BATTERED NOT BROKEN / MISSOURI’S TOUGH HARASSMENT & STALKING LAWS

These two letters document a crime:

Joseph A. Pecoraro was found guilty of battery, a form of physical assault.  The court ordered him to pay restitution for my bloodied shirt and damaged sunglasses.  His conviction was expunged upon expiration of court ordered  supervision.  As the victim in the case, I’m not bound by agreements Pecoraro made as part of his sentencing. The letters are my property. 

My injuries were serious enough that I had to go to a hospital emergency room for treatment.  At the time I had medical insurance through an employer, so the defendant didn’t have to pay for medical treatment.

Initially I didn’t think the injuries were that serious because there wasn’t much pain.  As I soon found out, the real damage was to the tissue beneath the skin.  By the next day, I was in a lot of pain and my face was swollen.  I went to the Emergency Room at Edward Hospital in Naperville.  As I recall, they prescribed antibiotics, dressed the wound, and administered a tetanus shot because Pecoraro had been wearing a ring.

Pecoraro had friends (whose names I remember) that lived down the hall from me in Three Wheaton Center in Wheaton, Illinois.  I was living in # 603 and across the hall was a retired Catholic priest who was also friendly with those tenants.

I wasn’t attacked in the apartment complex, but at a traffic intersection in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.  I was aged 40 and Pecoraro was in his mid-to-late 20′s.  Witnesses called the police.  The witnesses were irate because I was trying to cover my face with my arms as Pecoraro hit me.  After the incident Pecoraro and a passenger fled the scene.  Evidently Pecoraro feared he’d be arrested because a note had been made of his license plate number, so he turned himself in.

$100.00 plus court costs and $55.00 restitution sounds like a slap on the wrist, but Pecoraro had to hire an attorney, so his actual costs related to the crime were probably much higher.

I think the priest was an agitator who had a hand in getting me roughed up.

Some offenders attempt to intimidate their victims into whitewashing or overlooking the crime.

This situation is exactly why Missouri has a tough harassment law:

Harassment is a huge problem in the United States.  It can escalate into violence and even murder.  Missouri’s tough harassment law aims to stop harassment before it escalates.

According to Missouri Revised Statutes, Chapter 565, “Offenses Against the Person,” Section 565.090, Sub-sections 1–(5) & (6):

A person commits the crime of harassment if he or she:

“Knowingly makes repeated unwanted communication to another person; or

Without good cause engages in any other act with the purpose to frighten, intimidate, or cause emotional distress to another person, cause such person to be frightened, intimidated, or emotionally distressed, and such person’s response to the act is one of a person of average sensibilities considering the age of the person.”

The first offense is a Class A Misdemeanor.  Subsequent violations are Class D Felonies.

If you have an ex-spouse or ex-love interest who can’t accept the end of the relationship, or have any relationship personal or organizational in which the other party won’t let you go, you know why this law is necessary.

Harassment is often of a personal nature:  the tormentor wants to bring the victim down to the tormentor’s “level.”   Harassment is psychological abuse.  Those who engage in harassment are attempting to undermine the autonomy of the individual.

Missouri takes harassment seriously.  It’s a crime.

You can read the entire statute at:

http://www.moga.mo.gov/statutes/C500-599/5650000090.HTM

Click on the link or copy and paste the link into your browser.

Harassment is often linked with stalking.  Missouri takes stalking seriously, too.

Missouri Revised Statutes, Chapter 565, “Offenses Against The Person,” Section 565.225, Section (2) states:

“A person commits the crime of stalking if he or she purposely, through his or her course of conduct, harasses or follows with the intent of harassing another person.”

According to Section 6:

“Any law enforcement officer may arrest, without a warrant, any person he or she has probable cause to believe has violated the provisions of this section.”

As with harassment, the first offense is a Class A Misdemeanor and subsequent offenses are Class D Felonies.

See:

http://www.moga.mo.gov/statutes/c500-599/5650000225.htm

Click on the link or copy and paste the link into your browser.

