Obituary: Margaret Lavina (Richardson) (Hegwer) Danes

I'm certainly happy with any obituary, but some are better than others... and this obituary is one of the others....  It is about my great-grandmother and briefly refers to my grandfather, but you'd have to be a family genealogist to know it!

The "local lady" is Margaret Lavina (Richardson) (Hegwer) Danes.  This obituary is from the 14 July 1919 issue of the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, p. 5.  From the first line shown in the image, her obituary continues:

whose home was at 829 South avenue, occurred yesterday afternoon at 4 o'clock, following a sickness of several months from asthma and complications. Mrs. Danes was born in Tiffany, Mo., August 29, 1860, and has been twice married, the first husband leaving her with two sons, one of whom is now making his home with his mother in this city and the other living in Idaho. Mrs. Danes was united in marriage with her present husband at Durango in 1905, and the family came to Grand Junction the following year.
     The funeral services are waiting word from the son in Idaho and upon receipt of such word the arrangements will be completed; burial will be on Orchard Mesa.
     Later--The funeral services will be held at the Martin chapel Tuesday at 2 o'clock p. m. and will be in charge of Rev. Edwards of the Christian church.

The only named person is her second husband, A.W. Danes (note the use of initials rather than 'Albert Wentling'). Neither her married name nor even her forename is given; survivors are not named.  Click here  for a photo of Margaret, Albert, and local son, Raymond Hegwer.

The "detail" of her first marriage is inaccurate and the location of her second marriage is wrong.  Click here for previously posted info about her divorce from Charles Hegwer.

By 1910 census and Salt Lake City directories, they did not arrive in Grand Junction Colorado before 1913.  I wonder who supplied the information...I would have expected her widower or her son to have been more accurate or to have simply omitted specifics.  So, it's another example of how cautious we have to be with obituaries.

 I found it through the website of the Mesa County Libraries and ordered an e-copy from them.   Thank you, Mesa County Libraries of Colorado!

Obituary: Walter H. Hegwer

Thank you, thank you, and thank you again to the Mesa County Libraries!!

My goodness, I'm having a great summer finding obituaries!! This time it's not a subscription website but is a free service of a public library: Mesa County Libraries in Colorado.

Luckily for me, one of my great-grandmothers spent her last years in Grand Junction, Colorado. I know my great-grandmother is buried there and that Hegwer grave(s?) were purchased at the Orchard Mesa Cemetery in Grand Junction.  I know I've looked before but, this time, something went right and I stumbled into the Genealogy section of the library system's website.

I was shocked to find that they had four entries for "Hegwer" or related "Danes" surnames in their files. I was even more shocked to see that it appeared that they have a free service of providing e-copies of the related obituaries.  I filled out the form and now I have copies of obituaries from the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel for:

• Margaret Lavina (Richardson) (Hegwer) Danes, my great-grandmother
• Albert Wentling Danes, her second husband
• Walter Hegwer, one of her children who died young
• Myrtle "Mamie" May (Foltz) Hegwer, widow of Raymond Dudley Hegwer, another of Margaret's sons

The biggest news here is the info about work, residence, and illness for grand-uncle Walter.  And, I have his birthplace as Laveta, Costilla, Colorado rather than Pueblo.  The clipping is from the 18 Feb 1908 issue on p. 8.

The moral of the story is to always check the library where family lived and to recheck it periodically...the digital world is changing...!

Treasures from the To-File Pile: Danes' Mystery Solved

This is another example of how working through the To-File Pile can take up a whole week....  Warning: this post carries a tragic death.

I picked up a bundle of scans on the Hegwer/Danes family sent to me by genealogy cousin Christi two years ago, thinking it would be something I could quickly file, but then I remembered Christi had said something about not knowing who all the people were.  I know that I read the whole packet several times when Christi emailed it:  I had been so elated to receive the few pages from a family Bible.  It was still easy to pick out the strangers' names: the deaths of two McCRACKENs in the Bible and a newspaper clipping about the suicide of a LIVERMAN.  Neither name was anywhere in my database or memory. I decided to try again to identify them before filing the printouts.  I reread all 19 pages; no answers, so I set them down.  The next night, I reread all 19 pages again.  This time it hit me that the obituary clipping was for the mother of Albert Wentling Danes, my step-great-grandfather (link to earlier blog about his marrying my great-grandmother Richardson).  While my copy of the newsclipping was completely unidentified, I found a much more legible copy of it at Colorado Historic Newspapers [1]:

I suddenly saw that her survivors included Al Danes (as well it should, since he was her son) and a "Mrs. McCracken!"  Aha: The mysterious McCracken's in the Bible must be related to Albert Wentling Danes and probably to a sister of his who married a McCracken!  This revelation had only taken a couple of years and another dozen reads to click in my little head....

