Black Sheep Sunday: Falling Off the Wagon

Lately I’ve been working with a distant cousin to explore my Erickson roots.  (My mother was an Erickson.)  Recently I told the story of Great Grandpa Karl Erickson’s farm that became a church; this story is about Karl’s father, John Erickson.  He fell off the wagon—both figuratively and, at the end of his life, literally.

John Erickson was born Johann Erichson in Mecklenburg, Germany in 1838.  He came to America in 1868 with his wife Caroline and their two sons, Johann and Karl, on the clipper ship “Electric.”  I’ve seen a drawing of the ship, and it looks so romantic in the picture!  But in reality, crossing the sea in a sailing ship in steerage class was more like a nightmare.  I should write about that some other time.

The 1870 census finds John and Caroline living in Will County, Illinois with their two young sons and Mary Erickson, 73 (likely John’s mother).  John is a farmer with a couple of cows, according to the agricultural schedule.  He doesn’t own land and he is not yet a citizen, but he was naturalized in 1876—almost as soon as he could have been, since the waiting period was five years at the time.

John’s wife Caroline died in 1872, when the boys were thirteen and eleven.  Could that be when John’s life started to unravel?  By the 1880 census, both boys were working as farmhands on other farms, and John is nowhere to be found in the census.  He remarried around 1882, to the longsuffering Sophia Schultz, ten years his junior.  By the 1900 census John and Sophia are living in a rented house and he is a day laborer—tough work for a man in his sixties! 

By 1908, when John was 70, things had gotten bad.  The Joliet Herald News ran a short article on October 26 entitled “Sons Cited to Give Support to Father.”  Apparently John Jr. and Karl were called before a judge and asked why their homeless father was about to be declared a pauper by the courts, when he had two perfectly healthy adult sons who could support him.  The October 27 edition reported that “John Erickson Sr… for whom a petition was filed to have him declared a pauper, will be given a home with his son John, and another son will contribute to his support.”  The end of the story?  Not by a long shot.

The very next day, the October 28 Joliet Weekly News fed the flames by publishing a shocking exposé about “John Erickson, the aged Romeoville resident who with his wife were alleged to have had to sleep on the island at Romeo, driven forth into the cold by an unnatural son.”  The story went on to indicate that “the elder Erickson was a hard-working man, deserving of success, and his sons, though wealthy, denied him financial assistance.”

Two weeks later on November 9, the Joliet Weekly News was singing a different tune.  This time the headline said this:  “Aged Romeo Man Booze Victim – John Erickson’s Sons Not Heartless as Reported.” 

The story went on to say, “The father, it appears, is a victim of drink and had been living in a house belonging to the Romeo saloonkeeper.  He had worked a little garden and this, together with his earnings as an occasional worker in the neighborhood, and the efforts of his wife at washing, had supported them.  For twenty years, however, the old man’s surplus had gone for drink and in the evening of life when [his] earning capacity had been… ruined by alcohol, he became a dependent.”

John Jr. and Karl were exonerated.  “The old man’s sons were cast adrift at 15 to shift for themselves, never seeing their father except when in liquor…   When the old gentleman was without a home, he was taken care of on the farm [of one son] several miles west of Romeo.  The farm was so far from the saloons, though, that it was not satisfactory to the old gentleman… The rest of the story is known.  He was found on the island with his aged wife and all parties suffered the humiliation that booze had brought, not only to the old man, but to the family.”

Two years later at the 1910 census John and Sophia are living in a rented house and he is a “garden laborer.”   Perhaps the saloonkeeper allowed him to move back into his little house.

John managed to live to the age of eighty, but his luck ran out in November 1918.  I wondered if he died in the influenza epidemic—but when I ordered his death certificate, it told a different story.  John died of “shock and injuries” resulting from “falling from a wagon.”  He was buried at Lace Cemetery in Lemont, Illinois, in an unmarked grave.

Black Sheep Sunday: The Greedy Priest

 

Well, now—it seems that my latest client is not the only one with a black sheep in the family!   After I posted “Inlaws and Outlaws” recently, blog reader Arlene sent in the story of her great-uncle, a priest who apparently didn’t take a vow of poverty.

Father Peter Gaborski (name changed to protect a certain elderly relative who might have a stroke if she knew about this) was a priest in a Lithuanian Catholic church in Chicago, Illinois.  The story opens in 1935, when an elderly man within Father Peter’s sphere of influence died.  The elderly man lived in a local flophouse—but as it turned out, he was no pauper.  He had sixteen bank accounts initially estimated at upwards of $90,000—which in today’s dollars would be equal to something like $1.5 million.  Later estimates more than doubled that number.

The man had a shady past, and according to a newspaper account (Alton Evening Telegraph, 3-7-1935), “Although he possessed a fortune, the ex-convict, James Thomas Kelly, 62, preferred to live in a west side flophouse at 25 cents a day.”  The proprietor of the flophouse, a Mrs. Butnam, figured out that her tenant was not the pauper he appeared to be.  She moved him from his 25-cent room (a price he had negotiated down from 35 cents) to her own home after she discovered that he was wealthy.  She then teamed up with an attorney and several others to draft a phony will.  In it, Mrs. Butnam became Mr. Kelly’s common-law wife, to whom he left nearly all his considerable worldly goods. 

