Mystery Monday: The Mysterious Dr. Jay

I recently did some work for a client in which the assignment was to find out all I could about a man named Dr. Henry Alfred Jay (1893-1970).  I ended up with more questions than answers.

First of all, his birth.  The date seems consistent, but the place is a mystery.  According to the family, Henry was born and raised in Kenosha, Wisconsin, on February 13, 1893.  I wrote to Kenosha County, Wisconsin to obtain his birth record, but they had no one on record by that name.  When I obtained his death record, it said he was born in Chicago, Illinois.  But Cook County, Illinois didn’t have any birth record either.  The date of birth seems to be consistent, being found again on his death certificate and SS5 (Application for Social Security).

Secondly, his parents.  On his death certificate, his second wife gave his parents’ names as Arnold Jay and Catherine O’Conner.  But on his SS5, Henry gave his parents’ names as Noel Patrick Jay and Catherine O’Conner.  I was unable to find any census records for Henry with either set of parents—not in Kenosha, Wisconsin, and not in Cook County, Illinois.  Not for 1900, 1910, or 1920.

Thirdly, his so-called military service.  Family tradition holds that he went to South Africa “during the war” and liked it there, so he settled there afterwards.  But what war would that be?  The United States didn’t send soldiers to South Africa in World War I, and I found no WWI draft registration for Henry. 

Fourthly, his time in Africa.  We know he ended up in South Africa, because my client’s relative (Henry’s daughter) grew up there.  A newspaper article says he arrived in 1920, but that article was written in 1938 and may or may not be accurate.  How and when he did go to South Africa?  All I know for sure is that he married twice, the second time in South Africa.  His first wife was Agnes Schweder, who might have been German.  I found no marriage record for them.  Henry and Agnes had two children, one of whom is related to my client, before she died around 1934.  I did find, on familysearch.org, a record for his second marriage, to Winifred Reeve in Durban, South Africa in 1936.  Henry and Winifred had two children also.

An alert message board reader found some newspaper articles online that shed a little more light.  The articles ran in newspapers all over the United States in 1938.  Henry was the inventor of a method of preserving fruit with chemicals.  Family tradition says that his “partners” stole his invention and he never made a dime from it.  Another intriguing thing:  The article says he became a British subject in 1934!  What was that all about?

I found some U.K. Passenger Lists on ancestry.com concerning the family.  They tell me that Henry arrived in England (from South Africa) in March 1939, with Winnie and the two children from his first marriage arriving in April.  They all left together to return to South Africa in February 1940.  Winifred had the first of her two children later that year.

Next, his later years in the United States.  I’m not sure when or how he returned to the United States, but he (and presumably Winnie) were there by 1962, when he applied for Social Security in Virginia.  He died in Virginia in 1970 and was buried there, at National Memorial Cemetery in Falls Church, with second wife Winnie.  (This I know thanks to findagrave.com.)  National Memorial is a Jewish Cemetery; was he Jewish?  The funeral home (Ives) is now out of business, and I was unable to obtain their records.

So, who were Henry’s parents?  Where was he born?  Where did he grow up?  Why are there no census records for him?  When and where did he get his medical training?  (He always avoided the subject, the family says.)  How and why did he end up in South Africa?  How and why did he become a British subject?  When and how and why did he return to the United States?  Why was he buried in a Jewish cemetery?  Like I said, more questions than answers.

Mystery Monday: Otto and Elsie

While researching a relative of mine—we’ll call her “Aunt Ann”—I came across the story of Otto and Elsie Iversen (his name changed).  They were Ann’s birth parents, but they were not the ones who raised her.  I figured there was a story there…

Otto Iversen was a sailor.  He was born in Bergen, Norway in 1898 and found his calling on the sea.  In this photo, Otto is the big man on the right.  He visited the port of New York, in 1920, and he must have liked what he saw.  In 1921 he came to stay, and in 1927 he became a naturalized citizen in Chicago.  It was said in the family that Otto was over six feet tall, big enough to eat a whole pie at a time, and strong enough to lift a cow over his head.   

