Negative Results Prompt Re-evaluation: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Negatives”

Negative Results on Eldred Smith Children Leads to Tree Corrections

James Willis Smith: 1928-1935

Estella Smith: 1918-2004

 

Sometimes negative research results mean that I have made an error—I am searching in the wrong place, I have the ancestor’s name wrong, or I missed a death or marriage along the way. Sometimes there just aren’t any records to be found—the area where the ancestor lived didn’t keep records yet, or had lost them in a fire or flood or other disaster. And sometimes, negative search results prompt me to rethink and go back to the beginning, which I had to do when my searches for two of Eldred and Nina Smith’s children turned up negative.

According to most family trees on Ancestry, Eldred and Nina had three children: Robert Cecil, born in 1917, James Willis, born in 1928, and Estella, born in 1918. However, I noticed that Eldred’s obituary only mentioned one child, Robert. Robert’s were also the only records I was finding on Ancestry and Family Search. So what happened to James and Estella?

I quickly found an answer—a tragic answer—for James Willis Smith. I located James’ death certificate from Laredo, Texas, a certificate that left me with as many questions as answers. James died in Laredo on October 19, 1935, just six days shy of his seventh birthday.

The cause of death was listed as “lacerations of brain” due to “fracture of skull”. The injury was caused by an accident on a “public road—auto accident” that occurred on October 17. The location of the accident is the curious part: it happened in Sabinas Hidalgo, Mexico.

Sabinas Hidalgo, Mexico lies in the Mexican state of Nuevo Leon, and is about 85 miles southwest of Laredo. What were the Smiths doing in Mexico? They weren’t living there. The death certificate also stated that James’ father, Eldred Smith, resided in Jefferson, Texas, a town east of Dallas in northern Texas, a staggering 550 miles from Laredo. Given road and automobile conditions in the 1930s, the Smiths were at least two days away from home at the time of the car crash.

The death certificate also stated that the body was transferred for burial to Jefferson. I found the burial record in the Presbyterian Church records for Jefferson. The notes stated that little James Willis “was not a member but the pastor’s son and was buried in Jefferson. The funeral was in the church.” I was surprised by the notation that James wasn’t a member of the church until I realized the rite of confirmation was probably required to become a member, and James was too young to be confirmed.

The information verified my hypothesis that Eldred Willis was the minister of the Jefferson church, so why was he in Mexico that October? Given his choice of mission work in the 1940s and 1950s (described in the previous post), I speculate that he was in Mexico on a brief mission trip.

What a horrible situation! The family suffered a car accident far from home. Their little son was gravely injured and they were in a foreign country. They must have somehow arranged transportation back to Laredo to seek expert care for James. The doctor who signed the death certificate said he had treated James from 17^th—the day of the accident—to the 19^th when the little boy died, so they must have raced back to Laredo, desperate for help. I wonder if other members of the family were also injured. I could find no newspaper stories about the accident or James’ death, so it is impossible to know.

The photo below is the only one I have of the family with both Robert and James, probably taken about four years or so before James’ death.

So the mystery of James’ absence from records was solved. But what about Estella? The family photo does not include a daughter. Why were there no records for her? I couldn’t even find a birth certificate.

I had noticed that Estella had the same name as Eldred’s niece, his younger brother Charles’ oldest daughter. At first, this didn’t seem that strange. Many families, including the extended Smith clan, re-used names. There were several Willises and Roberts, for example. However, I began to wonder when I realized that the only record cited by all the family trees that included Estella as Eldred’s child was the 1920 census, when Eldred and his family were living in Kentucky. I re-examined the record. Eldred is listed as the head of household. The other family members include his wife Nina, son Cecil (Robert Cecil), brother Charles Smith and Charles’ wife Lillie Smith, and Estella Smith, daughter.

Looking at the actual census form, it is obvious that Estella, listed following the names of Charles and Lillie, is their daughter, not Eldred and Nina’s. However, all household members are supposed to be identified by their relationship to the head of household. The census taker in Jenkins, Kentucky had not followed that rule. Charles was listed as a “boarder” instead of “brother”. Lillie was listed as “wife” instead of “sister-in-law” and Estella was listed as “daughter” instead of “niece”. Therefore, when the record was transcribed and indexed, Estella incorrectly showed up as “daughter” in relation to the head of household, not as daughter to the household’s boarders, Eldred’s brother and sister-in-law.

