Postscript: Frank and Bert

Previous posts about this family: Addie and the Traveling Salesman, and Will De Garmo Skips Town.

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The two sons of Will De Garmo and Addie Ellis appeared to have lived good lives, far from any shadow cast by their father.

Franklin Ellis (Frank) married an English girl, Mary Agnes, and they raised a large family. While they lived in Massachusetts, their sons Leroy, Earl, Harold, and Franklin were born. They moved to Connecticut and continued their family with the births of Norman, Russell, Doris, Melford, and Donald.

Franklin was first a house painter, like his grandfather Edward Ellis. By 1940, he was a painter for a hotel.

Bertie Ellis married Gertrude, and they had two daughters named Doris and Hazel. When Gertrude died, the girls were young teens. Bertie married Betty in 1927 and they all lived together in Detroit, where he was a foreman in the Lincoln Auto Factory.

Bertie died at age 44 in 1933. It appeared that he had been suffering from poor health for some time. His older brother Frank lived six months past his 100th birthday and died in 1985.

I think that Addie hadn't told them much about their time in Iowa and Nebraska before she died in 1903. They were teenagers when she died--Bert was 14 and Frank was 17. Once the family had moved to Massachusetts, the name De Garmo only appeared on Addie's death certificate and was in no other Ellis-related document that I found. It had apparently faded from the memory of the younger generation, if indeed any of them had known it at all.

When Betty gave the information for Bertie's death certificate, she was under the impression that his father's last name was Ellis, and she didn't know the first name, or that Will had been born in New York. As for Bertie's mother, Betty said simply that her maiden name and birthplace were both unknown.

But we know the real story.

Part of Bertie's death certificate

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Sources

1. U.S. Federal Census: 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940. Ancestry.com

2. U.S. Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014. Ancestry.com

3. Ohio County Marriages, 1774-1993. Ancestry.com

4. Michigan Death Records, 1867-1950. Ancestry.com

5. Massachusetts Death Records, 1841-1915. Ancestry.com

Will De Garmo Skips Town

In the previous post, we met my tragic cousin Addie and were left wondering about her husband, William De Garmo. Was he dead, since the 1900 U.S. Census showed Addie as a widow? Addie's death records indicated that she was the "divorced wife of William De Garmo." Which version was true? Why did Addie and her two boys call themselves Ellis, her maiden name, rather than De Garmo after they moved to Worcester, Massachusetts?

These newspaper articles might shed some light. The first was published in The Weekly Cherokean on Jan. 4, 1887--Addie and William (oh, let's just call him "Will" like the tongue-in-cheek news writer does) had been married for just two and a half years and had a toddler, Franklin. 

The next article is from The Cherokee Times, dated two days later, Jan. 6, 1887. "Forty-rod" is apparently whiskey, especially when cheap and strong. 

Not long after, The Weekly Cherokean on Feb. 1, 1887 gleefully reported the missing Will's whereabouts, no doubt for the benefit of his many creditors, who had been wondering. 

In one of those Time Capsule columns that newspaper editors love, The Cherokee Daily Times of Jan. 17, 1987 reports:

I was sorry to see that my great-great Uncle Edward Ellis (Addie's father) was somehow involved with the rascally Will, being an "associate of De Garmo in violation of the law forbidding saloon men from allowing boys in their places." However, I was glad that Uncle Ed paid up and didn't have to go to jail. I think his association with Will might have cured him of the saloon business, as he reported his occupation as house painter from then on.

I had wondered if Will had forgotten to take Addie and Franklin along when he left with the billiard tables in the night, but they must have accompanied him, as Addie gave birth to their second son, Bertie, in Nebraska in 1888. Two years later she had moved with her boys and her parents away from the bad memories of Iowa and Nebraska all the way to Massachusetts.

Will wasn't dead in 1903 when Addie died. He had married Alta Katherine Hart in 1895 in Lincoln, Nebraska. then moved back to Iowa (but not to Cherokee, where he was "famous") sometime between 1895 and 1900. Over the years, he reported his occupation as "commercial traveler" or "laborer on the steam railroad." He died in Dunlap, Iowa, in 1937 at the age of 64, and is buried in the Pleasant Hill Cemetery there. 

Pleasant Hill Cemetery, Dunlap, Harrison County, Iowa

Next: A rather curious postscript to this story...

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Sources

1. U.S. Federal Census: 1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940

2. Massachusetts Death Records, 1841-1915

3. Digital Archives of the Cherokee Public Library (for newspaper articles): http://cherokee.advantage-preservation.com/

4. Iowa Marriage Records, 1880-1937

5. Merriam Webster Dictionary for definition of "forty-rod:" https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/forty-rod

6. Nebraska Marriage Records, 1855-1908

7. Find a Grave for William Degarmo, https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=59859514&ref=acom. 

Addie and the Traveling Salesman

When you engage in family history research, people come and go quickly. You "meet" a relative in some official document, perhaps a census form. From there, you discover their parents and siblings, then go on to find them a spouse (yes, you start to feel somehow in charge of their life), discover the births of their children and grandchildren, and then, sadly, find their death date and burial information.

You find yourself rooting for them in the good times and encouraging them through the bad times. Very occasionally, you discover that you want to shout out a warning like "nooooo, don't marry him, he's trouble!" And that's what happened to me with Addie, my first cousin twice removed.

Here is the very bare outline of Addie's life, as summarized by Ancestry.com, given all my data inputs:

When Ada M "Addie" Ellis was born in 1864 in Maine, her father, Edward, was 23, and her mother, Profenda, was 21. She married William De Garmo on June 18, 1884, in Aurelia, Iowa. They had two children during their marriage. She died on March 12, 1903, in Worcester, Massachusetts, at the age of 39, and was buried in North Smithfield, Rhode Island.

Addie and her parents joined many of their relatives around Cherokee, Iowa sometime between 1880, when they were in Rhode Island, and 1884, when Addie married William De Garmo (whose occupation was listed in the Iowa State Census as "commercial traveler") in Iowa.

From Iowa Marriage Records, 1880-1937

By 1900, Edward and Fenda Ellis, together with daughter Addie Ellis (not De Garmo) and her two boys were all back east again, this time living in Worcester, Massachusetts, where many of the Ellis family had settled.

Tragically, in 1903, at age 39, Addie died what had to have been an excruciatingly painful death due to "inanition gastritis with probable stricturing of oesophagus."

Massachusetts death records list Addie as the "divorced wife of William De Garmo," although the 1900 Federal Census had listed her as a widow. Which was true?

Oddly enough, her sons were called Franklin Winslow Ellis, age 18; and Bertie Ellis, age 15--they did not go by their father's name, De Garmo.

Whatever happened to her husband, William De Garmo? Why did they all use Addie's maiden name instead of De Garmo? Stay tuned...

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Sources

1. U.S. Federal Census: 1870, 1880, 1900, 1910

2. Iowa Marriage Records 1880-1937

3. Massachusetts Death Records, 1841-1915

4. Ancestry.com

How Addie and I are connected: 

Ada M "Addie" Ellis (1864 - 1903)
1st cousin 2x removed
Edward J. Ellis (1841 - 1916)
father of Ada M "Addie" Ellis
Robert Winslow Ellis (1821 - 1876)
father of Edward J. Ellis
Oscar J. Ellis (1852 - 1907)
son of Robert Winslow Ellis
Eva Josephine Ellis (1888 - 1943)
daughter of Oscar J. Ellis
Daniel Lawrence Harris (1907 - 1972)
son of Eva Josephine Ellis
Clair Marie Harris
You are the daughter of Daniel Lawrence Harris