky ones as the war officialy ended on the 11th of November that same year. I wonder if he watched this film? 

Cinema, especially early cinema, can be a surprisingly powerful companion to genealogy research.

Films from the 1920s were made by people who were living much closer to the events they portrayed. Even when the stories are fictional, they often reflect the attitudes, emotions, and memories of that generation. Watching them can help us understand the cultural world our ancestors inhabited—what they saw in theaters, what stories resonated with them, what they wore, and how major events like World War I were remembered only a decade later.

Moviegoing was already a huge part of American life in the 1920s. It’s entirely possible that a young veteran in my family—or a sibling, or a sweetheart waiting back home—sat in a local theater and watched those same aerial and heart wrenching scenes nearly a century ago. Deb and I both cried when Jack returned to visit the parents of his deceased friend and we clapped vigorously at the end credits. Those emotions make the film feel less like a museum piece and more like a shared experience across generations.

Genealogy often connects us to the past through records and names. Cinema connects us through emotion and imagination. When the two meet, history becomes a little more vivid.

Watching Wings reminded me that the people in our family trees lived in a world full of stories, music, news, and films—just like we do. And sometimes, sitting in a dark theater watching a nearly hundred-year-old movie can bring us unexpectedly closer to them.

Genealogy + Art

Genealogy is more than just a hobby; it’s a spiritual lens in which we see ourselves and our world more vividly. In the Bible, genealogy is a sacred architecture often linking ordinary people to a divine purpose.

Whether through paint, film, dance, or word, the act of making becomes more profound when we create with the collaboration of those who came before. In the book Art and Faith: A Theology of Making, artist Makoto Fujimura writes that:

               “Unless we are making something, we cannot know the depth of God’s being.”

Genealogical research itself is a form of making and an act of spiritual participation that unlocks history and the story of our very selves.  

The structure of research can unlock stories from faraway lands, forgotten communities, and underrepresented lineages. Census records, church archives, naming patterns…these are not just data points, but emotional and narrative portals.

As a filmmaker that makes what I call “Genealogical Cinema”, I can look at early motion pictures, Arrival of a Train (1895) and Roundahay Garden Scene (1888) and see that they are wonderful moments of everyday life captured in a format that was revolutionary for the time. Not only are they interesting to me from a genealogical perspective to what they show of the era they represent but now they have become treasured archival material that can be utilized in a new way, in my case possibly as “b-roll” in my latest documentary, Going Fine Since 1889: The Magical Armstrongs.

Genealogy answers a deep human impulse to connect past and present through story.

Room 903

 

Willie Mae Wood

Love looks not with the eyes but with the mind; And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream 1.1.240-1)

 

In October of 1935, A Midsummer Night’s Dream would come to the big screen, enchanting audiences with Shakespeare’s tale of love and hate. That month would also see another tale of love and hate played out in front of a Washington D.C. grand jury.

 

Willie Mae Wood was a vivacious and pretty twenty-one-year-old newlywed. Marrying Horace Randolph Wood she thought would stabilize her life and give her the appearance of what was “normal”. Up to this point her love life hadn’t been so normal, you see she had been carrying on since she was seventeen with a married man.

 

William Henry Reaguer was the town’s funeral director. An upright member of the community in their rural town of Culpeper, VA.  Reaguer was madly in love with Willie Mae and was ready to give up everything for her. By everything I mean his very reputation, along with a wife of over 30 years, the long-suffering Bessie (Compton) Reaguer and two daughters, Helen and Elise.

 

Willie Mae had tried before to extricate herself from this affair. Marrying Wood was her latest act and an attempt to finalize things. Reaguer had become increasingly unpredictable since the death of his son in August and Willie Mae knew she had to untangle this complicated web. Reaguer had provided a certain lifestyle for her, lavishing her with expensive gifts and most recently had promised to buy a car for her mother, Dolores (O’Bannon) Fletcher.

 

Dolores had looked the other way for a long time. Sure, there were whispers around town and she knew about her daughter and this much older man.  He was 56 but she played it off in her mind that he was more of a mentor figure to her daughter; after all her own husband and Willie Mae’s father was 15 years older than her. She was torn; she wanted to keep it under wraps and not make too many waves, lest her own daughter be embroiled in a scandal. She had also benefitted from Reaguer’s kind gifts from time to time when he was a regular visitor to the Fletcher home.

 

Willie Mae had taken this all too far; she could have broken it off sooner but deep in her heart she had once had great love for him. Since she was 17, he had doted on her and made her feel like a sophisticated woman. She could learn to love Herbert the same way.