Witnesses were needed—and that’s where Father Peter comes into the picture. The article goes on to say that there were two “witnesses” to the phony will—“Peter Gaborski, 48, who described himself as a priest and is a painter by profession, and John Dallyde, 54. The witnesses, police said, confessed participation in the plot, admitting that they signed the purported will after the death of Kelly.  They were to receive $100 each for their signatures.”

The undertaker also got in on the action, apparently to make sure his bill (an inflated $4,500 for a $98 coffin) was paid…  Altogether six people conspired to relieve Mr. Kelly of his estate.  But the forgery must not have been a good one; as the will worked its way through probate court, suspicion of foul play was strong enough that poor Mr. Kelly’s body was exhumed!  The Decatur Herald (3-9-1935) says that “Dr. Jerome Kearns, who examined the exhumed body, reported that Kelly did not die of cancer as the death certificate stated, but further examination will be necessary to establish the death cause.”  I’m not sure what came of that—but another article (Decatur Herald, 3-11-1935) said that Mr. Kelly—known in various newspaper headlines as the “Mysterious Miser,” the “Wealthy Hobo”, and the “Flophouse Midas of Madison Street”—was not the first lodger to die suspiciously under Mrs. Butnam’s care, and that toxicology tests were being run to see if Mr. Kelly had poison in his system.

Other beneficiaries included the attorney who drafted the will, who was to receive 6% of the estate, and the undertaker’s assistant, who was left 4%.  So, let’s review:  The landlady, the attorney, the undertaker, and the undertaker’s assistant, all beneficiaries of this man’s will…  Imagine that not raising red flags to a probate judge!

The two witnesses were the first to crack and confess to police, and after that, the plot unraveled quickly.  By May of 1935, all six were convicted on forgery and conspiracy charges.  According to the Valparaiso Vidette-Messenger (5-9-1935), the landlady, the attorney, the undertaker, the undertaker’s assistant, and the two witnesses to the phony will each received a sentence of one year in jail.

So here’s hoping that Father Peter learned his lesson…  I’m guessing he did a lot more painting, and a lot less preaching, after this affair. 

Black Sheep Sunday: Inlaws and Outlaws

I’ve been working on a project lately, for my first client from the great state of Alaska.  No ancestry binder for this client—it’s all being done online—just growin’ an online tree. 

And I am telling you, this tree is a gold mine!  I have never seen a tree so rich with information…  His ancestors were in the United States so far back in time, on so many branches of his tree, that researching it is like Ancestry Disneyland!  One of my favorite finds has been his Aunt Maggie and Uncle John.

I was tracing a line on his maternal side and came a across a great-great-grandfather who has my favorite name in this tree—Willis Woody Corn.  Willis and his wife had a number of children, including Mary Elizabeth, my client’s great-grandmother.  But Mary Elizabeth had a sister—Maggie—with an interesting story. 

Maggie was born May 15, 1885 in Kerrville, Texas, the seventh of ten children of Willis Woody Corn and Susannah Covey Corn.  The 1900 census tells us that by the time she was fifteen, the family had moved to Bonito, New Mexico (now under 75 feet of water because of the Bonito Canyon Dam), where her daddy was a farmer.

Somewhere around this time, she met John Franklin Greer.  According to a biography by C.W. Barnum on nmahgp.genealogyvillage.com, John had just come from Pecos, Texas, tarrying there after his family moved to New Mexico to close up his father’s hardware store.  He also kept busy working on his gambling skills—which became his chosen career path.

John left Pecos in a hurry after a gambling dispute led to gunfire.  Two angry card players followed him from Texas towards New Mexico Territory, but he ambushed and killed them both along the way.  He arrived in Bonito soon afterwards, and began a life of gambling in the boom towns in the area.  Somehow he and Maggie met.

Maggie was married to John at the tender age of sixteen, in January 1902.  Ten months later she had the first of their six children—four daughters and then two sons over the next eight years.  Perhaps life was reasonably quiet for those years, although I wouldn’t bet the farm on it.

After some trouble that resulted in a shootout in the spring of 1910, John headed for El Paso, Texas, where he graduated to robbing trains with his brothers and his friend John Gates, who were known as the Greer Gang.  He hid out in Mexico for a while (even joining the Mexican Army of Revolution).  Eventually he ended up back in New Mexico, where he resumed his career of robbing trains.  But when he walked into the jail in Deming where his friend John Gates was being held, stuck a gun Sheriff Dwight Stephens’ face, and freed his friend, the end was near.  Sheriff Stephens formed a posse and a week later, he cornered the Greer Gang in a steep canyon called Sandy Draw.  John walked out and pretended to surrender, then shot both his pistols from the hip, killing two deputies.  Moments later he was dead in a hail of gunfire at age 30.  The inscription on his grave says “beloved son.”  Was he also a “beloved husband and father”?

From what I can see, Maggie didn’t remarry for twenty years.  Why was that?  Was she grieving for her husband?  Was she afraid of getting her heart broken again?  Or was she just fed up with men?  At any rate, in 1932 she and Clyde Lee Thompson were married in Hurley, New Mexico.

Clyde passed away in 1940.  Maggie died in 1945 and is buried next to him at Memory Lane Cemetery in Silver City, New Mexico.

Photos:  truewestmagazine.com, stevenloeffler on findagrave, and myra0014 on findagrave.

Remembering Bruce

Lately I’ve been thinking about my only brother, Bruce.  He would have been 57 this week, had he not died of alcohol-related heart failure thirteen years ago.