I had made the same careless error as other genealogists had, adding Estella to my tree from a census transcription instead of looking at the actual record and evaluating its accuracy. I have now corrected my tree, removing Estella as the child of Eldred and Nina. The actual Estella Smith lived until the age of 85, dying in Kansas in 2004.  I am glad that I chose to re-evaluate my original data once my search for Eldred’s supposed daughter produced only negative results.

Sources:

Ancestry records of death certificate, burial record and census. https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/60000444:6061?ssrc=pt&tid=81812584&pid=38443076738

https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/2272/images/40394_b062098-00211?pId=21577163

https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/61048/images/43102_3421606200_0462-00300?pId=52404

Seminary Yearbook Offers Window Into a Life of Service: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Yearbook”

Mechanic to Seminarian to Missionary Minister: A Life Transformed

Eldred Paschal Smith: 1892-1955

Lorene Smith Jandy’s second youngest brother, Eldred Paschal Smith, was a bit of a mystery. I had only discovered census records and draft cards, which offered brief and very scattered snapshots of his life. He changed not just cities of residence every decade, but also moved to new states. He changed careers as well. I was left with many questions until I found his obituary last month. To my surprise, the obituary ignored the years I was familiar with, focusing only on his career as a Presbyterian minister! According to the obituary, this career began at a seminary in Austin, Texas when Eldred was nearly 34 years old. So that’s where I resurrected my research: I searched the online archives of the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, and found two yearbooks that revealed a new side to Eldred Smith.

Willis and Cora Smith in back, Nina and Eldred Smith in front

Eldred was born January 14, 1892 in Owensboro, Kentucky. He was the tenth of Willis and Margaret Benton Smith’s eleven children. Willis was a Presbyterian minister in the Owensboro area for decades before Eldred’s birth. Eldred was only six years old when his mother Margaret died of tuberculosis in 1898. Willis married Cora Leachman shortly afterwards, and in 1900 he moved his family to the Oklahoma Territory to do mission work and start churches. Eldred’s half-sister Lorene was born there in 1904 when Eldred was eleven years old.

Eldred and his younger brother Charlie grew up in Oklahoma and New Mexico with their half-sister Lorene. The 1910 census found him at age 18 living in Melrose, New Mexico with his father, stepmother and siblings, and working as a farm laborer.

Rev. Willis Smith returned to Kentucky sometime around 1914 0r 1915 with his wife and daughter Lorene, as they were in residence when Willis’ eldest son Frampton died in January 1916. Frampton’s obituary states that Eldred and Charlie were still living in Melrose, New Mexico.

Eldred must have moved to Colorado shortly after that; he registered for the World War I draft on June 5, 1917 in Denver, stating that he was working as a mechanic, was single, and was caring for his sister and three children (this may refer to his sister Maude Smith Douthitt, who was divorcing her husband and ended up living in Denver). This is very curious, as back in Jenkins, Kentucky, a young Kentucky girl, Nina Roberts, gave birth to Eldred’s son, Robert Cecil Smith, on October 21, 1917. Since Eldred told the draft board he was single just four months earlier, this may indicate little Robert may have been born out of wedlock. I have been unable to find a marriage record for Eldred and Nina, so cannot confirm when Eldred returned to Kentucky, and when he married Nina.

By 1920, Eldred and Nina were definitely married. They appear on the 1920 census living in Jenkins, Letcher County, Kentucky with their two-year-old son. Eldred, age 29, is working as a chauffeur/mechanic at a garage. Nina is only twenty, so had just been a teenager when Robert Cecil was born.

Thus far, Eldred sounds like he was an irresponsible, restless man—not your typical minister’s son. However, that image may be incorrect, or he may have repented and changed his ways, for he ended up following his father into ministry in the Presbyterian Church.

By 1926, Eldred and Nina had moved to Austin, Texas, where he enrolled at the Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary. Nina was also enrolled as a “Special Student”—women in that era were not allowed to become ministers, so she, along with other women and seminarian wives, took classes to prepare her for a supporting role in the church.

The seminary yearbook provided me with a photo of Eldred, who looked deceptively young despite his likely being several years older than most of his classmates.