Elsie was an immigrant, too.  She and her sister came from Germany in 1923 when they were in their twenties.  The passenger list says their destination was Chicago. 

Somehow Otto and Elsie met, and they married around 1923—but it was far from a fairy tale ending.  Elsie had a baby who died, then another baby who died, and then a third baby in 1929—a little girl they called “Ann.”  In the 1930 census little Ann lives in Chicago with her father, mother, and a boarder.  But apparently neither Otto nor Elsie wanted to raise a child.  According to the family, Elsie tried giving the baby to her sister-in-law in Iowa, but that didn’t “stick”—the family just didn’t need another mouth to feed. 

But Elsie’s sister and her husband had no children of their own, and they took Ann into their home and raised her as their own.  Ann grew up first in Chicago, then in the suburbs, and then in the country.  Her uncle was a successful tailor who provided well for his wife, niece, and a nephew they also took in. 

And what happened to Otto and Elsie?  

Elsie ran a boarding house in Chicago for many years and never took much interest in her daughter, although the two of them had a relationship when Ann was older—in fact, Ann actually cared for her mother in her own home as her mother’s health failed.  Elsie died in 1989 in New Jersey at age 93. 

Ann remembers having visits from Otto as a child.  She was always rather frightened of her father, due to his size and the fact that he was always rather shaky.  By the 1940 census Otto was a resident at the Chicago State Mental Hospital, also known as “Dunning Hospital.”  According to the family, one Sunday afternoon in 1943, he took a streetcar to visit his wife.  As he stepped off the car, he had a massive heart attack and died in the street.  He was only 44.  Ann had very few positive memories of her father, and mental illness was much misunderstood in those days.

I wondered if he was a drinker; it seemed like that would explain a lot.  So I ordered his death certificate—but it told a different tale.  It corroborated the heart attack story; the cause of death was “chronic myocarditis” and he died ten minutes after the heart attack.  But it also stated that Otto had suffered from post-encephalitis for fifteen years.  I looked up the side effects of post-encephalitis, and sure enough—a shakiness that mimics Parkinson’s.  Also common?  Mood disorders, personality changes, and mental deterioration.  Otto was the victim of a disease far beyond his control.  I was glad to be able to share with Ann a little more about her father that might explain why he couldn’t be there for her when she was young...  It’s never too late to have some closure.

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.

Mystery Monday: Carl A. Wesley

How can a man just not show up on the census—five times in a row?

I have a friend whose father died when she was young.  Recently I have been trying to find out more about her father’s family—but there seem to be more questions than answers.  Her grandfather’s name was Carl Albert Wesley, and my friend didn’t know much more than that.  My efforts to fill in the blanks have been, well, less than totally successful.

I started with what I knew about him:  the information on his gravestone, photographed for findagrave.com by volunteer Anne Sears.  The stone was found at Little Rock cemetery—the same place his wife and son (my friend’s father) are buried.   But even this was complicated.  There was a second findagrave.com entry for Carl in Newton, Jasper County, Iowa!  Which was his actual place of burial, and which was just a memorial stone?

Next?  Knowing he died in Jasper County, Iowa, I ordered a death certificate.  This told me that Carl Albert Wesley was born on May 9, 1894—in Illinois.  He died at 54 as a result of heart trouble—the same thing that killed his son in the prime of life.  According to the death certificate, Carl was buried in Iowa, which seems to solve that mystery.  Or does it?  The last line of his very faint obituary—does it say the body was moved back to Illinois?  I can’t tell.

The death certificate also gave me the names of his parents:  August Wesley and Augusta Lifske, both born in Germany.  The informant on the death certificate was his wife Lillian, who probably knew as much as anyone did. 