Bruce and our sister and I grew up in a typical middle-class home of the 1950s and 1960s.  But Bruce was especially gifted in many ways.  He was big and strong from the time he was very young—75 pounds of brawn by the time he started first grade!  The first college football scout to notice him said to my father, when Bruce was just five, “If your boy plays football, I’d love to see that kid when he’s eighteen.”

And Bruce was athletic.  As he grew older, he excelled in every sport he tried—baseball, basketball, track and field…  But when it came time to choose one sport, it was football.  By his senior year in high school, he was a star.

Bruce was also very smart.  And good-looking.  And he lived in a stable Christian home, where college was a ‘given’ and the money was there to make it happen.  But he fell in with a wild crowd, where drinking and smoking and drugs were the norm, and he was the leader of the pack.  Bruce was also what would have been called “high strung”—and I think he inherited the tendency towards depression that runs in the males of our family.  And like many before him, substance abuse was his form of self-medicating.  At least, that’s what my sister and I theorized in long, late-night conversations, years later, on the topic of “what on earth happened to Bruce?”

So he grew up, married, had two daughters…  He somehow finished college (with honors), but drifted from job to job.  His marriage fell apart.  He tried to raise his two daughters, but their grandparents did most of the heavy lifting, while Bruce drifted along in a fog…  But as the years went by, the fog was much preferable to the loud, obnoxious, domineering, hot-tempered person he was when he was sober.  All of us spent less and less time with him.  Towards the end, I felt his hatred enough that I often felt unsafe, and looked over my shoulder when I walked from my garage to my back door.  (Later, after his death, more than one relative told me that my fears for my life were not unfounded.)

So the week of his funeral, we cried.  Not because we would miss him—but because our hearts broke for his wasted potential…  for the two daughters he had failed in many ways…  for what he could have been.

And the years went by—his grave unmarked and his life mostly unmourned.  Thinking about him, remembering him, was painful... 

But lately, I’ve begun to remember the boy I grew up with.  I recall the little guy who had a bit of a temper even then…  If any of us aggravated him to the point of retaliation, he would use the worst bad word he knew—he would call the offender (get ready for it) a “poo poo pie.”

I remember the little brother who, big and strong as he was, was never a bully—but rather, always stood up for the weak.  One time when he was about twelve, he was sent to the principal’s office for fighting, and our dad was called.  It turned out that one of the other boys in his class had a mother who regularly had “nervous breakdowns” and spent time in the local mental hospital.  The other boys were making fun of the kid on the playground, and Bruce stepped in to make sure that didn’t happen any more.

When he was in eighth grade, I came home after school one day and Bruce was in bed—his face beaten to a pulp, almost unrecognizable.  It turned out some gangbanger-wannabes were hassling a girl at his school.  He faced them down and told them to leave her alone.  A few moments later they jumped him from behind and knocked him down and out…  But I don’t think he ever had regrets for standing up for the helpless, no matter what the cost.

I remember the outstanding scholar he was.  Schoolwork was nearly effortless for him.  (I’m pretty sure he had a photographic memory like our father did, and like one of his daughters.)  His seventh grade math teacher put it well, in a parent-teacher conference:  “It really bugs me that I have to give Bruce A’s, when I know perfectly well that he does his homework leaned up against a locker five minutes before class!”

Everyone remembers the outstanding athlete he was.  The week he died, we got a note from Neal Ormond, who announced the West Aurora football games on the radio during the years Bruce played (three years of varsity).  Twenty-five years later, Mr. Ormond still remembered his pleasure in announcing Bruce’s plays on the field. 

I was away at college all three years that Bruce played varsity football, and I’d never seen him play.  So for his last game, the great crosstown rivalry of East Aurora vs. West Aurora in the fall of 1975, I flew home in a small chartered plane to see him play—and it was worth it.  West Aurora had lost every single game of Bruce’s senior year, in spite of his heroic efforts every Friday night.  But that night, Bruce ran the only touchdown of the game into the end zone—and then scored the extra points.  West Aurora won, 8 to 3. 

Bruce never played college football—he was too troubled by then, and burned out, and he became a father not long after high school.  But oh, the memories!…  Our dad kept a scrapbook of it all.

So now I choose to remember not the rude, abrasive, menacing alcoholic of the later years—but the boy I grew up with.  The person he could have been.  The person God meant for him to be.  I think it’s time I had a grave marker made for my little brother—he deserves that.  Bruce, I hope you found peace.  I think I finally have.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

One year later - a postscript:

I recently purchased this marble grave marker for my brother.  When the weather improves here in Illinois, I'll go out to the cemetery and see about having it mounted on a cement base.  It's a step in the right direction.

Another postscript, this one from spring 2017:

Black Sheep Sunday: Philip Wyatt and His Three Elizabeths

My sister-in-law Susie has some interesting ancestors.  I’ve written about two of them before—sisters Anna Grimm Wyatt and Eva Grimm Wyatt.  Going back further in time, I discovered Philip Paul Wyatt—Susie’s great-great grandfather—who had three wives named Elizabeth, and seems to have been something of a wanderer.

Philip was born in Somerset, England, in 1821.  His father was a successful farmer who had eight children with his first wife, Susanna:  James (we’ll get back to him later), our boy Philip, Mary, Susanna, William, Joan, Rhoda (who kept a diary that survived), and Elizabeth. 

Philip was first married in England in 1844, to Elizabeth Quick.  The marriage record lists him as a “bachelor” and her as a “spinster”—in other words, first marriage for both.  Philip was a butcher by trade.  Soon they had a son named Mark John Quick Wyatt, born in 1845. 