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If you’re being harassed or stalked, involve law enforcement before someone harms you.

ANCIENT TREES: GREAT CAESAR’S GHOST

In another column, I discuss the mendacity of pseudo-genealogist Roderick Stuart, whose Royalty For Commoners makes idiots of us all.  Though the ancient pedigrees in Royalty For Commoners have no proven reality, nonetheless there is a substantial amount of genealogical material surviving from the Ancient World.  There must be millions of people today who descend from those distant luminaries.  The information we need to connect the Ancient World with the Dark Ages is either lost forever or mouldering in some unknown repository.

 This elegant arrogant woman is Agrippina the Elder, wife of the famous Roman general Germanicus.  Unfortunately, she was also the mother of the psychopath Emperor Caligula.

Genealogical chart of the Julio-Claudian emperors of Rome.  Who are their modern descendants?  One could ask the same question about the Ptolemaic dynasty of Egypt.  The dynasty came to an abrupt end when Cleopatra chose the serpent rather than be a curiosity in Octavian’s zoo.

A likeness of Caesarion, who Cleopatra claimed was the son of Julius Caesar.  Whether true or not, Octavian took no chances and had him murdered.  That points to the difficulty in tracing the descendants of families such as the Julio-Claudians, who were eventually displaced by the upstart Flavians.  When there was a change in the ruling family, keeping a low profile about one’s genealogical connections to the previous ruling family was helpful if you wanted to live.

PROTECT OUR CHILDREN! TELL THE CATHOLIC CHURCH “NO” TO DE-CRIMINALIZING CHILD MOLESTERS

It’s business as usual at the Catholic church:

A South African cardinal who helped elect Pope Francis this week has told the BBC pedophilia is an illness and not a crime.  Cardinal Wilfrid Fox Napier, the Catholic Archbishop of Durban, told BBC Radio on Saturday 23 Mar 2013 that pedophilia was a “disorder” that needed to be treated.  ”From my experience, pedophilia is actually an illness. It’s not a criminal condition, it’s an illness,” he said.

If that isn’t disturbing enough, there’s this item:

In a recent interview published in the National Catholic Register, New York priest Benedict Groeschel said:  ”Suppose you have a man having a nervous breakdown, and a youngster comes after him. A lot of the cases, the youngster — 14, 16, 18 — is the seducer.” Groeschel also referred to Jerry Sandusky, the former Penn State coach convicted of sexually abusing boys, as “this poor guy” and wondered why no one said anything for years.  He added later that anyone involved “on their first [sex abuse] offense, they should not go to jail because their intention was not committing a crime.”

Groeschel claimed the sex was consensual and the real victims were pedophile priests. Groeschel and the National Catholic Register hastily apologized.

And there’s this:

In September of 2012, Kansas City Bishop Robert W. Finn was found guilty of failing to report suspected child abuse, becoming the first American bishop in the decades-long sexual abuse scandal to be convicted of shielding a pedophile priest.  Bishop Finn took over the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph in Missouri in 2005.  Learning of the verdict David Clohessy of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, and Janelle Lazzo of Call to Action, embraced on Thursday during a demonstration at the courthouse.  In a bench trial that lasted a little over an hour, a judge found the bishop guilty on one misdemeanor charge and not guilty on a second charge, for failing to report a priest who had taken hundreds of pornographic pictures of young girls. The counts each carried a maximum penalty of one year in jail and a $1,000 fine, but Bishop Finn was sentenced to two years of court-supervised probation.  Finn had contended it wasn’t his job to report the abuse even if he knew about it.  At the very least, Finn should have made certain the child pornography was reported, regardless of whose task it was.  It begs the question: Who is my brother’s keeper?

The pedophiles priest’s behavior ran the gamut of typical child molestation. Making young boys perform oral sex on the priest and priests using boys for anal intercourse were common.  