The yearbook also had photos of the seminary campus and the dining hall—it appears to have been an attractive place to live and work.

The yearbook also provided information on Eldred’s first pastoral appointments: he spent the summer after his junior year (1928) preaching at a church in Junction, Texas, a small town 140 miles west of Austin, and after his senior year, he was posted to a church in Chaudrant, Louisiana.

Eldred and Nina’s second son, James Willis Smith, was born on October 26, 1928 while Eldred was a seminarian.

It isn’t clear when Eldred left the Chaudrant, LA church. He was still there at the time of the 1930 census. He also served as minister in churches in Mississippi and Texas. The 1940 census found him serving as a minister in Marion, Texas, just outside of San Antonio. When he completed his World War II draft registration in April 1942, he was the minister of a church in Brinkley, Arkansas. (His draft card also reveals that he was only 5 feet 2 ½ inches tall!)

His longest ministry was in Arizona. His obituary states that he took a position at the Leupp Presbyterian Navajo Indian Mission in July 1946. He remained as minister of the mission’s Presbyterian church until his death in December 1955.

The Leupp Presbyterian Church

Eldred was probably well-suited to this sort of life, having grown up in rugged New Mexico before statehood, another area with a large Native American population. His arrived shortly after the federal government closed the Indian boarding school in Leupp, where native children had been forcibly enrolled. Many Native American families had horrible experiences with these Bureau of Indian Affairs schools. Students were punished for speaking in their native language, suffered hunger and were severely disciplined and sometimes abused. 

It is to be hoped that Eldred provided a more compassionate and decent example of white America to the Navajo residents. The school had made up the greater part of the town of Leupp, so Eldred’s church and mission lands, identified on the map below, were isolated outpostson the Navajo reservation far east of Flagstaff. Most of the Navajo did not speak English, as the article above alludes to in the mention of Eldred's interpreters, Mr. and Mrs. Everett Curley. It must have been a lonely life, but Eldred and Nina soldiered on for nine years.

Without the information in the seminary yearbook, I would have had a difficult time tracing the latter half of Eldred’s life. His first 34 years of life were a decided contrast to the last 29 years. I am so grateful that I found the last chapter of his life story where he transformed from a promiscuous garage mechanic to a missionary minister.

Sources:

Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary Bulletin (yearbook) 1928 and 1929. https://www.austinseminary.edu/library/austin-seminary-archives/digitized-resources

List of Navajo missions. https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED068262.pdf

Cousins and Lobster Rolls: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Food and Drink”

The Original Lobster Roll and a Jazz-Loving Second-Cousin-Once-Removed

Charles Brasel Smith: 1913-1989

 

While a second-cousin-once-removed may seem a little distant a relative to be the subject of a blog post, the lure of the original lobster roll was too strong to resist!

Charles Brasel Smith was the grandson of Willis Smith’s brother Samuel Weir Smith, so he was Willis’ grand-nephew. Charles was born in Muskogee, Oklahoma on May 28, 1913 to Clarence M. Smith and his wife Bess Kunuell. Clarence worked for the federal government as an agent with what is now known as the Bureau of Indian Affairs, but was then just called the Indian Agency. Clarence died when Charles was only nine years old. The family remained in Muskogee, and Charles attended high school there.

Charles moved to Connecticut shortly after 1935. He met a young woman from the town of Milford, Connecticut, Iselin Jeanette Whitehead, and they married sometime in the late 1930s. Their daughter, Charlyn, was born in 1939 when Charles was 25 and Iselin was 21. Their second daughter, Wendy, was born in 1946.  

By the time of the 1940 census and his WWII draft registration, Charles was working as a musician for a local radio station, WICC in Bridgeport.

At some point a decade or so later, he made quite a career change. Iselin’s parents had divorced when she was quite young, and her mother had remarried to a man named Harry Perry, owner of a local seafood restaurant called “Perry’s”. Harry seems to have turned over the restaurant to his step-daughter Iselin and her husband Charles when he was ready to retire. According to Iselin’s obituary, they became the owners in 1955. Charles and Iselin ran the restaurant until it closed in 1976. Their daughters worked at the restaurant before their marriages.

The intriguing thing about Perry’s Seafood was that it was credited with having created the lobster roll sandwich.

Under Charles' ownership, the restaurant featured live music, uniting his two careers.