Philip and his first Elizabeth were separated by 1848, and Philip was on his way to America.  What caused Philip to abandon his family—or did Elizabeth flee her husband?  Or perhaps she didn’t want to go to America?  In the 1851 English census, Elizabeth and her five-year-old son are living as lodgers in someone else’s home.  Her son Mark later emigrated to Australia, where his descendants can still be found.   (I’ve corresponded with one.)

Anyway, in July 1848 Philip’s name is found on a ship passenger list, arriving in New York City on the ship “Robert Peel.”  On the same ship, listed right after Philip, are George and Elizabeth Towils and their young son John—the same Elizabeth who would become Philip’s second wife. 

Philip and Elizabeth Rockett Towils were married two years later, in 1850.  (I wonder if Philip had a legal divorce from his first wife?)  They had four sons in the 1850s—Edward, Albert, Walter, and Adolphus—and also raised Betsy’s son John.   

The family didn’t stay in one place for long…  In the 1850 census their residence is Albion, New York, where Philip worked as a butcher.  By 1860 they lived in Terre Haute, Indiana with their sons—but seven-year-old Albert was born in Kentucky, so they most likely lived there after they left New York but before they came to Indiana, where their younger sons were born.

They didn’t tarry long in Indiana.  The 1866 Oshkosh City Directory lists Philip as a butcher on Ferry Street.  The 1868 Oshkosh directory lists him, surprisingly, as a “hop grower.”  What happened to the butcher shop?

In 1870 the family appears in the census records twice!  In January they were enumerated with all five sons in St. Joseph, Missouri—a popular layover point for those planning to head west in the spring.  Then in August they were enumerated in San Jose, California.  Philip is now a “brewer” and their oldest two boys are farm laborers.  (Stepson John had struck out on his own by then.)

But they must not have stayed long in California.  An 1875 newspaper ad which ran in the Terre Haute “Saturday Evening Mail” said this:  “For the finest roasts—the tenderest steaks—the juiciest chops—the nicest cutlets—the best breakfast bacon—the choicest meat of all kinds, go to Phil Wyatt, the well known English Butcher, who makes a specialty of this business.”

Philip’s second wife Elizabeth died in Indiana in 1877, of “chronic inflammation of the stomach,” according to her obituary, after being quite ill for three years.  Her obituary also contains this startling information:  “In accordance with the English custom Mrs. Wyatt requested that her body be kept for some time.  Her mother’s corpse was not interred until 16 days after death.”  The obit also says, “During all of her terrible sickness, Mrs. Wyatt displayed rare womanly fortitude.”  (Apparently fortitude was rare in women at that time.)

Philip soon moved on to Chicago.  In the 1880 census he is a widower aged sixty who lives with his son Albert and family (as do Philip’s other three sons).  Ten people in a Chicago apartment—it must have been tight quarters!  Philip is a butcher, and all four of his sons work in a butcher shop. 

Philip didn’t remain a widower for long.  His brother James, an attorney back in Somerset, England, had a fiancé there—a wealthy spinster named Elizabeth Paull.  By 1881 Philip was living back in Somerset and he married his brother’s sweetheart there—making her Philip’s third Elizabeth.  On the marriage record, Philip states that he is a “cattle seller.”

Somehow, Philip ended up separated from this third Elizabeth, back in America, and living in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, perhaps to be closer to his sisters.  Philip died of “brain paralysis” in 1892 in Oshkosh.  His obituary in the Oshkosh “Daily Northwestern” says that he “ran a meat market on Main Street for some time but subsequently sold it.”  There must have been bad blood between Elizabeth the Third and Philip’s four sons, because there were legal squabbles over land and property that went on at least through 1895.

So let’s summarize:  Philip lived in England, New York, Kentucky, Indiana, Wisconsin, Missouri, California, Indiana, Chicago, England, and Wisconsin… that I know of.

English author Patricia Wendorf wrote a historical novel entitled “Double Wedding Ring” about Philip’s sister, Rhoda, based on Rhoda’s diaries.  The author changed the last name of the family to Graypaull, but kept the first names of all of the Wyatt siblings—except for Philip, whom she renamed “Mark” in her book.  Rhoda’s diary had much to say about her brother’s money problems and irresponsible, wandering ways.  Perhaps the author was afraid of Philip’s offended descendants sending hate mail…  But what fun is a family without a few black sheep in it?

Black Sheep Sunday: Josephine Carriveau

My husband’s grandmother, Eliza Carriveau Mosey, was one of a large family of French-Canadians.  I have discovered plenty of good stories in that family that beg to be investigated and told.  This one is about Eliza’s older sister Josephine, shown here at age sixteen in a much-repaired photograph.

Josephine Carriveau was born in Huron County, Michigan in 1879.  She was one of eight surviving children of Laurent (Larry) and Eugenie (Annie) Corriveau, who spelled their name “Carriveau” after coming to Michigan from Quebec. 

Josephine married very young, as did several of her sisters.  Her husband-to-be was a widower named Michael Legue, who also went by the alias “Mitchell Labute.”  He was a Civil War veteran and 42 years her senior!—he was 58 when they married, and she was just 16.  They were married in 1896 and Josephine had her first child that same year—a daughter who died.

