Some spring cleaning has left me with a little bit of a mystery: I need to find the family of one-time Chillicothe resident John C. Ginther. I have something for them.
It’s not much, really. I guess you’d call it a pocket calendar or a datebook. But the little leather-bound book is dated 1913, and it’s stuffed with a fascinating collection of receipts, business cards and newspaper clippings. One sheet would seem to chronicle Ginther’s travels: It records sailing from San Francisco on June 5, arriving in Honolulu on June 14 and then setting off for a series of Asian ports. I’m not quite sure which ones — I have a bit of trouble reading his handwriting, to be honest.
His name at the front of the datebook looks like “John Yinther,” but I found a May 24, 1913, receipt from the U.S. Land Office in Great Falls, Montana, made out to “John C. Ginther,” who paid $8 for a homestead application. That suggests I could be looking for his family in entirely the wrong place: Maybe Ginther ended up settling in Montana?…