According to a June 14, 2010 news article in the Connecticut Post , the Encyclopedia of American Food and Drink, a 1999 book by John Mariani, states that the hot lobster roll

"may well have originated at a restaurant named Perry's in Milford, where owner Harry Perry concocted it for a regular customer named Ted Hales sometime in the 1920s. Furthermore, Perry's was said to have a sign from 1927 to 1977 reading, `Home of the Famous Lobster Roll.' "

Other restauranteurs agree. The owners of two other Milford restaurants who serve lobster rolls credit Harry Perry with the original idea, which involved chunks of lobster cooked in lots of butter and served on a hot roll.

Charles and Iselin continued to serve Harry’s creation throughout their years as owners of the restaurant. They eventually retired and moved to the Lehigh/Fort Myers area of Florida. Charles died August 27, 1989, and Iselin died May 22, 1996.

Charles never gave up his love of music. His obituary noted that he was a member of the Lehigh Florida Concert Band and the Grenadiers Jazz Band of Florida, the past president of the Pyramid Shrine Temple Brass Band, and a member of the Araba Jazz and Brass Band of Fort Myers. Lobster and jazz sounds like a good combination for a satisfying life.

Sources:

“Shell game: Milford claims bragging rights as home to lobster roll”. Connecticut Post; Frank Juliano Staff Writer June 14, 2010.  https://www.ctpost.com/news/article/Shell-game-Milford-claims-bragging-rights-as-523288.php

Central High School Yearbook, Muskogee OK. Accessed on Ancestry. https://www.ancestry.com/discoveryui-content/view/348313672:1265?ssrc=pt&tid=81812584&pid=262355921791

News Press of Fort Myers, Florida. 30 Aug 1989. Obituary for Charles Brasel Smith. https://www.newspapers.com/image/215698521/

Married at Age Fifteen by Her Minister Father: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Joined Together”

Mary Alma’s Teen Marriage: No Elopement Required

Mary Alma Smith: 1886-1969

 

Usually parents object when their young teenage daughters are being romanced by older, adult men, but apparently Rev. Willis Smith saw things differently. Not only did he grant permission for his fifteen-year-old daughter Mary Alma to marry a twenty-four-year-old man, but he actually performed the wedding ceremony!

After spending the majority of his life in Kentucky just miles from Paradise where he was born, Rev. Willis Smith decided, at age 47, to become a missionary minister in the Oklahoma Territory. He had recently lost his first wife due to illness, and married Cora Leachman a year later in late spring 1899. By 1900, he had moved his wife and minor children to El Reno, Oklahoma, just west of what is now Oklahoma City, and planned to move sixty miles further west to Arapaho, OK. However, they moved southwest to Washita County instead.

Mary Alma was Willis’ seventh child, and was only fourteen when they arrived in Oklahoma. Two of her older sisters, Nancy and Maude, had already married back in Kentucky, and her three oldest brothers were already out of the house with families or in college, so Mary Alma and her sister Stella, age 17, were the oldest of the Smith children in Oklahoma. It must have been a difficult time for the Smith children, having in the space of one short year lost their mother, gained a stepmother, and moved away from everyone and every place they had ever known. Perhaps that explains why Mary Alma and Stella were searching for love at such a young age.

Rev. Willis Smith's four daughters--two of them are Mary Alma and Stella, but not sure which two

Mary Alma and Stella met a pair of young men, first cousins named Frank Lesley Cox and Roy Stuart Cox. Both were born in Illinois, and had farmed with their fathers. Frank’s family moved to Elk, Oklahoma by the time of the 1900 census. Roy, his father and brother were living in Oregon in 1900, but Roy seems to have relocated to Oklahoma by 1902, as he was one of the witnesses at his cousin Frank’s wedding.

Frank applied for a marriage license to wed Mary Alma on February 21, 1902. The certificate states that Frank is age 24, and that Mary Alma “is of the age of 15 years and that the permission of brides parents, which is in writing and filed in this court, is true and germane.” The court seems to have taken underage marriage seriously, wanting to ensure that the young woman had the support of her family.

The wedding occurred at the Smith home the same day the license was issued. Willis recorded on the marriage certificate that the witnesses included “Messrs J Cox, Roy Cox, and Earnest Smith.” J Cox was Frank’s brother Joel, and Earnest Smith was Mary Alma’s older brother who was visiting from Kentucky. 

