The children of Arthur Hobart Snelling and Gertrude Bullard posed for this photograph in 1983. This, the last time they would all be together, was to attend the funeral of their father in Zion, Illinois. (Their mother having passed away in 1937.) They are shown here seated left to right in their birth order. Missing sibling, David, who died at age 14 months in 1918, would have been seated between Ruth and Mark.
I have found it interesting to try to figure out where their names came from, so here is what I discovered. (I seem to recall my mother, Ruth, telling me that her mother, Gertrude, did not have a middle name. This is a very rare occurrence (some people have two or three middle names, but I do not know of anyone else who has no middle name at all.)
Anyway, beginning with the oldest, James Harold was named after his father’s two cousins, James and Harold and his uncle, Gertrude’s brother, Harold. Elsie Winona is a bit of a mystery. I did find a Winnie mentioned in a letter written by Arthur’s father, Edwin Harley Snelling, but I don’t know who she was. Next is Ruth Elizabeth, my mother, who was named after her Dad’s sister, Ruth. David Arthur of course, was named after his father. Next in line came Mark Hobart, also named for his father. Hobart goes way back in the family line and we will make that connection later on. Rachel Eunice got her name from another of her Dad’s sisters, Eunice. Number seven on our list is Arthur Franklin, who was named after his father, Arthur and his mother’s brother, Franklin. It is interesting to note that all three of Gertrude’s brothers were known to their family and friends by names different than their actual birth names: Uncle Wib(Wilber), Uncle Frank(Franklin) and Uncle Harry(Harold). And last and most complicated is, Byron Craven. Here we must go back another generation to find the names.
Arthur Hobart Snelling’s parents were Edwin Harley Snelling and Bessie Craven, and Edwin’s brother was Francis Byron Snelling(whose two sons, James and Harold were mentioned earlier.) So that is where they came up with Byron Craven. And to find the Hobart name(which we left back a ways), we go to Bessie Craven’s mother, whose maiden name was Hobart. So as we end our journey through nameland, we will conclude with those of the next generation who had some of these names passed on to them as well; Thomas Arthur Snelling, Robert Arthur Oakes, Lynda Gertrude Ower Salters, James Byron Snelling and Robin Craven Snelling.