Searching For One Thing Turned Up Another

When I first started researching genealogy, I was the fortunate recipient of boxes of family history material.  The bulk of the items were from my Talbott and Richardson family lines and in these boxes I found photographs, postcards, deeds, WWII ration cards, dried flowers, etc.  These boxes held the genealogical version of a jackpot. I'm still finding things I didn't know I had.

I pulled the boxes out again last week.  I was looking for one thing and found Reuben Richardson's  math assignment for correspondence school.  The  7 page assignment is dated Sep 1916.

Reuben Richardson's Math Assignment

Reuben Richardson was the brother of Esther Lee Richardson Talbott and the oldest son of Daniel and Harriet (Elliott) Richardson of Pittsylvania and Halifax Counties, VA.  He was born in 27 Dec 1827 and died in WWI 19 Apr 1918 at the age of 20 - about a year and a half after he completed this assignment.

Reuben Richardson

Not much is know about Reuben and his short life.  From the address on the envelope, Reuben was living  at 1401 N. Charles in Baltimore, Maryland in 1916. He appears to have been a good student of math.  No answer is marked wrong and on the last page, "very good" is written in red.  Apparently his spelling wasn't so good.  Notice the red correction in his spelling of "Arithmetic"? A bonus find is Reuben's signature at the top of each page. I learned another thin about Reuben.  He had great handwriting!  That is certainly not a trait that got passed down to me.

Enjoy a glimpse into the life of Reuben!