A quick marriage of an underage girl usually involves an unplanned pregnancy. However, I cannot confirm that Mary Alma and Frank had a “shotgun” marriage. I have been unable to find a birth record for their oldest daughter, Nelle. On various census forms and records, the inferred birthdates vary between 1902 and 1904. The Family Search family tree shows her birth date as December 1, 1902, but there is no proof of that date. A December birth date would indicate Mary Alma got pregnant immediately after the marriage, not before. So perhaps there was another reason for the hasty, youthful marriage.

Frank and Mary Alma moved frequently during the early years of their marriage. Their two eldest daughters Nelle and Maude were born in Oklahoma in 1902 and 1904, and their eldest son Joel was born in Union, New Mexico in 1906, and their daughter Birdie was born in October 1908 in Texas.

By the time of the 1910 census, the family had moved northwest to Washington. Frank was working in Prescott, a town in Walla Walla County, as a well-digger. Their fifth and final child, Eva Blanche Cox, was born June 27, 1912 in Oregon. Mary Alma was only twenty-five, but was the mother of five children.

By the time of the 1920 census, the family had relocated to the town of Pomeroy in Garfield County, Washington, and Frank was working as a farm laborer. The 1930 census found them in Menlo, Washington, where Frank had found work as a laborer in a lumber camp. Living with them was four-year-old Vernon Morgus, the son of their daughter Birdie and her ex-husband Vern Morgus, already divorced after just a few years of marriage.

By the 1940 census, Frank is working as a power line “bucker” for the WPA—hard work for a 63 year old man. Mary Alma and Frank are living in Cowlitz, Washington, still raising Birdie’s son who is now 14 years old, while Birdie has moved to California and is working as a waitress. In addition, Mary Alma and Frank have taken in Mary Alma’s brother Charlie Smith and his ten-year-old son David. Charlie states he is farming.

Frank died in 1950, and Mary Alma died August 5, 1969. She was 83. While Mary Alma was a teen bride, she remained married to Frank her entire life, and they left five children and several grandchildren. Family was obviously important to them, as they took on the job of raising their grandson, and helping other family members. I hope the marriage was as happy as it was long.

Interesting Discoveries from Basic Documents: 52 Ancestors 2022 Prompt “Document”

Census Forms and Military Draft Forms Hold Fascinating Hints About Life in Twentieth Century Kentucky

Edward Elias Sears: 1881-1943

Annie Pearl O’Neal: 1882-1968

Daisy Lee Sears: 1906-1969

 

At first glance, the life of Edward Elias Sears, my husband’s first cousin twice removed, offered no surprises. He was born in Muhlenberg County, Kentucky, like many of the Smith ancestors. His mother was a Smith: Sarah Frances was Willis Smith’s older sister. Other than a stint in World War I as a Sergeant in an Army Medical Company, he lived in Kentucky all his life. Most of the other trees he appears in on Ancestry show that he married one wife, Corda Miller, and had two sons, Richard and Ray.

But a few other trees showed something surprising and made reference to the census of 1910. Apparently Edward had a wife before he married Corda, before he served in the military. And this marriage ended quickly after the birth of a daughter and seemed to have provoked shame on the part of both Edward and his first wife, Annie Pearl.

It was time to take a second look at the 1910 census. Were these other trees to be trusted? Were there documents to back up their assertion that Edward had a failed first marriage?

I tried to find records of this supposed marriage between Edward and Annie Pearl O’Neal. I assumed it took place in Kentucky in 1905 as their daughter was born in February 1906. Annie was born in Paradise, Kentucky, located in Muhlenberg County where Edward had grown up. Her parents, Tobias and Mary Jane O’Neal, were farming, just as Edward and his father were. The families appear only four pages apart on the 1900 census. Edward was 19 in 1900, and Annie was 17. They probably attended the same small high school and would have known one another.

However, I couldn’t find a marriage certificate or record for them on Ancestry. A few trees listed a date late in February 1906 as the date of the marriage, but this seemed unlikely as it was after the date their daughter Daisy Lee Sears, was born on February 15, 1906. I could find no birth certificate to confirm Daisy’s birth date, but that date appears on her Social Security and death records, so I believe it is correct. I found no Ancestry records for Edward, Annie Pearl or Daisy between the 1900 census and the 1910 census.

