Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen
A "brick-wall" DIY genealogy podcast that features your questions and Kathleen Brandt's answers. She wants your stories, questions, and “brick walls”. But be ready to add to your "to-do" list. As Kathleen always says, this is a Do it yourself (DIY) genealogy podcast. “I'll show you where the shovel is, but I'm not digging up your family.”
Maybe, you have no idea where to start searching for an ancestor. Or, perhaps you want to know more about your family folklore. Host Kathleen has 20 years in the industry and is the founder of a3genealogy. She's able to dispense genealogy research advice and encouragement in understandable terms that won't get you lost in genealogy jargon. Along with her husband and co-host, John, she helps you accomplish "do-it-yourself" research goals, learn some history, and have a bit of fun along the way. Light-hearted and full of detailed info, Hittin' the Bricks is your solution for your brick-wall research problems.
Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen
Every Soldier Has a Story: Civil War Veteran Returns Home
We close the loop on the life of Civil War Veteran Joseph Chedester, whose ashes were left unburied for a century and whose honors finally reached his second great-granddaughters.
The Eternal Valor Network, a Tracing Ancestors Project (501c3)
Original Final Salute, Des Moines Oct 2024; Kathleen Receiving Veteran Chedester's burial flag for unknown family
Full Video 14 Nov 2025, KCCI 9 News, Iowa, Ben Kaplan
Honoring Iowa Veterans
Descendants Found and Burial Flag Passed to Family
Be sure to bookmark linktr.ee/hittinthebricks for your one stop access to Kathleen Brandt, the host of Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen. And, visit us on YouTube: Off the Wall with Kathleen John and Chewey video recorded specials.
Hittin' the Bricks is produced through the not-for-profit, 501c3 TracingAncestors.org.
Ladies and gentlemen from the depths of Flyover Country in the Heartland of America, the Kansas City on the other side of the mighty moat. Welcome to Hittin' the Bricks with Kathleen, the Do It Yourself Genealogy podcast with your questions and her answers. I am John, your humble hubby host, and today we'll have a full circle episode closing the loop on Civil War genealogy for a member of the Grand Army of the Republic. Now, let's start hitting the bricks. I thought it'd be helpful we need to do an update. Okay. And we need to do an update on something that was really exciting a few well gosh, it's almost been a year now. If it hasn't been a year, it's real close. And that is an update on Joseph Chedester. And so do you want to uh you want to start and tell us a bit about who Joseph Chedester was?
Kathleen:Joseph Chedester was a Civil War veteran, and he spent over a year in our library downstairs. And it is because he was never honored as a veteran with a proper burial. And we talked about this on one of our earlier podcasts a little bit with Lenae Stovers and Dennis Allen. And we talked about me receiving a flag uh for the proper burial for Joseph's Chedester.
John:I I'm glad you cleared that up because I was really worried that people were gonna think we literally had Joseph Chedester sitting in our library. No, we do not have that. He actually never had any part of Joseph Chedester, only his flag and only his flag and his dog text.
Kathleen:So what had happened, John, is that after he died, his ashes were found a hundred and some years later in a funeral home in Iowa.
John:Well he and and he was a member of the the Union Army, the G A R. That's correct. Um and fought in the Civil War. Right. And then after he lived his life after the war with his wife. Right.
Kathleen:Then um he passed, and then Years later, yes, as in way a hundred years later, they found his ashes. And they had never been buried in the cemetery, but they were at a funeral home.
John:And this was l this is where Lenae came in.
Kathleen:This is where Lenae comes in. She has the final salute out of Des Moines, Iowa area. And this is um her project where she wants to uh properly honor all of these veterans that have never been properly buried or honored for their service.
John:So and you got involved with the final salute in Iowa, and how did that happen, just to recap.
Kathleen:I'm not totally sure because all I got was a phone call from Dennis Allen asking me if I would accept the flag of the Civil War veteran.
John:That's usually where the uh trouble starts, is a phone call from Dennis Allen.
Kathleen:That's where all my troubles start. A phone call from Dennis Allen out of Iowa. And so Dennis had been working with Lenae, and he really wanted me to be the person to receive the flag. We of course we know Dennis very well through genealogy and through military records. And he knows that my love is military records. So he thought this would be not only an honor to me, but would be proper until perhaps Joseph Chettester's family was ever found.
John:So you received the flag via the final salute and uh posted images from it. It was such an honor. It really was an honor. I think, and all the people that we met up there were just really remarkable individuals who were receiving flags, none of them quite held as long as Chettesters, but some from World War II. World War I. And World War I being handed over to family.
Kathleen:I think actually all of the branches were represented. And I believe in that particular ceremony that year, every major war was represented from the Civil War forward. Wow. And I had the oldest, but the others were represented mostly by family. But they did not have Joseph Chedester's family identified, and so they asked for me to be his surrogate at that celebration, and it was great.
John:Did you think that was gonna be the end of the story with receiving that flag when you when you and Dennis first talked about this?
Kathleen:I always told Dennis that this flag needs to be with the family. I did not do the research, uh the historical or genealogical rest research for Joseph Chattister, but what my goal was that the flag and the honors and the dog tag would all be returned to the family itself once located. So that I think it would be sooner or later. I kind of hope. Right. But I you never know. And John, as you know, I was ready to put it in the will and the in our in our will and everything because I wanted it to be returned to the family and not sold on eBay upon our death.
