Racine Reactions

Lately I've made it a goal to plan at least one family history road trip every summer. Sometimes it doesn't happen in the summer exactly, but it happens at least once in a calendar year.

In 2017, I drove to Denver, Colorado, to see my dad's cousin. The trip was double duty, as the primary intent was to attend my cousin's wedding. The secondary reason was to visit cousin Cindy, talk family stories, and scan family photos. The trip was a success in all ways.

This year, I decided to plan a trip that had family history as the primary focus. There were so many places I could go, but one has always been on my list: Racine County, Wisconsin. Racine is where the Foxwell and Richards side of my family first settled when they arrived from Cornwall, England, in the 1840s and 1850s. The family lived there for several decades before my lot drove a covered wagon west into Northeast Iowa. Still, some of the family remained in Racine County, populating the small towns of Yorkville, Raymond, and Caledonia.

Before setting off to Wisconsin, I made sure I knew what I was looking for. I knew the family had deep Methodist roots going back to England, so I searched for Methodist churches in the area. The only one to come up in the rural towns was in Yorkville, and their website, which included a rich history curated for their 175th anniversary last year, said they were founded by the Foxwell-Shephard family.

I arranged to meet the church historian on a Friday morning and was there bright and early at 8:00am. I wasn't sure what I was going to find, so I didn't know how long I'd be there. She had been gracious enough to look through books before I arrived and confirm there were, in fact, Foxwell entries in the church registers. Among the most precious to me was the baptism of my great-great-great-grandmother, Catherine (Foxwell) Richards, who was baptized with her younger sister the day after Christmas, 1857.

Original baptism record for my ancestor, Katie Richards,
and her sister, Mary Ann Foxwell.

There were many other entries, including baptisms, marriages, and burials. This included records going back two more generations, with Foxwell matriarch Ann (Harris) Foxwell being buried in the churchyard in 1858.

After the church, I spent some time with the historian at a local coffee shop, where she told me more about the church today, as well as the town. It was nice to get a contemporary perspective on a village where so many ancestors spent their formative years.

Since the cemetery was small, I parked in the front and walked it alone. Familiar names were visible along every step: Foxwell, Moyle, Richards, Shephard, Waldron. I always find it rewarding to be able to pay my own respects to people whose names and stories I've studied for such a long time. Next time, I'll remember to bring flowers.