Knowing Carl was born in Illinois but later lived and died in Iowa, and knowing his parents’ names, should have led me to some census records, probably in Illinois or possibly in Iowa.  But none could be found—not for 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, or 1940—even when I tried the usual search tricks.  How can a man (and his parents) keep such a low profile?  All I found was a city directory for 1947 (the year before his death) for Carl and Lillian, in Newton, Iowa, where he died.  Where was he between 1894 and 1947?

More questions:  What about his marriage to Lillian Wallem?  I haven’t found a marriage certificate (yet), and I don’t even know the year or the place.  Lillian was born and raised in DeKalb or LaSalle County, Illinois, so I suppose the marriage most likely took place there.  Their first and only child, Robert, was born in Iowa in 1946, so that’s a possibility as well.  Another question is this:  Carl had his son Robert when he was 52.  Was this his first marriage and his first child?  That seems unlikely.

So where was Carl Albert Wesley between 1894 and 1947, and what was he doing?  I have a friend who would really like to know.

Mystery Monday: What Ever Happened to Frank Dunn?

My friend Wendy has a mystery in her family that I’d love to help her solve.  It involves her great grandfather, Frank Dunn, and what happened to him in his later years.

Here is what I do know, beyond a reasonable doubt anyway:  Frank was born in February 1868 in Alabama, parents unknown.  In a possible census record match for 1880 in Alabama, he is called “Jack.”   Somehow he ended up in Kendall County, Illinois, where he married Grace May Kellett (my friend Wendy’s great-grandmother) on August 17, 1899; he was 21 and she was just 14.  On their marriage record his first name is given as “Frank” and his father is listed as “Frank Dunn Sr.” with no mother listed. 

Sixteen months later they had a daughter named Ethel (my friend Wendy’s grandmother).  On the birth record, Frank is listed as “Jack Dunn.”  Two more daughters were subsequently born to Frank and Grace, one in 1893 and one in 1894, neither of whom survived very long. 

On March 27, 1895 Grace’s short life came to an end at age nineteen.  An obituary in the Kendall County Record (April 3, 1895) gives her husband’s name as “John Dunn” and incorrectly states that two children were left without a mother’s care.   

The vagueness and errors in Grace’s obituary made me take a second look at the Kendall County Record obituary (October 17, 1894) for the second of their two babies who died.  The wording is odd…  It appears that by 1894 Grace might have been living apart from her husband.

 At any rate, Grace died in March of 1895 and was buried at Pavilion Cemetery in Kendall County, and Frank was married to Elnora Bissell on November 9, 1896.  On this second marriage record the groom’s first name is given as “Frank” and his parents are listed as Joseph and Mary Dunn.

In the 1900 census for Lee & Shabbona Villages in DeKalb County, Illinois, Frank and Nora live Frank’s 9-year-old daughter Ethel and work for the Woodbury family.  They have been married three years and Nora has had no children.  Franks says he (and his parents) were born in Alabama.

What happened after that is less certain.  Frank (or Jack, or John) apparently separated from Elnora Bissell some time between 1900 and 1910, quite likely without children.  A possible Aurora, Illinois census match for 1910 shows a Frank Dunn boarding with August and Ida Boner at 236 South Lake Street.  He says he is divorced, and he is a laborer at a livery stable.  A possible Aurora, Illinois census match for 1920 shows a Frank Dunn who is a roomer at the large Hotel Grand on Galena Boulevard.  He is listed as single and is employed as a watchman at a laundry. 

After that, the trail goes cold.  What ever happened to Frank Dunn?

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.

What Ever Happened to Agnes Goldberger?

My mother grew up in a household of five children—herself, her three siblings, and a distant relative named Agnes Josephine Goldberger—an orphan from Chicago. 

Agnes came to live with them at age six, after both her parents died, and she lived with them for about ten years.  What a change—from being the pampered daughter of a wealthy Jewish doctor in the big city, to being a farm girl, orphan, and foster child in rural DuPage County!  What was life like for her there?  Was she accepted at home, at school, in the community?  Was she an object of gossip?  Pity?  Or prejudice?  At any rate, at around age sixteen she left the Ericksons and returned to her Jewish relatives in Chicago, never to be seen again… and that’s all I ever knew about her, except that there were hard feelings in the Erickson family after she left.  

