One Hit Wonders

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adventure, Ancestry.com, investigation, journey, Kentucky, Lawson, Letcher County, Newell, Whittaker

In music, a “one hit wonder” is when a singer or musical group has one chart-topping song.  They have one big hit and that’s it.  However, some of those single hits for one group have gone on to be hits for others.  Still more of them have gone on to be featured in countless collections of hits from their era, or have been immortalized in movie soundtracks.

I personally didn’t know who Bobby Day was, but say the name of his one hit wonder “Rockin’ Robin” and I not only think of the Jackson 5, I also think of one particular hand clapping game we used to play to this tune; the first verse was pretty much the same as the original, but the second was a bit different.  I don’t recall the original lyrics being “Your Daddy’s in the back yard, shootin’ them dice/your Mama’s in the kitchen, cookin’ that rice.”  And, I didn’t know that before a group called the Crew Cuts did the song “Sh-boom”  (aka “Life Could Be a Dream”) that it was a one hit wonder for a group called The Chords.  If you’ve seen Pixar’s movie Cars, then you heard this song playing as the cars were cruising the neon lit streets.

There are plenty of other examples in music of course.  However, the “one hit wonders” that I am referring to in this case are those in our genealogy.  They are children in our families that show up on a single census.  Their presence is a one time occurrence for a single decade’s list, and they are never seen again.

When going through the 1940 US Census, I was looking for a potential one hit wonder in my own family.  When I started looking into my mother’s side of the family tree, I had mentioned the tragic circumstances of her older sister’s death.  Because of when she was born, I knew that 1940 would be the only census on which she would appear.  The question remained though:  would she be on it at all?

The family lore varied a lot on when she had actually died.  Some made it sound like she was just a baby or toddler.  My gut feeling though was that she would have been older.  I made that conclusion based on the story.  If she was trying to go after a bottle of nail polish on a fireplace mantle, I felt she would need to be at least three or four to attempt to climb or reach up to the mantle.

I knew where the family should be at this point, because I was able to find birth records for both the sister and my mother in the same location.  Letcher County, Kentucky is where I started my search.

The hard part was that I didn’t know exactly in what section of Letcher County to start.  I used the 1940 Census Enumeration District Finder created by Stephen P. Morse, PhD  &  Joel D. Weintraub, PhD to show me all the districts for the county.  I then looked at the descriptions.  From the 1930 Census, I knew that my grandfather’s family had lived in Magisterial District 1, which had four possible enumerations districts that made it up.  I decided I’d have to search page by page.

In enumeration district (ED) 67-1, I saw the name ‘Whitaker’ a few times, but almost all the names were unfamiliar.  One name I tucked away for a future date to research because I thought it might be a son of Vetter Whittaker, whose name helped me link up several spelling variations on multiple censuses.  So, not finding any of my family in that district, I went on to ED 67-2.

I was eleven pages in and I almost missed it.  It wasn’t my mother’s sister, but it led me to believe I was on the right track.  It also thoroughly convinced me that somehow, the census takers had decided to make things difficult for me because once again, they were mixing things up on me again.

For the fourth time, they have spelled my great-grandmother’s name wrong! And, they got my great-grandfather’s wrong as well!

The reason I almost didn’t catch this was because both of my great-grandparents’ names are incorrect.  Manford is listed as Langford, and Thenie is listed as Dina!

So, you might ask, how do I know this is really my family?  It’s because of the twins.  However, once again, we have a gender-bending census taker, because Rolie and Trolie Lawson were actually identical twin boys!  Rolie and Trolie (or as I knew them, Uncle Roll and Uncle Troll) were not just names to me.  I knew them both growing up, and they were both down to earth with great senses of humor.

In finding my great-grandparents and two of my grand-uncles, I figured I was starting to get nearer to finding the family.  In fact, on the next page, I found another possible relative.  The name was listed as Esta, but I think it might be Delbert Estes, another grand-uncle.

After that, page after page went by without seeing another familiar name.  Then, turning to my 26th page to review, I found what I was looking for (and more):

The first family listed is my great-grandmother with her second husband, and two of my grandfather’s half-siblings (I think that the last name is Juanita, which means we once again have a census taker that is a sex change artist).  You can see that the census taker probably missed filling in one field, and he was entering things in the wrong spots.  He had to go in and make corrections, and unfortunately, his correction for Juanita made her a boy.

The final line contains the name of my one hit wonder:  Anna (Mae) Newell.  As you can see, she is the only child at the moment.  Not for long though.  You see, my grandmother was a few months pregnant by this time, and before the year was out, she would be giving birth to my Mom.

My grandfather used to tell us about how when Grandma was pregnant with Mom, she would chew ice all the time.  He would say, “All day long she would just be crunchin’ on that ice.  Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch!  Sounded like a hog chewin’ on corn!”  I guess she got over it eventually; I was told when she had one of my aunts, it was peaches that she craved.