Still, the specificity of the date the other trees provided for the marriage puzzled me. I turned to Family Search, and while I struck out searching under Edward’s name, I found the marriage record under Annie Pearle O’Neal. Edward gave his name on the marriage license as “E. E. Sears” which explains why I’d failed to find it. The certificate shows they were married at the home of Annie’s father on February 24, 1906, nine days after Daisy’s birth.

Obviously there is a story there, the details of which can only be imagined. I would guess that either Annie or Edward had resisted marriage when they discovered Annie was pregnant, but once the baby had arrived, the reluctant party gave in. Was this a true shotgun marriage? Did Annie’s dad demand that Edward “do the right thing”, even if it was nine days too late to make Daisy legitimate?

The other striking thing about the marriage record is Edward’s occupation: instead of “farm laborer” like he lists on the 1900 and 1910 census, he states he is a “book agent”. Since I don’t believe he was brokering book deals for local authors, I suspect he was what we now call a "bookie", and was operating at the edge of illegality. Perhaps he was a local bad boy who had ducked out on his responsibilities to Annie just as he ducked out respectable employment. This is all speculation, of course. I have no evidence other than a couple of words on a document.

By the time the 1910 census was conducted, the marriage had already failed and the young couple was living apart. I immediately noted what the other genealogists had remarked upon: Edward is living with his parents and helping his father with the farm. He lists his marital state as “widowed”.

Yet just down the road and only three pages away on the Muhlenberg County census, Annie Pearl and daughter Daisy, now four years old, are living with Annie’s brother James Elbert, and their sister and mother. Annie also lists her marital state as “widowed”.

So what happened on this census form? Obviously, no one had died. Both families lived very close to one another, and were perfectly aware this supposed widower had a wife and child just down the road, close enough that Edward could easily pop over for a visit with little Daisy. Was this just the work of an oddly prudish census worker, who didn’t want to list people as divorced? Or is this a sign of shame on the part of the two families, who were unwilling to tell a stranger the ugly truth about a broken marriage? We may never know.

The 1920 census shows Annie Pearl, now listed as “Perly Sears” still living with her brother and mother, and still claiming to be a widow. Daisy is now 13.

Edward, now home from the war, has relocated to Paducah, Kentucky and has remarried. I can find no marriage record for him and his second wife, Cora or Corda Miller, on either Ancestry or Family Search, so I don’t know whether he was truthful about his previous marriage on his new marriage license or not.

Not until the 1930 census, does Annie Pearl, still living with brother James Elbert, correctly list her marital status as “divorced”. Was the change due to a more liberal attitude toward divorce in 1930? Or was it just a more accurate and knowledgeable census taker?

So what happened after the divorce drama? Daisy grew up and married a man named Herman Wood in Tennessee, and they ended up living in Indianapolis where Herman worked in the steel mills. The couple met in Daisy’s hometown of Paradise, Kentucky—Herman Wood was born there. Daisy and Herman had five children.

Annie Pearl and her brother James Elbert

Annie Pearl never remarried, continuing to live with her brother and visiting Daisy and her grandchildren until her death in 1968 at age 85. Daisy died a year later in April of 1969 (although several trees and her Findagrave entry incorrectly list the death date as April 1968—more unreliable info corrected through close examination of documents, including her death certificate and a newspaper death notice!)

As for Daisy’s father Edward Sears, he had one more fascinating document that needs mention: his World War II draft card. I did a double-take when I read the entry under “Employer’s name and address”. It reads: “Retired: totally disabled by government.”

Disabled by the government? At first I assumed he had possibly been injured in World War I—you could sort of blame that on the government. But then I realized what the entry really meant: he had been approved by the government for disability payments under Social Security. He didn’t mean the government was the cause of his disability. I had to laugh. Further proof that close reading of documents can provide humor as well as important information!

Sources:

"Kentucky Marriages, 1785-1979", database, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:F4QR-J3Z : 22 July 2021), Annie Pearle Oneal in entry for E.e. Sears, 1906.

https://img.newspapers.com/img/thumbnail/106331769/400/400/2289_4555_543_180/ Death notice for Daisy Sears Wood Apr 1969

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