About 1908 Michael’s young nephew, Andrew Scram, joined the family.  Andrew was a 38-year-old widower—closer to Josephine’s age.  He had been married to a woman named Clara Smith, and they had three children together.  According to family sources, Clara was found dead in a field near their home with a shotgun by her side—an apparent suicide.  Andrew parceled out the three children; one went to a relative and the other two were taken in by a neighbor (one of those two died as in infant, but the other survived to adulthood).

In the 1910 census we see Andrew, a sailor, living with Uncle Michael and Aunt Josephine—and he must have settled in well, because there he is again in the 1920 census, and again in 1930.   Josephine continued to have children throughout this period, even as her husband grew older…  Michael was 85 when she had her last child, Albert, in 1922.  This picture shows Josephine and her husband Michael in 1927.

Josephine, according to the 1940 census, had only a second grade education.  I heard this story from her granddaughter Diana:  “Grandma Josephine did not understand the monetary system, such as that one 10-dollar bill has the same value as ten 1-dollar bills.  She sold a cow one time for $40 and the man handed her four $10 bills.  Grandma thought he was trying to cheat her and refused to take it.  She wanted forty $1 bills.  Fortunately for Grandma,  he took the time and effort to drive to the bank, exchange the four $10’s for forty $1 bills, and drive back.  At that point she was happy and the sale took place.”

Michael Legue died in 1930, and Andrew and Josephine lived together as man and wife after that, for the next 33 years.  Family sources tell me that they remember Andrew well—the two of them are shown in this photo, with one of Josephine’s sons  and a grandchild—and  Uncle Andrew was always called “Uncle Happy” within the family. 

Andrew died in 1963 and was buried with his wife Clara.  Josephine died in 1965 and was buried with her husband Michael.

The Roving Reverend

Even a “man of the cloth” can be a black sheep...  Consider the case of Rev. George Washington Hays.

I used to be church historian at the church where I grew up.   One summer I decided to read all the board minutes, starting at the beginning—1858.  Not far into the project, my eyes were drawn to the word “alcoholic”— and I knew I had a story.   

Rev. Hays was born in Macomb, Illinois in 1837, son of a physician.  He was educated at Maryland College, then Princeton Theological Seminary after he gave up the study of law to prepare for the ministry. 

After finishing up at McCormick Seminary, he got his first pastorate—First Presbyterian Church in Aurora, Illinois, shown in this drawing—in 1863.  It wasn’t long before he married Elizabeth Hannah, daughter of a prosperous local merchant and church board member.  And it wasn’t long after that that the previously healthy Elizabeth suddenly died.

Biographical sketches from his days at Princeton and McCormick, along with ancestry.com, got me this far.  This is where the board minutes come into play. 

In June 1866 Elizabeth’s father stopped attending church.  He was warned by the board not to shirk his duty and to stop circulating reports that the pastor had a hand in Elizabeth’s death.  A hearing took place, pitting the pro-father forces against the pro-pastor forces.  In three days of testimony, the father accused the pastor of drunkenness, refusing to allow a doctor to see Elizabeth, hoping she would die—and giving her a double dose of morphine to speed the process.  (The attending doctor was another church elder, who left the church shortly after Elizabeth’s death.)  The board sided with the pastor and voted 3-1 in January 1867 to suspend Elizabeth’s father until such time as he repented of his slandering, which he refused to do, so in September 1867, he was excommunicated.

Nevertheless, Rev. Hays left under a huge cloud of suspicion in 1868—“leaving the church nearly extinct, having passed through a church fight that left it depleted in numbers and burdened with debt,” so said a church historian.   But what next caught my attention was the almost gypsy-like wanderings of the reverend for the rest of his career.

In 1868 George found work at two churches in  Carroll County, Ohio, where he married a woman named Harriet; they eventually had eight children.  By 1871 they were in Saline County, Kansas.  I found out by writing to his church there that he left there in 1873 due to a scandal; the board minutes said that they debated whether to contact the authorities or allow him to leave quietly, and decided on the latter.

After that, it was on to Henry County, Iowa until 1878; then Washington County, Iowa until 1881; then Scott County, Iowa until 1883; then Black Hawk County, Iowa until 1885.   

In 1885 he settled in California and his wanderings ceased.  Did he find peace at last?  Or had he simply put enough distance between himself and whatever he was running from?  For whatever reason, George stayed nine years at one church in Sonoma County and then seven years at two more—but as “pulpit supply,” not installed pastor. 

By 1903 he retired to a farm in Sonoma County he co-owned with his brother-in-law Horace.  Harriet died about this time, and in 1916 George died in Alameda County. 

I wonder what really happened to his first wife?  And what happened in Saline County that caused him to leave Kansas altogether?  Was George  a good husband and father?  What stories survive about him in the family?  Why did he wander from place to place?  More questions than answers on this one.

Justifiable Homicide

A few years ago I did an ancestry binder for an in-law branch of the family which shall remain nameless.  I discovered the story of a genuine black sheep—George Washington Coomes, who was shot to death on September 5, 1896.

George was born in McLean County, Kentucky, on January 16, 1861.  He married Cordelia Martin in 1887; she was 17 and he was 26.  During the course of their thirteen-year marriage they had three sons. 

But all was not well.  According to a newspaper article which ran in The Messenger after his death, George “for the past few years had been leading a very fast life and gained quite an unsavory reputation.”  The paper reported that “for the past year or two, he had almost deserted his family and had been devoting all his time and attention to loose characters.”  After going out drinking with his friends, he sometimes ended up at the house of Sarah Wall, a local lady of the evening. 