According to Cardinal Napier and Father Groeschel, that’s not a crime.  In the Gospel of Luke (17:2) Jesus took a different view:  ”It would be better for you if a millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea than for you to cause one of these little ones to stumble.”  Matthew and Mark tell a similar story.  I suppose anything can be forgiven with a few words even if the sin is heavy—like a millstone.

The Catholic church fully understands that the most heinous act one can commit is to misuse a child to gratify some loathsome sexual impulse.  It knows society at large will never forgive a child molester.  So the church shuffled pedophile priests from parish to parish, hoping to cover it up.  That’s what prosecutors in the Monsignor William Lynn case said.  These men could not control themselves, and after the first incident of child molestation should never have been assigned to any post where children might be present.

The Catholic church’s call to de-criminalize child molestation and treat it as an illness is a green light for child molesters.  If caught, pedophiles would only face psychiatric treatment.  The pedophile will be protected from prosecution—but your child won’t be protected from the pedophile.  Pedophiles wouldn’t have to register as a sex offender.

The Catholic church says:  ”These men are just good men who slipped. They aren’t criminals.  It’s not humane to brand them for life.  They were battling an illness.”

My argument is:  ”These are predators who went into the clergy thinking it was a good place to hide and troll for victims.  They abused the trust children placed in them and used children to satisfy their revolting sexual desires for years if not decades.  The church tried to sweep it under the carpet until it could no longer keep it from the public.  Instead of coddling pedophiles we should make the legal penalties even more severe:  one strike and you’re incarcerated for life.”

Children who have been molested have nightmares for years and will probably never completely heal.  Some victims are so traumatized that even the prospect of a large monetary settlement will not entice them to come forward.  Pedophiles get a kick out of destroying a child’s innocence.  When clergy, who are trusted, are the perpetrators of sex crimes against children, it’s especially despicable.  The Catholic church wants to shift the blame elsewhere.  Its solution is to persuade society that pedophiles are suffering from a disease.  End of problem.

It reminds me of an old story about the snake:

A man was standing on the bank of a river, intending to swim across it.  A snake approached him said:  ”Can I ride on your back?  You see, I can’t swim.”  The man said: “I don’t trust you.  How do I know you won’t bite me?”  ”You have my word I won’t bite you.”  So the man let the snake climb on his back.  When the pair reached the opposite bank, the snake bit him.  As the venom took hold, he cried:  ”But you told me you wouldn’t bite me.”  The snake slithered onto the bank, turned and said:  ”I’m a snake. That’s what snakes do.”

My experience with the Catholic church is that it was friendly in the beginning.  Eventually I was put between a rock and a hard place, which was extremely stressful.  It was deliberate and they knew it would upset me.  That shouldn’t have happened.  Had I understood its rigid concept of authority, I would never have been a member in the first place.  When I decided to leave the Catholic church, I was perceived as flaunting the authority of the church.  The church blames much of its problems on “enemies of the church,” of which apparently I am one.  People do not want the Catholic church using hardball tactics in their family, regardless of how lofty the Catholic church supposes its mission to be.

Catholics are taught to be compliant to church authority, which undoubtedly played a part in molestation cases.  Some young victims saw the priest as “speaking for God.” The Catholic hierarchy is inherently conservative, and inclined to side with those wielding authority.  A major part of the problem are people who don’t want to relinquish control, and since they control the apparatus, there’s no hope for meaningful reform.  What the Catholic church won’t admit is that the pedophiles they concealed are enemies of mankind.  40 victims linked to sex abuse by the Catholic church in the Australian state of Victoria have committed suicide. 

There’s very little anyone can do for victims of sexual abuse by Catholic priests. We can’t turn back the clock and free the victims from the memory of it. Columns like these can help by keeping the issue in front of the public. Let your elected officials know you oppose de-criminalizing child molestation.  Claiming pedophiles are just “sick” shows the Catholic church is still looking for a dodge.