I wanted to know more—so recently I did a little research on Agnes.  It turns out that her father, Henry E. Goldberger, was a physician whose parents emigrated from Bohemia to Chicago.  Henry’s first wife, Mary Ingram, died in 1922.  Henry married Agnes Evatt in 1923, when he was 53 and she was 28. 

Baby Agnes was born to Agnes and Henry in Chicago on December 11, 1925.  By 1929, little Agnes’ mother was dead, and by 1933, so was her father, Dr. Goldberger…  Agnes was an orphan at age six.  Somehow she ended up on the DuPage County, Illinois farm of my grandparents, Robert and Clara Erickson.  It seems that Agnes wasn’t actually related to the Ericksons at all—but rather, her father Henry’s first wife, Mary, was a cousin of Clara’s—quite a stretch.  So how did they end up taking her in?  I don’t know.

I have a number of Erickson family photos with Agnes included.  I wonder if she was treated like one of their own, or if she always felt different, unwelcome, an outsider?  My grandpa Robert was a kind and loving man—but my grandma Clara, perhaps not so much. 

Mom always said that Agnes’ family suddenly wanted her back when she turned sixteen and she inherited her father’s money, and so Agnes left them without so much as a thank you—but my grandma Clara was no amateur when it came to holding a grudge, and I think my mother was just parroting what she heard at home.  I’ve always wondered if there was more to the story.  What happened to Agnes Goldberger after she left the Erickson farm around 1942?  Maybe someone out there knows the answer.

Postscript:  Some time after publishing this article here in July 2013, a granddaughter of Agnes found it in a google search. Her mother, one of Agnes' daughters, read it to Agnes. Agnes had changed her name after she left, and she had never shared anything about her childhood for the rest of her life. Sadly, she was still unwilling to talk about it, except to give her daughter permission to tell me that she was the person in my post, and that she was still alive.  

In 2015 an alert reader found a facebook post from a grandson of Agnes which was a memorial to Agnes' recent death. The photo showed her on her wedding day, and the resemblance to my photos was unmistakable. 

In September 2019 I was contacted by another of Agnes' daughters.  After Agnes left my grandparents' farm at sixteen, she went to live with distant relatives, changed her first name, and took on their last name. Eventually she married and had four children.  She never talked about her childhood with her children, and raised them with the belief that she was a natural-born member of the family she went to live with at sixteen.  Her reasons will always remain a mystery.

Agnes died in March 2015 at age 89 in New York.

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?

Big Sister Without a Name

My father, Robert Milo Wallin (1923-1993) spent nearly all of his life thinking he was the oldest child in his family.  But things aren’t always what they seem to be, particularly in genealogy. 

Dad was born in Nebraska in 1923, in a hospital rather than at home—very unusual for that place and time.  As the years went by, he was joined by Helen in 1926, Richard in 1927, and then little Janet in 1932. 

From early childhood, a big part of Robert’s identity was his position as oldest child.  He was a typical firstborn—responsible, mature, hardworking, serious—a liaison between the adults and the younger kids, trying to set a good example.  (Those of you who are firstborn, as I am, know what I mean.)  He went off to World War II, writing letters home to his parents and younger siblings—reassuring his parents and sisters and trying to keep his brother from ending up on the front lines like he was.  (A story for another day.)

The years went by, until Dad was a businessman in his sixties, applying for a passport so he could attend a conference in London.  Part of the process was obtaining a certified copy of his birth certificate—and when it arrived, there it was in black and white:  “Number of children of this mother born alive and now living -1.  Born alive but now dead -1.”

