The hunt continues...

I decided to continue the theme. It's apropos as this Friday is the season 3 premier of the U.S. version of "Who do you think you are?", one of my favorite shows. It's something I've been thinking on, and maybe blogging it will help.

My great aunt was born in 1903 in a small town in Missouri, the first daughter and fourth child of a Swiss immigrant and (most likely) a Scotch-Irish descendant. She can be found with the rest of the family in the 1910 census, but so far I haven't been able to locate her in the 1920 census. Many things happened in that decade that probably lead to her being in transit and not counted. In 1918 both her mother and maternal grandmother died, leaving her at 15 to be raised by her stonemason father. My grandfather was just 6 when this happened. About that time her first husband came into her life, and by 1919 at age 16 she gave birth to his junior. Between then and 1924, she gave birth to 3 more children and moved to Wyoming. Her husband was hired as a sheriff there, accused of a crime, and finally acquitted but by then the damage was done. Their marriage failed, they split and the children ended up as wards of the state. She met husband #2 who worked in the oil industry, and they were married in 1926. He was a widow with two teenage boys. They can be found, with her four children (apparently back in her custody for a time), in the 1930 census. His work took him to Aruba, and for at least a while my great aunt accompanied him there. I have heard she sent letters from Aruba to family, but in time the letters stopped and no one in the family knew her whereabouts. In July 1933, the two minus all kids are on the passenger manifest of a ship arriving in New York from Aruba.

This is the last evidence I can find of her in any record thus far. I am anxious for the 1940 census to see what that might show. It's my understanding that husband #2 came through town once after that and my grandfather confronted him about where my great aunt was. Whatever was said, my grandfather understood that she was dead and that he had killed her. I'm guessing this happened between 1933 and 1940. He thought it happened in Aruba, however since I can find her on the passenger list home, I question that conclusion. I can find that husband #2 died in 1967, and that the oil industry sent him back to Aruba, as well as India in that lifetime. Husband #1 actually died before she did, in 1930 in a train accident (he was apparently riding on top of one and was decapitated by a bridge), after remarrying in 1926 as well, and fathering two more children.

The above photo is clockwise from the left hand corner: The 1930 census page with my great aunt, husband #2, and the kids; a photo of the Missouri town circa 1908; the 1933 passenger list; a photo of the house my grandfather grew up in that I took last summer; and in the center the death certificate of my great aunt's grandmother (my great-great-grandmother). I have to say, Missouri is a wonderful state to have ancestors from, the on line and available information is outstanding in comparison to other states I've researched in.