So why did Napier and Groeschel make such incendiary remarks?  They were floating a balloon, hoping to pick up support to get the Catholic church out of trouble.  The Catholic church floats a lot of balloons.  It’s a different world.  Everybody is an idiot if they aren’t Catholic.

FATE / Dollar Gets A Lot For His Money / 96 X 35: By Using The 1880 Census I Learned My Chipman Family Came From Delaware

     In May 1971 my father visited Ripley, Tennessee, the county seat of Lauderdale County.  His guide on that occasion was William Mack Chipman, Sheriff of Lauderdale County.

[William Mack Chipman (1889--1977), posing (right) with two escaped convicts who were captured attempting to cross the Mississippi River.  William Mack Chipman was the son of Benjamin F. and Anna (Shoemake) Chipman.  Click on image to enlarge it.]

My father was told William Chipman (1814-1874) had a brother named Fate Chipman (1820-1898) who was a bachelor and lived around Ripley.

My father wrote it down on a restaurant placemat (or something like that–I no longer have it).*

Born in 1824, Frederick Chipman was the last child of James and Betsy Chipman.  He married Mary Ann Prendergrast on 20 Apr 1853 in Madison County, Tennessee.  William H. Davis was a witness on the bond.  Davis had earlier married Frederick’s older sister Delilah.

In 1860 Frederick Chipman was living with George and Mary Ann (Jones) Chipman in Lauderdale County, Tennessee.

On 21 Feb 1867 the Madison County court granted Mary Ann (Prendergrast) Chipman a divorce from Frederick Chipman on the grounds that he had deserted her in 1856 and refused to return and live with her.

There was no issue of the marriage.

On 26 Feb 1867 Mary Ann married John R. Woodard in Madison County.  By 1880 the couple was living in Lauderdale County.

I have no doubt Frederick Chipman was Fate.

* Actually, I do have it—it was a penciled note, made on ruled notebook paper, as follows:

“Fate Chipman uncle of B.F. Chipman

born 1820, died 1898, born in Arkansas, bachelor.”

B.F. Chipman is Benjamin F. Chipman (1858–1939), whose middle name may have been “Fate.”  Benjamin F. Chipman was the son of William Chipman (1814-1874) and wife Milly Standifer.

I don’t know who told my father about Fate Chipman, but since the notes he made in that section concerned Benjamin F. Chipman, it was probably a descendant of his. 

This is oral history, and there’s some truth there:  Frederick Chipman had once been married, but he repudiated his wife, and never remarried.  He was born in 1824, not 1820; I don’t know when or where he died.

___________________________________________

Elsewhere in his notes, my father recorded this tale:

“Ben and Tom moved to Leavenworth, Kansas, owned land, sold it to an Indian named Dollar, then returned to Ripley, Tenn?”

“Ben” is Benjamin F. Chipman.  “Tom” is Thomas Jefferson Chipman, another son of William Chipman and Milly Standifer.

It makes sense that Ben Chipman and Tom Chipman tried homesteading in Kansas; their father William Chipman had mortgaged and lost the family farm.  Leavenworth is the county seat of Leavenworth Co., and the city is considered within the Kansas City, MO metropolitan area.  A check of records in Leavenworth Co. might corroborate this tale.  Since Ben Chipman was born in 1858, the records we’d look for would date from the 1880s or later.

___________________________________________

Here are two Mayflower descendants in the 1880 Lauderdale Co., TN Federal census (p. 173).  The 1880 census was the first to list the birthplace of parents.

Detail:

James [Washington] Chipman and Thomas [Jefferson] Chipman were sons of George and Mary Ann (Jones) Chipman.  Here they gave George’s birthplace as Delaware and Mary Ann’s as S.C. (South Carolina).

George Chipman (1803–1878) was the brother of William Chipman (1814–1874).

Federal census records are a valuable research tool, and are among the first records consulted when compiling a pedigree.  Most of the 1890 census is lost.  The 1900 census lists the month of birth. 

