The Secret “Homicide”: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Shadows”

The Mysterious Death of Cornelia Sears

Cornelia Florence Sears: 1889-1920

 

Records of a person’s life are often limited. A researcher might unearth a birth record, a death record or burial record, and a few census records or perhaps a marriage record, with little else to flesh out the years between those few dates and milestones. There’s no official record of the details that comprise a rich, well-lived life, or an accounting of the difficulties of a sorrowful life. Sometimes the few records that exist hint at a dark history, something that has been buried, leaving a mere shadow to indicate that a tragedy occurred. Such is the case with Cornelia Florence Sears. What happened to this young woman to cut her life short at the age of thirty-one? What is missing from the records?

How are we related?

Cornelia was born on May 12, 1889 to Samuel Owens Sears and Sarah “Sallie” Smith Sears. She was the seventh of their eight children, and grew up on their farm in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky. By 1910, she was living at home with her parents, her younger sister Maggie, and her brother Edward. But in the years that followed, her last siblings married and moved away. Edward left farming to become a mechanic, and Maggie married a local farmer named Andrew Glenn. Cornelia was left alone with her aging parents—on the 1920 census, recorded on January 15, 1920, she is listed as 31 years old, with no job and no husband—only her 70 year old father and 69 year old mother as companions.

Less than six months later, Cornelia was dead. The cause of death listed on the death certificate was a shock: “Homicide, by firearms”. Apparently the shot was fired on June 3, and Cornelia lingered for two days, dying June 5, 1920.

I immediately turned to Newspapers.com and to Google. A murder in rural Kentucky in 1920 would have been big news in the state. But I found nothing. Not a single mention of Cornelia, of a murder or attempted murder, no obituary or funeral notice—nothing! That is beyond peculiar.

I found Cornelia’s grave on Findagrave. The headstone lists her by her nickname of “Noma” Sears. The inscription at the base of the stone reads: “How Desolate Our Home Bereft of Thee.” Obviously her parents were broken-hearted.

So what happened to Cornelia Florence Sears? Why did her community remain silent after such a tragedy? I wonder if the “homicide” might have been either a horrible accident or, even more tragic, a self-inflicted homicide—suicide. There is no record of an arrest, or mention in the area newspapers of a crime. So perhaps there was no actual crime.

Whatever the real story behind the gunshot that took Cornelia’s life, it will remain hidden in the shadows, as her family and friends apparently wished.

The Aunt Who Loved Azaleas: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Flowers”

Aunt Gail, Azaleas, and Adorable Photos

Gail Smith Jandy Livingstone: 1934-2011

 

I just ran across three adorable photos of Aunt Gail as a little child last week. They prompted memories of her, including her love of the azaleas she and Phil planted on their Davidisonville, Maryland property. So when I saw the prompt “Flowers”, I immediately thought of Gail.

Gail held by her mother Lorene on August 31, 1936--age 2

Gail Smith Jandy was born to Edward and Lorene Smith Jandy on June 30, 1934 in Detroit, Michigan. She was their second child, seven years younger than her older sister Laurel. At age sixteen, she accompanied her parents to Ethiopia when her father was stationed at the embassy for a year, and attended the Beirut College for Women for another year afterwards. These experiences sparked a lifelong love of travel.

After getting her degree in library science, she worked for the Air Force on several bases around the world, establishing school libraries, before returning to the United States where she worked as a high school librarian for two Maryland school districts.

She married Philip Livingstone in 1970, and helped to raise his two daughters, Caren and Cathy. She died of cancer on March 11, 2011. Gail’s obituary speaks of her love for gardening and azaleas:

“As a resident of Davidsonville her avid interest in flower gardening evolved into establishing a garden including more than 200 azalea plants which were the focus of her annual "Azalea Walk" for friends. She derived a lot of pleasure through participation in the informal Perennial Garden Club established by local gardener friends.”

Gail in Detroit in 1936--almost 2 years old

These delightful photos of Gail as a young child show the same joyful spirit and energy that I remember her exhibiting as an adult.

Gail--April 1940. Age 5 years and 10 months

Three Sisters in Paradise: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Sisters”

The Brief Lives of Three Sisters: Daughters of Elijah and Nancy Smith

Mary Smith: 1843-1843

Susan L. Smith: 1855-1857

Esther C. Smith: 1862-1862

 

The brief lives of three of my husband’s great-grandaunts are a sad reminder of how difficult childbirth and raising children could be in the mid-nineteenth century. Elijah Smith and his wife Nancy Vanlandingham Weir Smith had at least eleven children between 1840 and 1863. Yet only six, including my husband’s great-grandfather Willis Smith, survived infancy. To add further pain, Elijah and Nancy lost another son, Elias, in the Civil War at only age twenty. Life in rural Kentucky was harsh.

