I did indeed have the death certificate for Mickey waiting for me on my return to Phoenix. What a surprise to actually find a name in the "father" category. I did not really expect there to be one. You have to wonder if Dorothy also named the father on the birth certificate (which I can't get because of privacy laws), or did she decide - now that the child had died, it didn't matter anymore? I, of course, immediately started doing research on this person. I will not give his name. There are several reasons for this - 1) did he know? 2) did his family know? 3) is he really the father? 4) I guess if someone else really wants to know, they can also ask for the death certificate.
By the way, Washtenaw County in Michigan, has a wonderful system for this very thing. For any death certificate (years available) and marriage certificates, you simply request online what you want with appropriate information and give your credit card information. If they have it, it will be mailed to you within a week or so, if they don't have it - you don't owe them any money. I wish more counties had this set up. Thank you, Washtenaw County!
Anyway, back to Mickey's father. I did some checking. There is a man with that name in Ann Arbor about that time. He is about a year older than Dorothy. He would have been 17, Dorothy 16, when she got pregnant. Did they go to the same high school? same church? I don't know. This man died in 1982 and I noted that he was a Sr. when he died, so there is a Jr. I don't know if the family knew about Mickey. Since these two parents would have been in high school and Mickey died not even ten years later, maybe not. It solves a mystery for me. If this man is indeed Mickey's father, then there was no incest involved. Rape? Maybe, maybe not. We will just never know.
The second "mystery" I have been researching is my grandfather, Garth Beckington, and the woman he married after my grandmother's death. Edna died in April, 1952. Garth remarried a woman by the name of Luddie in November 1954. He died in March of 1956. No one knows much about Luddie. Again, most cousins remember a small, round woman from the south, maybe Alabama. How did they meet? And who was she? His obituary does state that he married Miss Luddia M. Hensen. A start! I started searching Luddia/Luddie Hensen. I was amazed at how many Luddies are out there. Mostly in the south.
I found a very likely candidate. Luddia Mae Perkins was born in 1906 in Alabama. She married J. Chart Henson (spelled Henson in most cases) about 1920. I was able to follow this family through the 1940 census. She had two sons, Carl and Edward, and a daughter - the name is either Lion or Lucy, or something similar, all born in the 1920s. I can't find a death date or burial for J(ames) Chart, but assume he died between 1940 and 1954, when she married my grandfather. Or did she? Marry, that is? They were not married in Washtenaw County, in Lucas County (Toledo), Ohio or Chicago - three places that cousins suggested. Where did they marry? Why not marry in Washtenaw County, Michigan where he lived? How did they meet? She spent most of her life in Alabama, possibly some time in Georgia. Her sons lived and died in Alabama. I am having trouble finding descendants who might have an answer or two about this woman and if she was indeed the second wife of Garth. Did I follow the right woman and family? What happened to her after he died? I know Garth's children were not fond of her (for various reasons) and apparently one of her sons came in a "big car" to pick her up after Garth's funeral. That is the last anyone heard from her. She did not die with the name of Beckington, so maybe she remarried or just went back to Henson? I can't find a burial for that name either.
I will keep trying to find a descendant mostly to learn if I have the right woman. Garth was born in 1878 and she was born in 1906. Most of the cousins were young and to a child - anyone over the age of 40 is "old." There would have been 20+ years difference in their ages. My one surviving aunt was asked by her son if she thinks Luddie could have been that much younger than her father. She didn't live in Michigan during those years, but said yes, that was her understanding. Maybe a Henson will see this blog while Googling their name and make a comment.
Did I answer more questions than I added to my list of "don't knows?" I guess I feel confident that I have answered some major ones anyway.
Saturday, August 25, 2012
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
August in the Mountains and other thoughts
I have been enjoying the coolness of the Colorado mountains this last month, it has been a nice break from the Phoenix heat. I have gotten some genealogy research and writing done. Not as much as I would like, but - it all takes time!
Another note on Mickey (check my November and July posts). I requested his death certificate from Washtenaw County, Michigan, and it should be waiting for me in Phoenix when I return. I am anxious to see what details it might reveal that I don't already know. I suppose there could be "one more note" on Mickey later, depending on what the death certificate reveals.