Dad then remembered hearing long-ago whispers among his aunts about a baby girl who died.  And suddenly he understood the likely reason his mother went to a hospital when he was born (and a good thing, since he was a breach birth).  Why hadn’t his older sister ever been talked about openly as he was growing up?  Why wasn’t she remembered, and mourned?  Probably because it wasn’t the Swedish way to “dwell on the past” or “stir up sad memories.”  So, Dad let it lie, and now he is gone, too…  Recently I decided it was time to find out more, if I could.

Although my father died many years ago, his youngest sister is still alive.  I asked her what she knew about this mysterious child, and she said that she had heard whispers, too—but she had always been too hesitant to bring up the subject with her mother.  She asked that I let her know what I found out.  It seemed like I wasn’t the only one who wanted to know more.

Then I went to my favorite resource for vital records info and followed the instructions for obtaining old Nebraska birth and death records.  No luck there, however.  I was told that neither event was recorded—or if they were, the records are lost now.     

I wish I could have discovered more about this little baby girl, who was my aunt.  But this is one sad event from long ago that seems destined remain a mystery. 

Mystery Monday: Seeking Relatives of Joseph Roy Crews

I am looking for someone.  But this time, for a change, it’s not a dead person!

I have been working on a genealogy binder for a client from Florida.  Her grandmother Francis, now deceased, was married for a long time to a man named Joseph Roy Crews.  (I wrote about her first husband in another post.)  My client has some things that belonged to Roy, and she would be happy to pass them along to one of his family members, if one can be found.

Some background:

Joseph Roy Crews, who went by “Roy,” was born in Devon, England in 1904, son of William Henry Crews and Louisa Jane Rabone Crews.  By the 1911 England census, he lived in the famous orphanage in Bristol, England which was run by George Müller—who during his lifetime, cared for over 10,000 orphans and established 117 schools.

But then things looked up for Joseph; he came to America in 1919 on the ship “Melita.”  Records show that he made the border crossing from Canada into the United States in April of that year, and eventually went to live with his mother and stepfather in Yates County, New York.  The 1930 census find him there, living with stepfather Oliver Brown, mother Louise Brown, and siblings Leslie, Cecil, and Doris. 

By the 1950s he lived in Florida and worked for Pan American Airways.  He married Francis Norton Phillips in March of 1955 in Miami, Florida, and they lived happily after.  Was this his first marriage?  I don’t know.

My client remembers Roy as a beloved step-grandfather.  She says this about him:  “We called Roy “grandpa” and he adored us, and it was mutual.  There was absolutely nothing that he wouldn't do with us or for us.  He had a hearing aid because while working out on the tarmac for Pan American, he lost most of his hearing—but he had a lot of fun with it.  He showed us that when our grandma would start to fuss, he would just turn down the hearing aid.  He had an incredible sense of humor!”

Roy died in Miami on March 1, 1968 and is buried there with Francis, his wife.  My client is in possession of some of Roy’s things—his passport, his citizenship certificate, and some photos, for example.  She would love to find a good home for them with one of Roy’s relatives.  She's not sure if he had children, but perhaps he had nieces and nephews.  Does anyone know of a family member who might be interested in some mementos belonging to Joseph Roy Crews?  

Mystery Monday: George Wendell Phillips - the Rest of the Story

A few weeks ago I wrote a post about George Wendell Phillips, and I was full of questions.  Thanks to two readers (kudos, Deb and Lindy!) and some further digging, I now have some answers.

To recap, George was born in New York in 1887, and by 1920, he had met and married Francis Norton of Miami, Florida.  They had a daughter in 1921 and a son in 1924—by which time George was off the radar, never to be seen or heard from again—at least, not by his wife and children.  A granddaughter hired me to find out more.

We will probably never know what caused the split between George and Francis, but we now know much more about George’s life around the time they met and married, and in the years after they split.  It turns out that George was in the U.S. Marine Corps and was stationed at the air field at Miami, Florida—thus answering the question of how he and Francis met.  