At one time it was necessary to visit the National Archives and Records Administration to view census records, or order them through inter-library loan.  Today many census records can be found online.  Some libraries provide access to databases like Ancestry.com and HeritageQuest that contain images of census records. Often the websites of county genealogical societies have transcriptions of census records for that county.  Some states (like Iowa) conducted their own censuses at intervals between the Federal decennial, so check with state historical societies.

O Canada! Paul Huffman & Rebecca Crawford of Halton Co., Ontario

Here’s the solution to a family mystery that’s baffled everyone for decades:

Tyler Huffman, Federal Civil War veteran, was the son of Paul Huffman and Rebecca Crawford. They were my third great-grandparents.  Rebecca is said to have died giving birth to Tyler.

It’s known that Paul Huffman was born in Canada on 4 Aug 1817, and died on 25 Jun 1892 in Rome, Henry Co., Iowa.  In 1850 Paul Huffman was living in White Co., Indiana with his second wife, Azubah Washburn, whom he had married on 8 Apr 1841 in Fulton Co., Indiana.

But who were Paul and Rebecca (Crawford) Huffman?  Where did they come from?

Paul Huffman married Rebecca Crawford in Halton Co., Ontario on 2 Feb 1837.  The marriage bond is dated 25 Jan 1837.  Paul Huffman was of Trafalgar Township and Rebecca Crawford is listed as of Esquessing Township.  The marriage bond is found in “Upper and Lower Canada Marriage Bonds” at the Library and Archives Canada (Microfilm reel no. C-6786).  Halton Co. is in southern Ontario.

The first settlers of Halton Co. were United Empire Loyalists who arrived in the 1780s. Paul Huffman may have been related to  Christopher Huffman, a loyalist of  German descent, whose family had emigrated to New Jersey in the mid-18th century.  Like many loyalists the Huffmans moved to Canada after the Revolutionary War.  This information should make it easier to document the ancestry of Paul Huffman and Rebecca Crawford.

To celebrate my Canadian heritage, these are the lyrics to the Canadian national anthem:

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

WE’LL BE RIGHT BACK AFTER THIS

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VITAL RECORDS & GENEALOGY

For genealogists, nothing is better than vital records:  records of birth, marriage, and death.  But any genealogist who’s sifted through vital records knows they aren’t always spot-on correct.

Let’s examine this birth certificate, which happens to be mine.  It was signed on 12 April 1956.  My parents obtained this copy for the the school district in Burlington, Iowa so I could attend kindergarten.  It’s a typewritten copy of the original.  Photocopy machines didn’t exist in 1956. The Des Moines County, Iowa clerk used his stamp to indicate it’s a genuine copy.

But there are two problems.  My father’s middle name is shown as “Vermen.” His real middle name is “Vernon.”  And my mother’s first name is shown as “Valeria,” when it’s actually “Valerie.”  Probably the clerk’s error, right?

Not exactly.  In 2004 I found my passport had expired, and to obtain a new one, I had to provide my birth certificate.  The above certificate would have sufficed, but I’d misplaced it, so I ordered another one from the State of Iowa.  That birth certificate was a photocopy of the handwritten original dated 2 August 1951,  and the original also gives my father’s middle name as “Vermen.”  In the case of my mother’s first name, it’s difficult to tell if the original says “Valeria” or “Valerie” because the letters “a” and “e” look similar.

So the clerk who typed up the 1956 copy made an accurate transcription of incorrect information regarding my father, and interpreted my mother’s first name as “Valeria.” The only additional information of interest to me on the original is that my father’s occupation is listed as “Telegraph Operator.”

It’s not quite the end of the story.  Several years ago I found a government agency had me in their database as born in “Burlington, Illinois.”  As you can see, I was born in “Burlington, Iowa.”  I had to produce a birth certificate so the agency could correct their records.

Vital records are important resources for genealogists.  Mine states that the original is recorded in Des Moines County, Iowa,  Book 16, Page C-24.  If I drove to the county courthouse in Burlington, Iowa, I could view the original.