As the story is told in The Messenger, George and his friends had spent that day in town, “frequenting saloons,” and later proceeded to Ms. Wall’s house of ill repute at the edge of town.  The newspaper reported that the last time he’d stopped by, he “kicked the panels out of the doors, broke up the furniture, ran the inmates off the place, and slept through the night on the front stoop.”  Ms. Wall had warned him that if he ever returned, she would kill him—and she was as good as her word.  The paper reports that when George refused to leave, even at the urging of his friends, and then made threats to her, she raised a gun, fired it, and after he fell, cocked the gun to shoot again—but he didn’t rise.   Her shotgun had torn a hole in his side as big as a man’s fist.

Sarah Wall was briefly jailed, but released on grounds of self defense.  George was buried at St. Benedict Catholic Cemetery in Beech Grove, Kentucky—or rather, he was buried adjacent to it.  It is said in the family that he could not be buried in the churchyard due to the circumstances of his death, and therefore was buried on the other side of the cemetery fence—a common custom in those days.  There was no marker.

I can’t imagine the anguish of Cordelia, losing her husband in such a public and disgraceful way.  But she remained in McLean County the rest of her life, as did two of her three sons.  In the 1900 census she and her three boys lived with her widowed mother.  By the 1910 census she and the boys were on their own again, farming.  Cordelia never remarried, and she died in 1913 at just 44 years old.  She was buried at St. Benedict’s Catholic Cemetery, too—but most likely not beside her husband.

Skeletons in the Closet

“If you cannot get rid of the family skeleton, you may as well make it dance.”

George Bernard Shaw

Whenever I research someone’s family history, whether it’s for fun or for profit, I try to find out how they feel about “skeletons in the closet” before I start.  Everyone thinks they want me to find a few—but perhaps that’s one of those things that sounds better in theory than it turns out to be in practice.

For example:  “La Corriveau,” the infamous Canadian murderess who is my husband’s second cousin six times removed…  Canada in the 1700s…  No problems there.  She is far enough away in time to be harmless, and only a cousin. 

But what about a criminal a little closer to home?  What about a great-grandfather?  How was I to tell a nice older lady that her husband’s great-grandfather, who “died suddenly” in his thirties, was actually shot to death by a prostitute?  Apparently he had been harassing her repeatedly and had a habit of kicking in her door when he got drunk on a Saturday night.  (All this was in a newspaper article about his death that I found online.)   

How about another kind of death—by taking one’s own life?  That hits close to home also.  One client had an ancestor whom she was told was a Civil War hero.  And indeed, he was, and he survived that terrible war in one piece—only to commit suicide years later (according to his death certificate, which I found online) by putting his head in an oven and turning on the gas.

How about marriages?  My most recent client knew that his father had been married once before—there were three children from the first marriage and two from the second marriage.  What he didn’t know (until I found a marriage record online) was that between the two, his father had been married a third and fourth time—before he married my client’s mother—to a woman named “Ida” and another one named “Margaret.”  My client may have half-brothers and sisters out there that he doesn’t know about!

One client knew that his mother had borne a baby out of wedlock before she married his father—a baby who didn’t survive.  What he didn’t know was that his mother abandoned the baby at an orphanage to die.  (For a dollar apiece, I got a copy of the birth and death certificates.)  The birth father’s name was listed on both documents, and I found out more about him quite easily on ancestry.com.   He wasn’t anyone my client knew—but what if he had been?  And I wonder if the birth father’s relatives and/or descendants know about this baby?

“Insane asylums”—that’s what they called them back in the day.  I’ve had more than one client who was surprised to find out that he had family members who spent time in one.  One client said, “So that’s why my great-uncle wasn’t in World War I!”…  How did I find this out?  On the man’s 1917 WWI draft card, under occupational information, authorities had stamped “Insane Patient—Gowanda State Hospital.” 

I recently discovered, after ordering a copy of her death certificate, that one of my great-aunts died of dysentery at Elgin State Mental Hospital—an infamous ‘asylum’ located near where I grew up.  That’s not the way I heard her story when I was young!

Skeletons in the closet…  Perhaps they’re highly entertaining when you find them in other people’s closets, but less so when they’re found in your own.  What do you think?

A Murder in Chicago

While researching the ancestry of my sister-in-law Susie, I came across the stories of two sisters—Anna and Eva Grimm.  I wrote about Anna previously, so now it’s her sister Eva’s turn to have her story told.

Eva Grimm was born around 1886 in Aurora, Illinois, and married her husband Albert Wyatt in 1908.  The marriage was not a match made in heaven.  Eva eventually ended up having an affair with a man she knew who lived in Chicago whose name was Herbert Conkright, and she even moved in with him for a few months one spring.  But eventually she returned to her husband Albert, although her contact with her lover continued—but not always by her choice.  When she ignored him, Herbert sometimes posed as a detective when attempting to get information about her from her family and friends.  One time, it was reported in the papers, he threatened to push her off a bridge to her death if she didn’t return to him.

The situation continued to deteriorate as she resisted his advances and threats.  Her lover could not stand the thought that she had gone back to her husband for good.  On November 14, 1920 he lured her to his boarding house in Chicago, where he fatally shot her in a fit of jealous rage, as the newspapers later reported it.  In the sensational trial held in 1921 that was splashed across the front pages of newspapers all over the Midwest and beyond and nicknamed “The Triangle Trial,” her lover was referred to as the “Fair-Haired He-Vamp.”  Many sordid details came out—including quotes from his letters to Eva, found in her husband Albert's attic—letters which were in turn endearing, threatening, and just plain creepy.  When it was all over, he was sentenced to 18 years at Joliet State Prison.

