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Search for Family History Turns Up Mixed Heritage
From Bonnie Jansen, July 6, 2004
I am Bonnie Lynn Hoover/Jansen of Clinton, Mich. Before my father, Guy Orth Hoover (b. 1903, Davis, Ill) died (1-7-89), my mother asked him to tell me any family stories he could, like how his father (became Dr. B. F. Hoover of Davis, Ill., d. 1953) was sent to "run over the mountain in Pennsylvania when he was 6 to tell the neighbors that Lincoln had been shot to death." That seems to be all I know, except that when I asked if I have American Indian blood my sister was able to say yes, it is through an Indian woman up from Delaware (the mother of B.F. Hoover?) who was the family herbalist and taught that tradition to my father's cousin Rev. Reynold Hoover of Flagler Beach Fla. M.E. Church.
When I saw a picture of B. F. Hoover's wife, Clara Lindella Murray Hoover (?) of Davis Ill., I immediately said, "Was she black? Gee, she looks like a black woman to me! " (I was a child, and do not know where the picture is now, saw it only once.) My father denied that she was Black, quickly, "Oh, no, of course not" just as my Aunt Ethel Hoover of Davis Ill. in 1998 so quickly responded "Oh, no, of course not" when I called to ask if we had any American Indian blood because maybe my firstborn daughter Caroline Ruth Jansen could get scholarships for MSU if she had Indian blood. As it turned out, she got 19 scholarships and honors at Awards Night, the most of anyone ever in our town, and left MSU with almost no bills except a car payment, marched in the MSU band color guard 4 years and missed honors there by .1 point.
I do know my father carried a scar on his large nose for life because when he was young he was paid by the KKK to go across a barbed wire fence and torch a fiery cross. As he ran back away from the fiery cross he got the scar on his nose. This was in Davis, Ill.
I also know that when my (favorite, Dutch) Aunt Ethel turned to ask Uncle Marion (ill with Alzheimer's, 1998) she phrased the question, "Marion, you don't have any Indian blood, do you? No, of course not, I didn't think so."