John:When when this somebody comes in to collect our stuff, yeah, so it just gets shuffled off to another shelf in another place. Right. Yeah. One of the things I've noticed is a lot of people get really emotional about the work of the groups like The Final Salute. Why do you think that is?
Kathleen:Because it's a huge part of American history, right? These are people who are undervalued, they are willing to give their life for the service of our nation. And I just think that the family members, especially, they didn't know this person. But it's nice to have that good humanitarian part of all of us that is being shown through our veterans.
John:Now that we're kind of caught up. How did you get the update call that says, hey, guess what? We have we have found family. How how did that happen?
Kathleen:Okay, so once again it was Dennis Allen caused into trouble.
John:My point.
Kathleen:He was here in Kansas City at the Midwest Genealogy Center, and he received a call from Lenae in Iowa saying that these people, these two women, cousins, were direct descendants of Joseph Chettester. Now Lanay had gotten a call from the cemetery where the cousins had just shown up and said, We hear that our second great grandfather is buried here. And they knew immediately when they said Civil War that it was Chedester and called Linet. Lanay called Dennis, verifying the information, and after Dennis spoke with them, he called me.
John:Okay, so that's happenstance and lucky breaks as far as that goes. What what's something about acquiring and accessing military records you think would be valuable for everyone researching military to understand? Because you can't always count on having a Dennis Allen in the right spot at the right time or a Lene Stovers making phone calls at the right time in the right place.
Kathleen:So this is a two-part answer, John.
John:Okay.
Kathleen:The first part is to get the full military records, not just service information, not just basic. Of course, the not-for-profits are under a stri very strict deadline of we're having the celebration, we need to just get what we can get. But as for family, they need to get a full military records as they are. Now, as you know, cheap plug, I am already in volume one writing a military book about our soldiers and their stories and how to tell them and how to research them. These kind of guidelines, just like this volume one book that will be coming out soon, that is actually helping people find all the steps in order to verify more about that veteran ancestor. These people were very transient. They migrated from everywhere. Joseph was originally from Missouri, ended up in California, came back to Missouri, the Kansas City area, ended up deceased in Des Moines, Iowa. So all of this information you would not know unless you followed all the records.
John:All the military records.
Kathleen:Mostly military, but that goes with our newspapers, our obituaries, our pension records, land records.
John:So building that full profile and going for the full military records as opposed to what, like a muster list or exactly. Okay, so it really is it's kind of your rules anyway, of full data collection. Don't trust anything that's secondhand. Find all the originals and the full files so you know how to track these brick walls down. You are so cute. I feel like kissing you. You listen to your wife and everything. I do on on on this, on this one particular one particular item, right? Okay, so I I have uh let me play this clip, and I want to get your thoughts afterwards about the handover, and I think it's uh to uh uh Barbara Aker and Carol Woosley, second great granddaughters. That's correct, John. Okay. Thank you. Yes. Second great granddaughters of Joseph Chattister, who finally sees it.
Kathleen:And I believe it's the second.
John:Okay.
Kathleen:That's absolutely a wonderful clip. Sean, the cousins were very grateful at that program. And also had had wonderful news coverage in the Des Moines, Iowa, and you can see that online where they filmed the entire program and interviewed all of us. And that was for Veterans Day.
John:So I know most of the time you send off your final reports and you don't get to see a client's reaction. I mean, obviously they call you back sometimes and you talk about it, uh, but you don't really get to get that initial reaction to the information they receive. So what was it like to witness this?
Kathleen:This was like very exciting to me because it was the full circle that we went from the ancestor to the descendant, and then the descendant being able to rejoice over the findings of their ancestors. So seriously, it was a real true connection that went full circle. And I don't get to see that often. And so when I the few times that I have where the client is just overwhelmed with receiving something from their ancestors, especially a military artifact or any information or honor, that is a connection that they will never forget and they hopefully will share with their families.
John:So m it's it must be rewarding. I mean, from a standpoint of genealogy. Um a lot of times that's just the when you think about digging through records and stacks and accumulating data, and that's so much of what we talk about. But really the true value is in the revelations and and I mean these personal experiences.
Kathleen:Every soldier has a story, and this is a wonderful way for the genealogists to get that reward. Is you reveal the story of that soldier, but you also see the family's reaction. And that is always a lovely thing. I mean, it's like even going to a reunion. You get to experience the family's reactions, which you don't get enough of, actually. But it's it's wonderful when you see their smiles and the way their faces light up. And from a genealogist's standpoint, that is the biggest reward.
John:Well, congratulations, you made it to the end of another episode. Thanks so much for staying. Thanks to Dennis and Chris and Lene and everyone at the Final Salute who worked so hard on getting Joseph Chettister the send-off he deserved. Thanks to Chewie Chewbacca Brandt for his unwavering lack of interest in anything we're doing. The theme song for Hittin't the Bricks was written and performed by Tony Fisknuckle and the man from Utopia. Watch for the next appearance at the Waka Jawaka next to the Thingfish. Do you have a genealogical question for Kathleen? Drop us a line at hitting the bricks at gmail.com and let us know.