I found Eva’s grave at the same local cemetery where my parents are buried. Eva is buried in an unmarked grave, beside her mother and father. Her husband is buried elsewhere.

Another thing that speaks of the sad state of Eva and Albert's marriage: On her death certificate, Albert Wyatt gave his wife Eva’s age as “about 35” and her birth date as “unknown.” A very sad commentary on what strangers they were to each other, even after twelve years of marriage.

More posts on the Wyatts:

Anna Grimm, Double Wedding Ring, and A Daughter Remembers

Mystery Monday: George Wendell Phillips—Gone Without a Trace

One of my clients has a nagging question and I’m trying to help her answer it.  Her father never knew his father, because for some reason that has been lost to history, the man left his wife and baby daughter and disappeared into the mist, around the time his son was born in 1924. 

George Wendell Phillips was born in Salamanca, Cattaraugus County, New York on November 21, 1887, according to his WWI draft card.  The draft card gives a few more clues.  By 1917 he was 29 and living in North Tonawanda in Niagara County, New York, and working across the state border as a hotel clerk at Reed House in Erie, Pennsylvania.  He was of medium height and weight, gray eyes, and brown hair.  When asked about previous military service, he said that he had risen “from private to captain at Chamberlain Military Institute in Randolph, New York.”  The above photo was taken either during WWI or perhaps earlier, when he was at Chamberlain.

His father, who may have been named George or possibly Benjamin, was born in Wales.  But he had passed away by the 1900 census, and George’s mother Minnie is listed as a widow who has borne “2 children, 1 still living.”  This photo may be George’s parents, but we can’t be sure.

 

Somehow George met a young woman from Florida named Francis Norton, who went by the nickname “Frankie” all her life.  How the two of them found each other is part of the mystery.

George was quite close to his mother, Minnie, and after he and Frankie were married, it appears that they lived with her in New York.  And when their daughter was born in Pennsylvania a year later, George and Francis named her “Minnie.”  

Now the story gets murky…  By 1924, Francis was back in Florida, giving birth to a son who never knew his father.  How Francis went from a wife and young mother in Pennsylvania in 1921, to a single mother in Florida in 1924, is anybody’s guess.    

Francis remarried, but she had no more children.  Her son and daughter never knew anything about their father, and both of them have now passed away.  But my client, who is George and Francis’ granddaughter, found her missing grandfather’s name in an old family Bible, and she has never stopped being curious about who he was and why he left his young family.

We’ll probably never know the “why” of George Wendell Phillips’ disappearance.  But I’d surely love to tell my client what happened to him after he dropped out of sight in 1924.  Maybe someone out there knows something.

I did crack the case, with some help!

For more of the story, see this post.

Black Sheep Sunday: The Four Sons of Charles Anderson

Sometimes it’s hard to know what to believe.  I love a good skeleton in the closet as much as the next genealogist—a black sheep in the family—but this stretches the bounds of credibility.

My maternal grandmother, Clara Anderson Erickson (1892-1967), had four brothers—George, Charles, Howard, and Lester.  Grandma Erickson was a farmer’s wife—but if you scratched deeper, she was a schoolmarm, and a tough one.  Once you fell from her good graces, there was no going back, and her four brothers had taken that fall.  When Grandma died in 1967, none of her brothers were notified, because she hadn’t seen nor heard from any of them in years.  But—could all four of her brothers have been the bums she said they were?   

Clara’s father was Charles Anderson (1859-1916), whom I’ve written about before, and he was a bona fide Black Sheep.  But what about his boys?  Here is what my mother told me about her four uncles many years ago—probably repeating what her mother Clara had told her—and it is not pretty (nor is it substantiated in any way):

“I have no idea where George is. For some reason, he changed his name from Anderson to Adams—no one knows why...  Charles was married three times. The first time he married really young. After they got a divorce, neither parent wanted the two boys, so they were adopted out…  Howard left his wife and little child and never came back. His wife hid his Mason ring, and he got so mad that he left her…  Lester never married, and never worked. He lived at a shelter or mission in Joliet. He seemed to be kind of odd. Once in a while, as I was growing up, he’d walk out to see us.”

Whoa, there!  Mom didn’t paint a very flattering picture of the Anderson boys.  Could all of this possibly be true?  I’d really like to know!  If anyone out there knows anything about the four sons of Charles Anderson and Emma Hanson Anderson—good or bad—I’d love to hear about it.  Here is what I do know about them, from my own research (census records and WWI draft cards, mainly):

·       George Francis Anderson (1889-??).  Born in Lemont, Illinois, as were his brothers.  House cleaning contractor (self-employed) in 1917. 

·       Charles Grover Anderson (1893-1972).  Spouse Ruby Roberta Parker.  Chauffeur in 1917 and 1920.

·       Howard Louis Anderson (1897-??).  Stoneworker in 1917 and metal polisher in 1920.

·       Lester Michael Anderson (1900-??).  Laundry worker in 1917.

Can anyone out there set the record straight and save the reputation of this family? 