 

Herbert Wood was a man of means. Working for the Virginia Highway Commission as steamroller, he had steamrolled Willie Mae’s heart with his movie star good looks and quick wit. The two married on September 26, 1935 and quickly set up house not far from the Stoneleigh mansion in Stanleytown, VA. Quite a distance from Culpeper and the Reaguer Funeral Home.

 

Herbert knew she had a friendship of sorts with the undertaker. He didn’t give it much thought. He didn’t suspect his wife would in any way be attracted to that old man. She had once wired him to send some money while they were on a trip which he did with no issue, but Herbert didn’t question her about it. When Willie Mae’s cousin Annie O’Bannon came to visit, taking time off from school and the girls told him that they were travelling to Culpeper to visit her mother and help her buy a car. He told them to have a nice time.

 

Annie was a nervous sort. Always on the verge of an emotional breakdown. Life seemed to wash over her like a tsunami. She envied Willie Mae’s carefree and seemingly independent nature.

 

After spending some time at the Fletcher home in Culpeper, Annie and Willie Mae were at the bus depot headed to Fairfax. Reaguer pulled up in his car and began to hassle Willie Mae. The argument caused them to miss their bus. Reaguer then offered a ride which the two took. During the trip Reaguer laid it on thick. He told Willie Mae that they would both go to Reno and get divorced, which she refused. Annie said he was drinking and became increasingly agitated. He drove passed Fairfax and insisted they stay in a Washington D.C. Hotel.

 

The three checked into the Houston Hotel as Mr. Thomas and family. Reaguer would stay in one room and the girls another. Around 1 AM, Annie remembered that Willie Mae kissed her goodnight and went to Reaguer’s room. Annie fell asleep until the commotion started. Annie would later recount screams that “were so loud they came through my window and the door”.

 

The night clerk of the hotel busted into room 903 to find Willie Mae sprawled on the floor wearing only a brassiere and covered in blood. Reaguer was in a frenzy, blood pouring down his arms as he stood in his underwear exclaiming “have mercy on me” and mumbling about being “double-crossed”.

 

When the cops arrived Reaguer was laying beside Willie Mae. Willi Mae was dead, Reaguer incoherent. Taken to the hospital his wounds treated, he was placed under mental observation and was of little use to the police who had now charged him with murder.

 

Annie, on the verge of collapse wasn’t of much help either. Her story changing a few times. Perhaps to protect the reputation of her slain cousin. Annie later told the Grand Jury that Reaguer had forced them into the car at gun point; and the entire trip was under duress and fear that Herbert Wood would find out.

 

Speaking of Herbert Wood, he was obviously in shock to hear of his bride’s demise and fainted at the news. 

 Willie Mae and Herbert Wood

Reaguer declined to take the stand and sat stoically with bandaged wrists while a patrolman, Charles Burnett, revealed that Reaguer had admitted to knifing Willie Mae during in argument in which she threatened him with a pitcher. 

Reaguer hides his face in the hospital.

Reaguer was indicted for 1^st degree murder. His wife, Bessie, took over operations of the funeral home, but died a year later of sudden angina pectoris (a broken heart, perhaps). Reaguer ended up in  D.C. workhouse, where he died in 1945 of tuberculosis. He was buried next to Bessie in the Masonic Cemetery in Culpeper.

 

Herbert Wood eventually remarried and had children. A World War II veteran, he lived till the ripe old age of 88, passing away in 2007. His obituary stating that he “was blessed with many great friends, neighbors, and a loving church family.”

 

Annie O’Bannon went on to marry twice, but demons eventually caught up with her when she ended her life with self-inflicted stab wounds in October of 1982, almost 47 years to the date of Willie Mae’s murder.

 

Willie Mae’s modest grave lies alone in Fairview Cemetery. Resting in peace under a plainly marked stone as Sarah W. Wood 1913-1935.

 

For aught that I could ever read, Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream Act 1.1.134-36)

 

 

Homicide at Hodges

 

“When the lamp was lit, we saw the dead body of Mr. Glymph, he had a pistol in his hand.” [i]

 

McCreery Glymph shot his brother dead. A war had been raging in his mind and the battle ended in the kitchen passageway of his own home.

John Glymph was twenty-two years old as he lay in a pool of his own blood in October 1888.

There had been rumors around town about John and Jennie, and “Mack” finally cracked.

Mack collected the children and stepped outside. Out into leafy nowhere. [ii] In the pale dusk of impending night[iii], Mack had risen up against his brother and slew him. He escorted his young children to a neighbor for safekeeping and stumbled to find a man of the law, a neighbor, Trial Justice Moore.