After their wedding in 1920, they made a trip that spring to visit George’s mother in New York.  She was a widow who had remarried by then and moved from Salamanca to North Tonawanda.  Her new husband, J.J. Patterson, was a wealthy man, and they had a houseboat on the Niagara River.  In 1921 a daughter was born to George and Francis in Pennsylvania—how they came to be there remains a mystery.  By 1924 they were back in Miami—and Francis was the single mother of a daughter and a new baby son.  

We now know that George stayed in Florida for at least a few more years; he appears in various records there until about 1929.  After that, he apparently moved back to New York, living in various places, working as a hotel cook.  By 1938 he was living in the Veteran’s Hospital in Bath, New York, where he died on March 2, 1941 of pneumonia.  His death certificate says he suffered severe bronchial asthma (as does my client), and also heart problems (which also run in her family), and he’d had at least one heart attack by the time he died at age 53. 

George evidently never remarried or had any more children; and by the time he died, his parents were both gone, as was his only sibling, a twin who died at one year of age.  George was buried at the Bath National Military Cemetery, probably unmourned and unremembered—until now.  My client says she hopes to travel to New York and place a flag on his grave.  That, dear readers, is what we call “closure.”

Mystery Monday: The Brides of Emiel Zietzke

 Sometimes you think you know a person… especially if that person is your father. 

I’ve been researching the paternal line of one of my clients. He thought he knew his father, Emiel Zietzke, pretty well—it was his grandfather, Wilhelm Zietzke, who was the main object of his curiosity. But his father’s life has had some unexpected twists and turns that my client didn’t know about!

Emiel August Zietzke (1885-1956) was born in Bozeman, Montana. In his young adulthood, he helped his father Wilhelm run his confectionary store there. Emiel first married in 1911 at age 25, to Florence Henrietta Saunders. They homesteaded in the Wilsall, Montana area and had three children (all now deceased). But the marriage wasn’t a very long one; Flora died in 1924.

The years went by… Emiel remarried in 1938, after his three children were grown. His new wife was Lila DesRosier, whom he married when he was 53 and she was 31. They soon had two children—one died many years ago in a car accident, and the other is my client. The marriage certificate said that Emiel was a widower, but that was only partially true. What my client never knew was that his father had at least two more marriages between Florence and Lila, between 1924 and 1938, both apparently ending in divorce. 

The mystery is, who were those two wives, and what went wrong? And—were there more? 

I first discovered Ida Mason Benson when ancestry.com added some new Washington marriage records to their collections last fall. And there it was—a marriage in Spokane, Washington in 1930 between Emiel A. Zietzke of Bozeman, Montana and Ida Benson. A little more digging told me that Ida was a widow whose maiden name was Mason; her first husband was William C. Benson, and she had a son by that marriage named Albert. Emiel and Ida must not have been married long, as a number of Montana newspaper clippings show her reverting back to the last name “Benson” by the 1950s. My questions: When and why did Emiel and Ida split up? What happened to their marriage? 

Then a few weeks ago, after subscribing to newspaperarchive.com, I stumbled upon this clipping, from the Montana Standard, September 5, 1929:

Yet another marriage! So Emiel wasn’t a widower very long after his first wife Flora died. Some more digging produced a marriage certificate that told me that Emiel married Margaret Dell in Green River, Sweetwater, Wyoming in 1925. The article said that she left him after only two months, but a divorce wasn’t granted until 1929. My questions: Who was Margaret Dell? How did Emiel meet her? And what happened to their marriage?

 

Let’s reconstruct this roster of brides:

• Florence Saunders: 1911-1924
• Margaret Dell: 1925-1929
• Ida Mason Benson: 1930-??
• Lila DesRosier: 1938-1956, when Emiel died

That leaves one more question unanswered: Ida went back to the name “Benson.” Perhaps they weren’t married long. Did Emiel marry one more time, between then and 1938? Wouldn’t I like to know! 

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? 

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.