Family History
On the maternal family line, Susan Lakas Frazier (aka Susie Frazier, formerly Susie Frazier Mueller) is the great great grand daughter of Sydney Denise Barkalow, the co-founder of the 60-year Barkalow Brothers railroad newstand business.
(Photo by Craig Craker published here.)
He was the grandfather of Susie’s grandmother Caroline Barkalow Lakas, who shared Susie's birthday of August, 21st, only decades apart by exactly 55 years. The Barkalow Brothers were known for securing the first exclusive contract with the train operators to provide passengers with newspapers and educational materials like photographic post cards through all their depot stations and on the trains themselves. Although they sold all sorts of supplies for the long journey out West, the Barkalow Brothers, essentially created one of America's very first news networks.
Coming from a long line of artists on her maternal side, Susie's great grandfather, Edmund John Lakas, was a commercial artist and illustrator who contributed to the corporate identity and employee communications of the Public Service Company of Colorado (PSCo), a precursor to Xcel Energy. Original drawings or records of his work are housed within the Public Service Company of Colorado records at the Denver Public Library’s Western History and Genealogy collection. The legacy of artist Edmund John Lakas is that his hand drawn illustrations often depicted the infrastructure, personnel, and daily operations of the company during an era of significant utility expansion in Colorado. Susie's second cousin on her maternal side, Hugh Alexander, is also a celebrated artist of trains, cars and airplanes, who spent 24 years of his life teaching drawing and painting techniques to thousands of college students at Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design, receiving Teacher of the Year awards several times.
On the paternal family line, Susie Frazier is the great, great, niece to James Lewis Frazier (after which her father, James Lewis Frazier II, was named), who was one of the first General Superintendents and railway managers in America. James Lewis Frazier was involved in the construction and operations for the Chesapeake, Ohio & Southwestern Railroads as early as the 1870s, and became Superintendent by 1884. According to family records, in 1889, he was sent to Southern Pacific Railway where he became Superintendent, then General Manager of the Toledo, St. Louis, Western Railways, and finally General Manager of the California Northern in San Francisco before he died in February 28, 1914.
Susie Frazier’s paternal grandfather, Irvin Frazier, was the nephew of James Lewis Frazier and the grandson of William Frazier, of Saunton, Virginia, a Virginia state legislator who served in both the House of Delegates and Senate representing Augusta County and Susan Massie Lewis, of the sixth line of descendants from John Lewis, founder of Augusta County and Staunton, Virginia.
In 1985, Ivrin Frazier and his collaborators Mark W. Cowell Jr and Lewis F. Fisher published The Family of John Lewis, Pioneer, which contains 400 pages, 53 illustrations, 5 maps, and an extensive bibliography representing Irvin Frazier’s vastly-enlarged data on 9,200 descendants of John and Margaret Lynn Lewis, prominent first setters of Augusta County and the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia before, during, and immediately after The American Revolution.
According to Irvin Frazier, the Lewis family, "blazed records of achievements which have been expanded by every generation into the present time, even though many descendants no longer bear the Lewis surname."
This photo below shows some of the Lewis Family records handed down from Irvin Frazier to his granddaughter, Susie Frazier. Susie captured her grandfather's typed explanations on the back of each image, and pasted them into this image here.
The description in the lower right corner, taped to the back of print, was typed by Irvin for his granddaughter, Susie, to read:
"The painting of MARGARET LYNN LEWIS (A in our Lewis line). This is a reproduction of an 18th Century miniature oil painting, which measures only 2.25" x 4". It is the only known authentic portrait of our ancestors dating that far back. It was owned by WILLIAM LEWIS (AD), her son, when he lived at the Sweet Springs, VA. His grandson, COL. WILLIAM LYNN LEWIS (ADDAA), built the manor house, "Lynnside" which still stands there. In 1864, during the Civil War, this home was raided by Union Soldiers. Many of the prized possessions, including this miniature, had been buried on the grounds, and thus were spared. When the painting was recovered later, it was passed down in the family to Col. Lewis' daughter, SUSAN MASSIE LEWIS (not my grandmother, who also had that name). This Susan M. Lewis married COL. ALFRED FREDERICKS. She passed the miniature along to her granddaughter, who through marriage became MARGARET LYNN WOODVILLE CANNON. In 1967 she was living in Boston, Mass., and in anticipation of her early death she presented the miniature to Miss Patricia Burton, well known as an historian of early events in Virginia and West Virginia. Miss Burrton has provided us with prints of the picture, and has approved our use of them in family histories." – I.F.
For the living family members, like Susie Frazier, who was only 15 years old when she received her hardbound copy of her grandfather's history book, these records have always meant something important to her. In the package, she also received newspaper clippings, and his "Bridging The Gap" manuscript, which helped to connect Irvin Frazier's personal life to the family history of the generations of Lewis Family descendants before him.
Included was a poster-sized genealogical chart with Susie's birth name, Susan Lakas Frazier, listed alongside her sister and all their cousins connecting them directly back to the Lewis Family of the 1730s.
PLEASE NOTE:
Due to many factors related to media archives being lost, gentrification of neighborhoods, and the state of live music, it has become clear that cultural histories of artists, musicians, and venue operators are at risk of being lost forever. Because of this, Susie Frazier is interested in opening a dialogue with any individual or organization interested in preserving early pioneer heritage as it relates to railroads, live music, and the living artists of our time.
Susie Frazier refers to her relatives as "some of the most resilient people," for different reasons. "I am so grateful to be able to familiarize myself with true historical events as seen through the eyes of my family members. I know it meant everything to my grandfather to record every single one of our family members, so they would all be included in our country's official historical record."
After Irvin Frazier died at the age of 90, his friend and publishing collaborator, Lewis Fisher, issued a notice through The Recorder Times. In it, Fisher stated:
"In 1962, Mr. Frazier was a featured speaker at the dedication of the monument to John Lewis in Gypsy Hill Park. His lifelong interest in the genealogy of the Lewis family culminated with the publication in hardback in 1985 of the "The Family of John Lewis, Pioneer," which traces more than 9,000 John Lewis descendants through ten generations." - Lewis Fisher
In Susie Frazier's collection of documents from her grandfather, Irvin Frazier, include a preserved copy of the program from the John Lewis memorial dedication, featuring the interior page where Irvin's remarks delivered about his family were first published. For family members, he also assembled booklets featuring his comments on all the historical records he had been pouring through, including the Diary of Margaret Lynn Lewis.