I did go through letters that I have been saving from various family members to my grandparents. I will be writing about the correspondence between my grandparents (to each other, while they were dating) in a book - hopefully that will come out in the winter/spring. It is a larger undertaking than anticipated.
Among others, I have letters written by Dorothy Bruner Beckington (Mickey's mother) to Garth and Edna Beckington (her new husband's parents), after her marriage to Garth (my uncle Toot). Some of the early letters were written when he was stationed at Fort Atterbury, Indiana, where he was stationed for training during WW II and before he was shipped out to England. She was able to live on the base (or near by) with him after their marriage. They married June 6, 1942. As I wrote about in the previous posts mentioned above, Mickey was her son by a previous relationship. He would have been about six years old when Toot and Dorothy married. I am guessing he stayed with his grandparents, William Gross and Alice Marenger Bruner Gross, Dorothy's mother and step-father, while Toot and Dorothy were in Indiana. At least, I assume. She never mentions him in her letters. Where is he? She doesn't say she misses him, or anything. She always (even in the years to come) addresses her in-laws as "Mr. and Mrs. Beckington." I don't think any other in-laws in the family did so. She did write many letters to them over the years so I do have to give her credit for staying in touch and keeping them apprised of their lives. But she never mentions Mickey - before or after his death.
At one point I assumed that Toot lived with the boy (and Dorothy) from their marriage until Mickey's death in August, 1946. Actually with WW II intervening and Toot having enlisted (or been drafted?), he was away from the family most of the time between 1942 and the fall of 1945. He made one comment in a letter home that he felt they didn't let the soldiers come home earlier (the war officially ended in Europe in May of 1945) because there were no jobs for the soldiers to return to. Toot spent most of his time during his service in England but he was in France for a short time in 1945 because he describes the destruction he sees all over France, including Paris. So, actually, he probably lived with Mickey (if at all, assuming Mickey did not continue living with his grandparents) for less than a year before Mickey died on August 28, 1946 of polio.
Another note on Mickey (check my November and July posts). I requested his death certificate from Washtenaw County, Michigan, and it should be waiting for me in Phoenix when I return. I am anxious to see what details it might reveal that I don't already know. I suppose there could be "one more note" on Mickey later, depending on what the death certificate reveals.
I did go through letters that I have been saving from various family members to my grandparents. I will be writing about the correspondence between my grandparents (to each other, while they were dating) in a book - hopefully that will come out in the winter/spring. It is a larger undertaking than anticipated.
Among others, I have letters written by Dorothy Bruner Beckington (Mickey's mother) to Garth and Edna Beckington (her new husband's parents), after her marriage to Garth (my uncle Toot). Some of the early letters were written when he was stationed at Fort Atterbury, Indiana, where he was stationed for training during WW II and before he was shipped out to England. She was able to live on the base (or near by) with him after their marriage. They married June 6, 1942. As I wrote about in the previous posts mentioned above, Mickey was her son by a previous relationship. He would have been about six years old when Toot and Dorothy married. I am guessing he stayed with his grandparents, William Gross and Alice Marenger Bruner Gross, Dorothy's mother and step-father, while Toot and Dorothy were in Indiana. At least, I assume. She never mentions him in her letters. Where is he? She doesn't say she misses him, or anything. She always (even in the years to come) addresses her in-laws as "Mr. and Mrs. Beckington." I don't think any other in-laws in the family did so. She did write many letters to them over the years so I do have to give her credit for staying in touch and keeping them apprised of their lives. But she never mentions Mickey - before or after his death.
At one point I assumed that Toot lived with the boy (and Dorothy) from their marriage until Mickey's death in August, 1946. Actually with WW II intervening and Toot having enlisted (or been drafted?), he was away from the family most of the time between 1942 and the fall of 1945. He made one comment in a letter home that he felt they didn't let the soldiers come home earlier (the war officially ended in Europe in May of 1945) because there were no jobs for the soldiers to return to. Toot spent most of his time during his service in England but he was in France for a short time in 1945 because he describes the destruction he sees all over France, including Paris. So, actually, he probably lived with Mickey (if at all, assuming Mickey did not continue living with his grandparents) for less than a year before Mickey died on August 28, 1946 of polio.
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