Moore’s father approached Mack who was screaming, “My God! My God! Capt. Moore, I have killed my brother, John Glymph.” Moore sent for a doctor, but Mack knew he didn’t need one.

Jennie Townsend was fetching. The granddaughter of Rev. Joel Townsend, a Methodist minister known throughout the state of South Carolina. She was educated and refined. She was joined in matrimony to Mack but joined in love to Johnnie.

John, a fellow of no particular occupation had been living at his brother’s farm near Hodges. He and Jennie were often seen “walking and riding together” prompting whispers amongst the townspeople. Jennie had once been engaged to Johnnie but found herself married to Mack with two children.

Mack had grown dejected. The closeness between his brother and wife was palpable. Whenever John played the cornet and Jennie the piano, he could hear desire in every note. He wanted John to disappear. Hours before the shooting Mack had told John to take leave of the premises, but John attempting to be chivalrous, said he would not go while Mack was in such a mania. “He couldn’t refuse to protect a lady.”

In a futile attempt to protect Jennie, John pulled a gun, and concurrently so did Mack. Mack fired first and shot his brother down with two shots to his head. One in the left temple and one in the eye. Death came quickly for John Glymph as he clutched a pistol in his right hand.

The Coroner’s Inquest presented witness after witness testifying to rumors of Jennie and John. When Jennie took the stand she painted Mack as a violent drunk who was jealous of Johnnie and even her own father. It was true she had been engaged to Johnnie when she married Mack but didn’t understand why Mack had “any grounds to be jealous of Johnnie”. Johnnie was an orphan (at 21!) and had nowhere to go. She implored Johnnie to be there for protection from Mack’s constant threats.

On cross-examination, a note to Johnnie from Jennie retrieved from the dead man’s pocket revealed an obvious love letter…

 

The Abbeville Press and Banner, 24 Oct 1888

 

Mack was not convicted.

Jennie travelled to Hartwell, GA in 1890 to go before a divorce court where she wove a tale of Shakespearean proportions. Jennie told the court that the night of the wedding she was expecting Johnnie, but he had somehow been detained. In the darkness, Mack had taken his place. They rode together in a buggy to a friend’s home and were married. Ignorant of the swindling switch, she didn’t see the face of her groom until after the wedding, leaving Johnnie all alone at the rendezvous point. A dark night for the record books!

Jennie eventually remarried Robert Lee Ayers and had more children. She died in Anderson, SC in 1951.

Mack remarried Annie Walton and they had four children. He became a successful optometrist in Greenwood, SC. He died in 1928 with his obituary listing no mention of his children with Jennie Townsend, Fannie May and Norwood Glymph. They had been removed completely from his life. The fate of that day surely must have lingered, or perhaps festered, in the chambers of his soul.  

---

[i] Testimony of John Robinson, Coroners Inquest, as reported by The Abbeville Press and Banner, 24 Oct 1888

[ii] Lyric from Best Days, Blur, The Great Escape, 1995

[iii] Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, Morituri Salutamus, 1825

A Saga in Letters

 

I recently purchased a package of vintage WWII era ephemera from an online auction, you can see my “unboxing” video here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dm8dK7bYmbg

I unboxed more than I expected, because the packet contained some letters telling an interesting story about the loves of a Lt. William Glenn Saunders.

 William was born 26 Jul 1918 in Crenshaw County, Alabama[1] to John William Saunders (1886-1975) and Mattie Maude Taylor (1887-1967).[2] William was working as a newspaperman when he filled out his WWII draft card, listing his wife as Helen Page Saunders.[3]

 William went into the Air Force and by 1945, he was a Lieutenant stationed in Texas.[4] The earliest letter in the bunch is from Helen, written 19 Jan 1945. With beautiful penmanship, she describes life with their new baby. She misses her husband and wishes he “could walk in the door right now and see (baby) playing with his rattlers”, a sentiment shared by military wives the world over. She also mentions remembering a girl with a patch over her eye, picking up a train of thought from a previous correspondence and hopes they can find a place to rent with a kitchen. She signs it affectionately.

 The second letter in the bunch is from “Mama”, she tells “Glenn” that Helen was over on Saturday, and they had quite a “time with the baby was fun tho”.[5] Mama reports that Annie Belle came yesterday and fell down the steps on the way out and had to take a taxi home. Annie Belle apparently has a new husband who “is not good looking”. (Mama is blunt!) She wishes Glenn could see his brother “Little John” and tells him to write when he can.