 The Bible image is not too clear--just barely discernible:

xxx Edith McCracken Died July xx 1900 at Cortez      10 years
Earl McCracken Died April 10 1901 at Cortez    age 19

A return trip to Colorado Historic Newspapers found a brief mention for one of them [2]:

At Cortez, on Saturday last, Edith, the 10-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J.H. McCracken, was stricken with that dread disease, diptheria, and, before proper remedies could take effect, the handsome, lovable child was a corpse.  The remains were buried the same night, and blighted hearts are within that recently happy home.  "Whom God loveth, He chasteneth.

It was easy to find the children in the 1900 census at Cortez, Montezuma, Colorado, with parents Jas H. and Minnie McCracken. Sadly, Minnie was listed as having had only 2 children, both living. How sad to think that less than a year after enumeration day, both of those children were dead. To verify, I searched in the 1910 census, easily finding James and Minnie in Denver, Denver, Colorado, with all data matching, including that Minnie had had 2 children who were both deceased. Suddenly, another revelation: the McCracken's were in the same household as a Jennie Liverman and her son, Kenneth.

Quickly, I went back to the obituary: sure enough, Mrs. Danes also had a surviving daughter, Mrs. Liverman.  Today's genealogy moral: read it, read it again, and then keep reading it over and over again.  Someday, it will sink in.  And, did you just see the other revelation? 

It took me a few more minutes, but then I went back to the suicide news clipping:  Kenneth Liverman.  More great sadness.  My copy of the clipping is barely legible and would only be a smudge here and Colorado Historic Newspapers doesn't have The Denver Times for that year.  Here's an excerpt from the long article headlined "Rejected Youth Ends Own Life" [3]:

Kenneth Liverman 17 years old ... committed suicide by shooting at the Albany hotel at 8 o'clock last night. The boy ended his life because Miss Julie Stewart, a 16-year-old student at the Central Business College refused to marry him. ... The boy left a note, addressed to his mother, ... in which he begs her not to worry over his death. He said that he had been forced to pawn her watch and his violin in order to secure money with which to purchase a revolver.  ... Young Liverman was an accomplished musician and linguist.  He and his mother had returned to Denver from Germany only last June.  For the past three years the boy had studied music in Leipsic, Germany, and also had studied for the stage.  He spoke German and French fluently.  A few weeks ago, Liverman, at the suggestion of his mother, entered the Central Business college to study shorthand.  She thought it would be better to prepare the boy for the management of a fortune left him by his father. ...

Quick research over the last week easily found more on the Liverman's and McCracken's, especially at Findagrave [4] and Colorado Historic Newspapers.  Certainly the refusal was a precipitating event, but also in the last 10 years, he had experienced the deaths of his 2 young cousins, his father, and his grandmother.  He had been uprooted to leave friends and family for Germany and then uprooted again to return to Colorado.  It's hard being a teenager in the best of circumstances.  Clearly, Kenneth had had more than his share of pain in just a few years.

Conclusions

• Sometimes it takes reading something repeatedly before it sinks in or before the connections click.  (That's not just me, is it?)
• Family keep clippings in a Bible for a reason.  With time, the reason can be found.
• I will email the Liverman volunteer at Findagrave to see if he would like any of the info I have.
• The To-File Pile is still not any smaller than it was.

Sources
[1] Durango Democrat (Durango, La Plata, Colorado); 18 Nov 1906; p. 1.  Found at www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org.  NOTE: I love this website and think it is the best of the historic newspapers sites.  Still, its OCR needs lots of work-arounds.  This article did not turn up through their search engine when searched for 'Danes,' 'Skeels,' 'Liverman,'or 'Cracken.'  I had the family Bible notation that she had died in Nov 1906 in Durango.  I already had a copy of the article, and given the margins, it appeared that the article was from the bottom of a page.  So, I went to Colorado Historic Newspapers, saw that they had the Durango Democrat for November 1906, and I started skimming every page from 1 Nov 1906.  Luckily for me, there are only four pages per issue and I only had to read to the 18th of the month!

[2] Durango Democrat (Durango, La Plata, Colorado); 1 Aug 1901; p. 3.  Found at www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org.

[3] Denver Times; 6 October 1910 (copy of the annotated clipping in the collection of the blogger).

[4] Searching at Findagrave.com for Liverman's in Colorado quickly gives photos and lots of info on the family, courtesy of Greg Liverman and Joyce Escue Culver.  Thank you, Findagrave volunteers!!!

