Liz, Arthur, and Amy

My mom once sat down and told me about her mother and father’s siblings, and most of it wasn’t pretty!  I wrote down what she said about each one, and lately, I’ve been trying to sort out fact from fancy. 

My grandfather, Robert Johann Erickson, had five sisters, and one was named Mary Elizabeth (pictured)—but she was always called “Liz.”  Two of Liz’ sisters died of tuberculosis—I’ve written about them previously.  Here is what my mother said about her Aunt Liz:

“Liz had seven children and died in childbirth with the seventh. Their ages ranged from 12, 10, 8, 6, 4, 2, down to the baby. My grandmother (Liz’ mother) raised the baby. The father hired a neighbor girl, 18 years old, to be housekeeper, and a year later she married him. They had four children, making 11 in all. He was kind of lazy...”

I’ll never know about the “lazy” part, but I wanted to find out more about this great-aunt and uncle that I never met.  Besides that, when someone dies young, there’s often a story there.

Mary Elizabeth Erickson was born in 1884, the second of nine surviving children of Charlie and Lena Schmidt Erickson.  Liz, as she was called, married Arthur Stafford in March 1901, when she was just sixteen years old.  They had their first child, Mabel, a few months later—and more children came along in 1903, 1905, 1906, 1908, 1910, and 1913.

The 1910 census shows Arthur and Mary living on a farm in Will County, Illinois, next door to Arthur’s parents.  They had five children by then, and a sixth on the way.  But Liz’ luck ran out with child number seven…  Records on findagrave.com show that baby Earl was born on the 29^th of January,1913 and Liz died a week later, on the 6^th of February.  She was buried at Alexander Cemetery in Romeoville.

But what was Arthur to do?  The census records back up my mother’s assertion that the baby was raised by his grandparents.  The 1920 census shows young Earl Stafford living with Charlie and Lena Erickson.  He was still there for 1930 census, when he was seventeen.

It is very possible that Arthur brought in a young unmarried neighbor girl to help with the children and the housework—that would have been very common.  And when I checked the 1910 census, Arthur and his family live in the same census district in DuPage Township as 12-year-old Amy Shepherd and her parents.  By 1913, Amy would have been old enough to be “hired out”—and we know that she was Arthur’s wife probably by 1916, when their first child was born.

The 1920 census shows Arthur (age 39) living with new wife Amy (age 23).   They already have three young children (the oldest is three), and five of Arthur’s children live with them.  Arthur’s oldest child, Mabel, is only five years younger than her stepmother, and Mabel’s occupation is listed as “servant—at home.”  I can only imagine how dreary poor Mabel’s life was.  (Later census records show that within the year, young Mabel had ‘escaped’ her home via marriage—but by the 1930 census, she had five children of her own!)

The 1930 census shows Arthur (50) and Amy (32) living with two of his children and four of theirs.  So Arthur did indeed have eleven children.

Arthur outlived his young wife by eleven years.  They were buried together at Woodlawn Memorial Park in Joliet.

So, my mom was right about the seven children, the death in childbirth, the baby being raised by grandparents, the young second wife, and the four additional children…  But I’ll never know about the “lazy” part.

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 Nortons of Miami Beach

One of my recent clients is a Miami native—and I mean native.  Her father’s ancestors have lived in the Miami area since it was nothing but orange and lemon groves—and her ancestors planted some of those.  Her great-grandparents were Edwin and Caroline Norton (pictured).  A page from their family bible and a few old family stories began my look at the Nortons, and a bit of research filled in the rest.

Edwin Blake Norton and Caroline Francis Kraker were married in Florida in 1872.  They lived in Bay Lake by the time of the 1880 census, where E.B. may have taught school.  By 1894, they were tending orange groves in Kissimmee and welcoming their eighth child, a daughter named Francis.  But Caroline’s death, followed by a freeze that destroyed the orange groves, meant Edwin had to start over.  By 1900 Edwin moved with his younger children to Miami Beach, eventually moving in with son William, where Edwin died in 1918.  A picture survives of William’s home on 1228 Collins Avenue—today the site of the Hotel Impala.

But what of the widower Norton’s eight children?

·       William Eubanks Norton became a public servant, and a good one.  He was Dade County Deputy Circuit Court Clerk, among other things, and he did his job so well and faithfully that at his death he was called “The Grand Old Man of the Courthouse.”

·       Edwin Massa Norton was nicknamed “Doc” because of his career as a pharmacist. He was said to be a kind and gentle person and a good family man. He married Elizabeth Miller and had five children.

·       Penny married William C. Lightsey.  It is said in the family that W.C. was a member of the posse that went after the legendary Sam “Sure Shot” Lewis, an infamous Miami saloon owner who killed two men in 1895.   

·       Lewis Greenwood Norton worked in the Dade County Tax Assessor’s office but was best known for his long litigations with the City of Miami Beach over a piece of land he tried to obtain title to as a homesteader, and upon which he lived from 1917 to 1926.  He died in 1930 at age 51 from “an attack of acute indigestion.”

·       Julia married James S. Peters, an early Miami pioneer who came to the area in a horse and wagon in the 1890s, became a tomato farmer with his brother, and lived in a town there (Peters) which was named after his family.  Julia died at age 95 in Miami.

·       Louise (Lula) married Lemuel Bowers and lived a quiet life.  She had five children, married twice, and died at 82.

·       George Cason Norton was a sergeant in the U.S. Army in WWI and a druggist by occupation.  He married Julia Kimbrell; they had just one child, George Jr.  It is said in the family that he died after being hit on the head during a robbery. 

·       Francis was the baby of the family.  Her mother died shortly after her birth, so “babied” was exactly what she was, by her seven older siblings.  As an adult her husbands weren’t always so willing to make her the center of attention...  But eventually she found her soulmate, Roy Crews; I talked about him in another story.

The Nortons made their mark on Miami, and many of their descendants still live there today.  I guess that’s what people mean when they say “roots.”