 In 1944, a plane William was piloting exploded[6], and he endured an ongoing back injury.[7] Somewhere along the way he met Stanislave Rose Dabrowski, an Army nurse who served with several Air Force units during WWII, eventually earning the rank of Captain.[8] The next letter reveals that a love story is unfolding, as “Stan” writes to her “Dearest” in a letter dated 25 May 1947 addressed to William at Walter Reed Hospital.[9] After reports that her aunts cocker spaniel has died, it is clear that they are in the throws of intense passion. “I’d like to go thru life a little ahead of you, and take away all the unpleasantness, and discomfort, in your way. I’d like to be able to make your life one of ease + bliss, all the way thru”.

 William wrote to Stan on the Saturday afternoon of 29 Jan 1949 in a three-page typed letter, it is clear things have not worked out with Helen and he is unsure about his financial situation. He describes mundane everyday life from the home of his parents, since “Mama and Little John are lying down listening to the radio”, he is deeply affected by his love for Stan, writing of his need for her.

 Stan and William married and had children, living a life together in Montgomery, AL until Stan’s death in 1994.[10] William died 1997, he had returned to a career in the newspaper business after his stint in the Air Force. His obituary states that he was “active in politics” and served on the Presidential Campaign for Strom Thurmond.[11]

 Helen also remarried and became Mrs. John Ira Thomas. She died in 1970.[12]

Funny what can turn up in an online ephemera auction. I’m glad I was able to research who these people were and tell a little of their story. I didn’t post the full texts of their intimate accounts out of respect for any living family who I’d love to reunite with these letters. Contact me at jen@weirdgenealogy.com if you have any information.

 

 

---

[1] U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947, entry for William Glenn Saunders, Ancestry.com, accessed 24 Apr 2022

[2] 1930 United States Federal Census, Montgomery, Montgomery, Alabama, entry for household of John W Saunders, Ancestry.com, accessed 24 Apr 2022

[3] U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men

[4] Helen Saunders to “My Dearest One”, dated 19 Feb 1945, privately held by Jennifer Stoy

[5] Mattie Saunders to “Dearest Glenn”, dated 19 Apr 1945, privately held by Jennifer Stoy

[6] The Montgomery Advertiser, 7 Jun 1997, Obituary for William Glenn Saunders, Newspapers.com, accessed 24 Apr 2022

[7] R. Arnold Griswold, M.D. to Lt. General George E Stratemeyer, dated 31 Mar 1947, letter regarding back injury of Lt. William Saunders, Ancestry.com, accessed 24 Apr 2022

[8] The Montgomery Advertiser, 6 Feb 1994, Obituary for Stanislave Rose Dabrowski Saunders, Newspapers.com, accessed 24 Apr 2022

[9] Stanislave Debrowski to “My Dearest”, dated 25 May 1947, privately held by Jennifer Stoy

[10] Obituary for Stanislave Rose Dabrowski Saunders

[11] Obituary for William Glenn Saunders

[12] The Montgomery Advertiser, 19 Apr 1970, Obituary for Helen Page Thomas, Newspapers.com, accessed 24 Apr 2022

The Manic Minister

 

In December of 1899, Methodist Circuit Preacher, Rev. Adney McSwain Attaway had come home to Pickens, S.C. for Christmas but by the 29^th had to bury Bowman, his 11-year-old son. A previous stint in the state mental hospital for both he and his wife did not adequality prepare them to cope with the loss of a child.  

In early January, he was in a frenzy at home. He decapitated the family dog with an ax, and then began to destroy the furniture. He grabbed his wife, Belle pulling the clothes around her neck with his teeth in an attempt to strangle her. Belle cried out for their daughter, Janie, who grabbed a knife. Belle screamed for her daughter to stab father before he kills me and “all of you”. Janie merely cut away the clothes, but the reverend was dead.

Belle testified that she had strangled her husband, but Coroner Jones of Pickens County, found that Rev. Attaway died of heart failure induced by “a violent attack of insanity”.

Belle was recommitted to the mental hospital for a short time before resuming a quiet life as a widow in Pickens. She died in 1955 from pneumonia and was buried next to her husband at Sunrise Cemetery.

 

Sources:

“Said She Choked Him to Death”, The Watchman and Southron, Sumter, South Carolina, 17 Jan 1900, newspapers.com, accessed: 19 August 2021

South Carolina, U.S. Death Records, 1821-1969, entry for Belle Harris Attaway, Ancestry.com

Find A Grave Index, entry for Rev. Adney McSwain Attaway, findagrave.com