Mabel York: No Longer Unknown!

One of my blog posts from a few months ago included a photo of Lila Hegwer and Mabel York (and I've copied it again towards the end of this post).  I didn't discuss Mabel at all in the earlier post, assuming she was simply a friend of Lila's and no relation to my family at all.  But, in preparing photos to take to the Southern California Genealogy Society's Jamboree [2] last week, I came across a photo I didn't know I had:

 As you can see, this photo is clearly annotated that Mabel is a cousin to Ben Hegwer, my grandfather.  That was a big surprise!  So, just now, I went to my database to be sure that I have no YORKs, and found that I cannot count on my memory for much of anything anymore!  Yes, I have Mabel York and a fair amount of info on her!  And, I've had that information since at least January 2008.

Actually, Mabel and Ben are first cousins, once removed.  Mabel was one of at least 3 children of Clara Hegwer and a Mr. York.  Clara was one of the children of Henry Hegwer and his first wife, Katherenah Hornberger.  Mabel was born January 1892 in Colorado [1].

If my conclusions are correct for both girls, Lila would be Mabel's aunt, but is only about 4 months older than Mabel.  If we look at both photos side-by-side, do you agree that Mabel is the young lady on the right of the duo?

Lila Hegwer & Mabel York

Mabel York

I have no record of Mabel after the 1910 census.  Again, as you can see, the undated annotation says that she was deceased at the time of the annotation.  I hope there is a descendent of Henry Hegwer who can supply more info.

CONCLUSIONS
It's nice to know who the people in the photos are and how they fit in.  I hope that someone more closely related to Lila and Mabel than I will see and enjoy these photos!

Who knows what else I have in my files?  I must get better organized....

It's a real blow to, yet again, see that my memory is not what it once was....  I am going to have to make it a rule to ALWAYS check the database, no matter what my first impulse may be on whether or not I have a name on file. 

SOURCE and a Disclaimer/Comment

[1]  1910 US Census: Dist 96, Ward 8, Denver, Denver, Colorado

[2]  The featured photo of Mabel was scanned for me last weekend at Jamboree by ancestry.com during their  "free high-speed scanning" event.  Conference attendees (no ancestry subscription required) could make an online reservation before the conference, and then at the conference, select a specific time during the day of their reservation.  Images would be scanned into a complimentary USB drive carrying the ancestry.com logo.  The early info had included how to prepare and organize images for scanning and had said that they usually can do about 25 images in a person's time slot.  Hoping that most people would not take up ancestry.com's offer and there would be additonal time slots available, I took 87 images with me.  I was wrong about there being any extra time slots available, but it still turned out well that I had taken the extra images along!

What fun!  There were 3 scanning stations going.  The young man who did mine was very charming and very efficient.  Other than one newspaper page, my images were all simple photos organized just the way they had instructed.  He was able to do all 87 images in my 15-minute slot!  You will be seeing lots more of them here!  Thank you for this service and the USB drive, ancestry.com!  I do appreciate it.

I am an ancestry subscriber.  I do not receive any other special consideration from them.  I have never posted any photos at ancestry.com and do not have any intentions of doing so.

Great-Grand Parents Hegwer & Richardson: Divorce is not so simple

The notes my dad left me in 1982 included a photo copies of 6 pages of divorce proceedings between great-grandparents Charles Herman HEGWER and Margaret Lavina RICHARDSON. Margaret, alleging desertion, filed for the divorce. Charles denied the charges but was found guilty. I naively assumed that Charles was not a nice person. But the genealogical research I have done over the last few years has shown me repeatedly that there is always another side to a story and that seems especially so in this case.

The Basics
Charles was born 28 June 1846 in Freistadt, Ozaukee, Wisconsin, the 10th and youngest child of 'Old Lutheran' immigrants from Silesia, Carl Benjamin Hegwer and Maria Rosina Ilgner. The family moved to Chase County, Kansas in 1857 where Charles remained for at least 20 years. He appears in the 1880 census as a farm hand with John & Nancy Wilson in Dale, Atchison, Missouri. This is the only record I have found showing Charles ever in Missouri and I don't yet know his connection to the Wilson's.

Margaret (Maggie) was born 24 July 1860 in Tiffany, Morgan, Missouri, the fourth child of 8 of John D. Richardson and Isabella Shaw. So far, it appears that Margaret's ancestors were probably originally English and had been in America for at least 2 generations but probably much, much longer. All known records for Margaret prior to her marriange are in Missouri.

They married 9 December 1883 in Corning, Nemaha, Kansas [1]. Charles would have been 37 and Margaret would have been 23. I don't know how they met. Their family backgrounds seem fairly different, with the Richardson's seeming to have been more established and stable than Charles.