Mary Smith was Elijah and Nancy’s first daughter, born August 15, 1843. She died just two days later on August 17, 1843. Her headstone in the Weir Family Cemetery in Paradise, Kentucky, made of dark grey stone, is the easiest to read: “Mary, Infant Daughter, EE & Nancy Smith” and then the dates of her birth and death.

Susan’s headstone is made of white marble, which of course is now severely eroded from acid rain over the last century. There was some sort of symbol at the top, then her name and middle initial, and the dates of her life. She was a Christmas season baby, born December 22, 1855, and died just four months after her first birthday on April 8, 1857. What a heartbreak for her parents!

The final little sister was Esther C. Smith, born June 16, 1862. Her older brother Elias had just been killed fighting for the Confederacy at the Battle of Shiloh on April 29, so poor Elijah and Nancy probably saw this little girl as a potential source of comfort after such a horrible loss. Instead, Esther died just four and a half months after her birth on November 5, 1862. Her white marble headstone, while mostly unreadable in the Findagrave photo, is decorated with a dove symbol—appropriate for a little girl buried in Paradise.

There is so little left to remind us that these three little girls even existed. All I can find are those three headstones in the Weir family cemetery in Paradise, Kentucky. What did the name of this community mean to its residents? Was it a beautiful place that reminded them of paradise? Or was it a difficult place that held only the promise of paradise after death?

Now, sadly, the town of Paradise is gone, destroyed by a company strip-mining for coal, and from down-wind pollution from the TVA coal-fired power plant built nearby. The Weir cemetery is surrounded by devastated land as this aerial photo shows. A sad end for Willis Smith’s three little sisters.

Sources: 

Findagrave photos. 

“Pinning” and Courtship in the 1940s: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Courting”

 Pinned but Not Pinned Down: Laurel and John’s Courtship

 

John Aird’s memoir describes his first impressions of his future wife, Laurel Jandy.

“…Laurie was animated, responsive, always ready to laugh, and interested in almost any subject. Immediately I was interested in her…One thing troubled me, however. She was wearing a small pin on her sweater which might very well have been a gift from another man. It could even mean that she was engaged. I was loath to interpret it that way, but I knew that this was what such ornaments usually signified. I was careful not to find out.” (page 338)

Laurel Jandy in 1945

College courtship in the 1940s had an extra step between “going steady” and getting engaged: getting “pinned” or “lavaliered”. Originally this practice arose in fraternities—the fraternity pin was given to a serious girlfriend, who would wear it on her sweater or blouse from then on as a visual symbol, like an engagement ring, of the existence of the relationship. In other words, the pin was a public symbol that the young lady was “taken”.

A researcher from Southern Illinois University, Jon Gorgosz,  wrote a paper on the practice of pinning. He quotes a college newspaper article from the early 1950s that noted, “Pinning is the most serious step so far. It is a step nearer to the engagement which ultimately leads to marriage. Not only is a frat pin one more symbol of love and possession, but it also has a deeper and a more lasting feeling attached to it. To be pinned is not to be taken lightly. It brings the couple nearer to marriage, a home and a family” (Gothard, 1957). The researcher goes on to state, “This passage decisively illustrates the connection between pinning and the movement towards marriage and separates the practice from “young love” rituals, such as “going steady.”

However, Oberlin College did not have fraternities on campus. What sort of pin was being exchanged there? Did the College itself provide class pins of some sort that male students pressed into service? Were there pins related to the dormitory or house the men lived in? My attempts to find out what sort of pin was used in Laurel’s case have failed. Online searches of Oberlin’s archives have produced no hits thus far. Obviously since John was aware of the symbolic meaning of the pin, the practice was commonly used at Oberlin, despite the lack of records about it. 

Perhaps a pin like this Oberlin one?

John discovered later that Laurel’s pin was from a student or graduate named Ed Ryder who was not on campus that year, and that Laurel considered herself nearly engaged to Ed. Her friends took her growing relationship with John badly, making pointed jokes and critical comments. One remarked that Laurel was at least “white and 21”, referring to the phrase “free, white and 21” that signaled a woman was available, and implying that Laurel was not free.

A courting-appropriate cover on this 1940s Oberlin College bulletin?

Despite Laurel’s attachment to Ed, and despite the disapproval of other students, John and Laurel fell in love and married. John never presented her with a pin—he went straight to an engagement ring and wedding ring to publicly demonstrate his commitment.

We have Laurel’s letters from her college years. I have only read a few thus far. I hope to find the ones that describe Ed presenting the pin to her, and see how she interpreted the meaning of being pinned. It’s a fascinating window into college courtship in the 1940s.

Sources:

https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1001&context=esh_2014 Gorgosz, Jon E., "The Practice of Pinning and Its Production of Gendered, Idealized Images for Women on College Campus in the 1940s, 50s and 60s" (2014). 2014. Paper 2.http://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/esh_2014/2

Memoirs of John Shields Aird, 10 Nov 1919-09 Oct 2005. Pgs. 338-339.