Have you ever found yourself doing something just because that is what your family does? I did and became a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution without having any idea of what I was getting into.
This story starts with my Grandma, her sister, Marge, and their second cousin Marion. And it ends with unbelievable kindness, compassion, and support from DAR members across the world when I became ill.
Mary, Marge, and Marion
Mary, Marge, and Marion all attended Sunny Hill School – a one-room schoolhouse in Nebraska. Mary was the eldest and she taught her sister Marge at Sunny Hill School for one year. Mary was born in 1900, the start of a new century and ten years after the formation of a patriotic society restricted to women. At some point in their lives, the three women decided that they wanted to become members of the Daughters of the American Revolution.
These three women grew up on homesteads. Cars and telephones were toys of the wealthy. Transportation was mostly by walking, but longer distances by horse and wagon.
Researching family history meant getting to a town that was big enough to have a library or a county courthouse. Nebraska didn’t start recording births and deaths until 1904, but not consistently for several years. Mary and Marge’s mother died in Nebraska in 1970 but the state did not issue a death certificate. She is buried next to Mary, who died in 1967.
Daughters of the American Revolution
Purpose
I have learned that the Daughters of the American Revolution is an amazing organization dedicated to historical preservation, education, and patriotism. It is easy to see why Mary, Marge, and Marion wanted to be part of this.
As an adult, my life has been surrounded by men. When I started work at NASA as an engineer, the vast majority of women were secretaries and there wasn’t a lot of them. Seeing how an organization functions that was founded and run by women was eye-opening.
Becoming a Member
To become a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, you must be able to document your family history back to 1776-1783 and prove that your direct family ancestor ended the war on the side of the colonists.
Organizational Transformation
Watching this powerful organization transform itself from a predominately white organization to one that encourages and embraces diversity has been thrilling and educational. The DAR is promoting and encouraging education about the American Revolution beyond the limited activities that happened in the 13 colonies to a world view.
France, Holland, and Spain were especially involved. Significant amounts of money were donated by the Spanish citizens of what is now Mexico and Cuba. The Spanish citizens of California, Texas, and Louisiana supplied cattle, guns, and ammunition to Washington’s army.
The French, Spanish, Native Americans and slaves in Spanish Louisiana and Florida provided military support to guard the Gulf Coast and the Mississippi River so the English could not attack on all four sides of the colonies. My friend Barbara and I created a coloring book about this mostly covert military effort.
Crusade To Become A Member
Mary, Marge, and Marion knew the family story that Sgt. Arthur Parr served in the American Revolution. The hard part was proving the family history — not the service member.
The Parrs came to America around 1720 and the family has moved every 10-20 years up to Mary and Marge’s father’s generation. The Parrs always moved away from cities and towards the wilderness, but in family groups. Record-keeping was pretty much reserved for civilized places like cities and Eastern towns.
Generation One – Mary, Marge, and Marion
Mary, Marge, and Marion started their research by writing to family members to collect as many memories and stories as they could. Then they began the long journey of collecting birth, death, and marriage records for each generation by mail.
Mary died in 1967 before this effort was completed. Marge and Marion decided to continue, but Marge recruited her sister’s two daughters and three daughters-in-law to help with the letter-writing campaign.
Generation Two – Margaret, Pat, Anna, Jeri, Marilea
Everyone loved Marge and she easily recruited her nieces, Margaret and Pat, and her three nieces-in-law, Anna, Jeri, and Marilea. The in-laws couldn’t join the DAR on the service of Arthur Parr, but their daughters could.
So now we had seven letter writers instead of three. And Marion started traveling a lot due to her husband’s job. Everywhere she went she looked for anything that would help her join the DAR.
The five new letter writers eventually lost hope and got distracted with raising their families. Only Marion kept working as she kept traveling and she finally found all the missing records and joined the DAR. But Marion was Marge’s second cousin so there were still missing records for our line to Arthur Parr.
Generation Three – Mary, Mary, Liz
At the first of our McGee-Parr Family reunions, Anna’s daughter, Mary, put together a poster and brought the Arthur Parr story to new generations.
Then Marilea’s daughter, Mary, started working on the family history starting with her honeymoon in Ireland.
And my husband encouraged me to get serious about researching my family history. I think it took me about 12 years to find the missing records on the Parr line to join the DAR in 2008.
My DAR Member Story
Just like my ancestors I moved frequently. By the time I graduated from college and went to work for NASA I had over 13 addresses that all had to be checked and verified.
It took me a couple of years to realize what the DAR was all about and how much influence women can wield when confident enough to do so.
DAR Focus
The DAR focuses on charity work to support the military, education, and historical preservation. But you have to know genealogy to get in. So I fell into the support part of the DAR, genealogy. I took various classes both in the DAR and from other genealogical organizations.
Chapter Positions
I was the Registrar of my chapter for 4 years, and then the Vice-Regent for 2 years.
Texas State Position
Much to my shock, I received a phone call from the Texas State Regent of the DAR who asked me to take a position in her administration. She asked me to be one of the Vice-Chairs of the Lineage Research Committee. We handled the difficult genealogy cases, but we had a time limit. By the time the problem got to us, we usually had 6 months to a year to solve the problem.
That was a wonderful assignment. It was a challenge and very rewarding to find the missing answers. And then all of a sudden I had problems researching.
Illness and Kindness
I had to give the harder problems to the other Vice-Chair in my district. I had several conversations with the State Chair and she reduced my work load. I was seeing a number of doctors who were trying to figure out what was wrong. My friends were praying for recovery and discovery of what was wrong. They sent cards and left phone messages.
Now, three years later, we finally have an answer. According to the most recent blood test, around the time COVID hit Houston, I was bit by a sick mosquito. That mosquito gave me West Nile Encephalitis. There is no cure, and the brain damage is permanent. But the DAR is very welcoming to all women and I am sure I will find something I can still participate in.