Their five children were:
Benjamin Theodore, born Kansas 1885
Walter H., born Colorado 1889
Raymond Dudley, born Colorado 1895
Lela, born probably Colorado about 1897 (died before 1900)
Unknown child, born and died before 1900 [2]

The Divorce
Margaret filed for divorce 31 July 1905. A court date was set for August 14. The documents [3] say that Charles denied the charges but there is no mention of any evidence presented by either side. Charles was found guilty and the divorce evidently granted but that sheet is undated; I assume it was August 14.

...But the other evidence I found...
1900 US Census
At first, the 1900 census [4] for the family seems clear: Charles, Margaret, Benjamin, Walter, and Ray in Precinct 11 of Del Norte, Rio Grande County, Colorado.
But, researching Margaret's parents, I found that Margaret and the two younger boys were also listed with her father in the 1900 census in Mill Creek, Morgan, Missouri from the bottom of one census page to the top of the next: Lavina Hegwer, Walter, Ray D.

The census forms very clearly state that the enumeration is to be for the night of June 1. One of the enumerators may have misunderstood and used the day of enumeration: June 4 & 5 for Missouri and June 6 & 7 for Colorado. However, given the nature of transportation at the time and that the two rural locations are roughly 1000 miles apart, it seems unlikely that Maggie and 2 children could have gotten to Del Norte in a few days. I think it is possible that Maggie had taken the two younger boys to Missouri and her father reported them with his household, while Charles reported them in his family even though they were not there that night. (It's also interesting to me that the Colorado listing is more accurate than that of Missouri, but that's probably another issue.)

Margaret leaves Del Norte
A brief mention on p.4 of the 30 August 1902 "Durango Democrat" of LaPlata, Colorado stated in its entirety: "Mrs. M.L. Hegwer and two young sons arrived in the city from Del Norte last evening and will make Durango their future home. Mrs. Hegwer came to Durango in order that she might school her children properly." [5] It did not say that she had left a husband and 17-year-old son in Del Norte.

Margaret not mentioned
The Del Norte area newspapers [5] have many mentions of their son Ben in the late 1890s and early 1900's, with just a few mentions of Charles. I have not found any mention of Margaret in any of those papers even though the social pages seem to record every little activity in town. There is no mention of her attending Ben's high school graduation in 1904, where he graduated first in his class of 4 students and received a state university full scholarship.

Margaret quickly remarries
Margaret married Albert Wentling Dane 25 of August 1905 in Aztec, New Mexico Territory [6]. Assuming she had known him for more than nine days, this fact alone may be the strongest evidence that it was not a simple case of desertion on Charles' part.

Charles' obituary
Charles did not remarry and died in 1911 in Kansas while staying with one of his nieces. His obituary [7] is kind and describes warm relationships with his nieces and nephews' families.














Note that the obituary is on the front page, above the fold, and with a bigger headline than President Taft's impending visit.

Conclusions
Yes, there was a divorce but the cause was probably not one of simple desertion. It seems more likely a complex interaction of many variables and events: age and cultural differences, difficulties of frontier life, and who knows what else. Charles and Margaret were each far away from their own siflings and where they grew up. The deaths of two of their young children must have been a terrible blow to them as parents and to their marriage. Charles had tried many livelihoods (farmer, miner, teamster, laborer, ...) and probably was away from the home at times.

One piece of evidence may imply one conclusion. But, as I find more information, I see that there always seems to be more than one side to a story. The lives of my ancestors were just as complex as our lives are today.

Sources
[1] Nemaha County, Kansas; Probate Court Marriage Records, 1861-1951; Family History Library film # 1,887,934

[2] I have specific dates for the boys but did not write them here since I am still looking for better sources. Current sources are: BT -- family notes & death certificate; WH, RD, & L -- Ancestral File at familysearch.org; unknown child -- 1900 & 1910 census notation for Margaret

[3] La Plata County Court, Colorado; 6pp photocopies in MHD collection

[4] US Census image excerpts from those at ancestry.com

[5] The Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection is a wonderful, free online source for small town newspapers in Colorado. Luckily for me, Rio Grande County is well represented. The search function's ocr has all the typical problems, but the Del Norte paper, for instance, is small enough and the social pages consistently located that, for the most part, I just read every social page for years.

[6] New Mexico, San Juan County: Early Marriage Records 1887-1912, 2nd part, p.33; an extraction, citing p. 20 in the originals

[7] Strong City, Chase County, Kansas: News-Courant, 7 September 1911, p. 1, col 4-5; cropped from a photo copy in MHD collection