Black Sheep Sunday: Charles Anderson, Boatman

"The grandson wants to remember what the father wished to forget." –anonymous

One of my great-grandfathers was a Swede named Charles Anderson (1859-1916), a boatman on the canals of northern Illinois—and he was quite a character.  Grandma never talked about him, but being a big fan of black sheep stories, especially within my own family, I think I shall.

Charles came from Sweden to Lemont, Illinois with his parents when he was nine.  In 1888 he married Emma Hanson, the daughter of the local hotelkeeper, and they had four sons and a daughter—the daughter being my grandmother, Clara.  In the 1900 census, Charles and Emma live with their four children (with another one on the way) in Lemont, next door to Charles’ parents.  Charles is a canal boat captain and they own their home. 

But all was not well… At some point Emma decided she’d had enough of Charles’ drinking (and who knows what else).  She left their daughter Clara with her parents, separated herself from Charles, took the four boys with her, and moved to Joliet. 

What a difference ten years makes!  By the 1910 census, Emma is living in Joliet and is listed as a ‘widow’ with no occupation.  Her two teenaged boys work to support the family.  Charles apparently remained in Lemont.

Lemont was a wild town then.  The city of Lemont website says this about the canal area: 

“In the 1890s, construction began on the Sanitary & Ship Canal.  The downtown area known as ‘Smokey Row’ with its bars and brothels gained notoriety as the wildest, most sinful street in the country.”

Perhaps that particular neighborhood was Charles’ favorite haunt in Lemont—because the next we hear of him is this article in the local newspaper, dated 1916:

CANAL VICTIM’S BODY IDENTIFIED

Lockport, June 7 – The body found in the Sanitary District canal at the Power House yesterday morning was identified last evening as that of Charles Anderson of Lemont.  Mr. Anderson disappeared from his home Tuesday evening, May 30.  Anderson leaves a wife who is said to reside in Joliet besides two sons.  He was a former boatman employed on the Illinois and Michigan Canal for several years.  The body was removed to Lemont and the funeral will be held tomorrow afternoon.

A second article says that he left for work one evening and it was thought that he missed his footing and fell in.  According to my mother, family tradition says that he was drunk at the time.

Charles and Emma’s daughter Clara became a schoolteacher and later, a farmer’s wife and my grandmother.  Charles and Emma’s four sons, it is said, did not turn out so well.  But that’s a story for another day.

Mystery Monday: Anna Grimm Wyatt Nelson

Okay, February is over.  Enough with the sentimental love stories!  Now for some tales of love gone very, very wrong!

When researching the ancestry of my sister-in-law Susie, I came across the stories of two sisters—Anna and Eva Grimm.  Anna was Susie’s great-grandmother (at least on paper!) and Eva was her infamous sister—and both of their stories fascinate me.  I’ll start with Anna.

Anna was married young.  Just how young is part of the mystery.  Her birthdate/age seem to “drift” over time...  In 1905, she claimed to be born in 1883.  In 1910, she moved it forward to 1885.  By 1920, it was 1886, and from 1930 until her death, the records show 1889.  So she either lied about her age early in life to appear older—or she lied about her age later in life to appear younger.  With the 1890 census having been destroyed in a fire, and her 1900 census record nowhere to be found, I got no help there.  And there were no statewide birth certificates in Illinois until 1916, nor could one be located in the county where she claimed to be born.

If the age and birthdate she gave later in life is to be believed, that would have made her just thirteen when she had a baby boy, Arthur, in 1903.  Is that even possible?  At any rate, two years later, in 1905, she and the father of the child were married.  On her marriage certificate, she gives her age as 22 and says it is her second marriage.  Lots of things don’t add up here.

Her new husband Adolph (A.E.) Wyatt, a local restaurateur, was much older—he was 47 when they married.  What drew them together will probably never be known, as anyone involved is long dead, and no family papers have been found which could shed any light.

The marriage didn’t last.  By 1915 they were divorced, when Adolph died at age 57 from bleeding ulcers.  Anna was remarried in July 1916, to a man named Charles Nelson.  In October 1916 a son named Karl comes into the picture—but I’m not sure if he was his, hers, or theirs.  In the 1920 census Karl is listed as Charles’ son, but in 1930 he is listed as Charles’ adopted son.

Anna’s marriage to Charles may not have been a bed of roses; the 1940 census shows him as a prisoner at the Kane County Jail.  In 1942 Charles was a free man—but on his WWII draft card, he was quite vague about his employment status, and he lists his son Karl as his next of kin, not his wife.  Anna died in 1946 and Charles in 1948, and they are buried together at a local cemetery.  I wish I knew more about her life. 

I also wish I knew more about her son Arthur (if indeed he is her son).  The unfortunate boy was left without parents at thirteen, after his mother left and his father died.  Incredibly, no one seems to know who raised him after that; in his later life, my sister-in-law says, he refused to talk about it.  Our best guess is that an older nephew of his father took him in, a young man who lived with the family for a time and later lived in a local boarding house. 

Fortunately, the boy’s adult life turned out much better than his youth, and my sister-in-law has fond memories of her beloved grandfather, who died many years ago.  I hope someday to have more answers for her about her grandfather’s early life and his mysterious mother—but for now, this will have to do.

Black Sheep Sunday: Alonzo Brant inflicts a "badly damaged face"

"...thereupon, according to the complainant, Brant proceeded to beat his [the complainant's] face."  The aforementioned Brant being Alonzo Mason Brant, my husband's great-granduncle; the year, 1910; the place, Nebraska.  You never know what you're going to find when you start digging around in old newspapers!