I was glad to see Anna Mae on the census.  I had already found her birth record.  Seeing another record for her made her seem more real to me.  She had lived.  She would have been about 18 months old at the time of the census, so she would have been walking and talking.  But, I knew at the same time, this young girl would in a few years die tragically.  It was a bittersweet discovery, but one that I feel helped me make a deeper connection to the aunt I never knew.

I wonder if any of you have any one hit wonders in your family?

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Strolling Through the Old Neighborhood in 1940

In starting my research into the 1940 US Census, I started to wonder about where I grew up and how it would have looked back then, over twenty years from when I was born.  At one time, my grandparents had lived in the house that was home to me from the time I was just a few years old until I was almost thirty.  I was pretty certain that my grandparents would not be living there in 1940, and I was right about that.  My father had told me he grew up on Knickerbocker, which was a few blocks away from where I grew up.  And Knickerbocker was right where I found them.

My paternal grandfather and his family in 1940.

I learned a few things about the family from this census.  First, they had lived in the same place in 1935.  I know that in 1930 my grandparents had lived within the city limits of Flint, Michigan.  Now, they lived just outside the city limits.  My grandfather worked in an auto factory doing motor repair.  I had already known he worked at the factory, but now I knew what he did.  From what my father has told me, he was a participant of the Sit-Down Strike of 1936-37 in Flint.

I was surprised to see that neither of my grandparents had completed high school, but knowing that, I wasn’t surprised to see that my grandmother had two more years of schooling than my grandfather did.  Since her father, Joseph McCombs, was a school teacher, I have a feeling that he would have done his best to see that his girls received an education.

The children listed are my aunt and my two uncles.  My father was the youngest and would not make an appearance on the census for another ten years.  I know that my grandparents were married in Missouri, but their first child was born in Illinois.  Their oldest son was born in Missouri, and the youngest at this time was born in Michigan, as my father would be.  I wondered what had prompted the move from Missouri to Illinois and then from Illinois back to Missouri.  I knew my great-grandfather had not had his first stroke until 1931, and my uncle’s age said that he was born a few years before that event.  Was there perhaps some other family issue that caused the move, or perhaps was it a result of the financial complexities that resulted from the Great Depression?

Regardless of why my family moved from Illinois to Missouri, I know that my grandfather came to Michigan to get a job in the auto industry.  He was not alone.  As I began my journey down Genesee Avenue, I was able to find many people whose place of employment was listed as “Auto Factory”.

As I went through the records, I could see that the census takers were walking down the streets as far as they could go, and then back up to Saginaw Street, the border between Mount Morris and Genesee Townships.

1940 Enumeration District Map showing the area where I grew up. You can see both Genesee Avenue and Knickerbocker Avenue on the map. It is a distance of about one mile from Coldwater Road to Carpenter Road, the northern and southern boundaries.

In case you are wondering why there is such a large gap in the middle of the map, that is no accident.  Between Downey Avenue and Cass Avenue there were three places that I know of that were there when I grew up (I’m not sure however, if all of them were there in 1940).  From Saginaw Street to Summit Street was the grounds of Saint Francis of Assisi Church (this was the most likely structure to have been there in 1940).  The spacious (and mostly treeless) grounds made it a wonderful place for us to fly kites growing up, and they had a playground that we would often visit to swing or to go down the big slide (probably about three times the size of the one on our swing set at home).  Facing Summit Street on its west side was Summit Junior High School, and facing Detroit Street on its east side was Buell Elementary School, with a large field running the rest of the distance between them.  Past Detroit Street, I don’t know, because Detroit Street was the border my parents set for us to the west.

So, when the census takers started their walk, they had just finished with South Cornell on its western edge, and were walking east on Genesee Avenue back toward Saginaw Street.

The first thing I noticed was that the street numbers were all different from when I was younger.  I wasn’t sure why they had been renumbered.  That in some ways made it more difficult to figure out where I was on the street, but as I got closer to where I lived, it got easier.

I stopped as I found familiar names.

Two names stood out for me in this section.

The first name that stood out for me was Trovillion.  My family knew a family named Trovillion, and I wondered if this might be the parents of the Trovillion that they knew.  Since I knew that the Trovillions we knew were about my parents’ ages, I decided that, like my father, they hadn’t been born at the time of the census.

The second name that stood out for me was Leo France.  Now, the part that surprised me was that in this census, that Leo was widowed.  The reason that it surprised me was that while I don’t think that I ever met Leo, I did know his wife quite well.  You see, his wife was the grandmother of three girls that lived only a few blocks down the street from me (probably closer than what I guessed Leo lived to that location in 1940).  I became friends with all of them, lost touch when they and I moved out of the area, but, thanks to the wonders of social networking, we now keep in touch on a more regular basis.

I do have reason to believe that this is their grandfather though.  During one of those times when my own searches were hitting road blocks, I did some research into their family tree a bit.  I confirmed with them some of the things I found.  Their great-grandparents’ names were William and Marion and they were born in New York and Canada, respectively.  Mary I believe would be a shortened form of Marion, so I believe the parents he has living with them are my friends’ great-grandparents.  He would then have married again, and had more children, since my friends’ mother was born a few years after the census.

More familiar names appeared.

The last name Nelson was one I knew.  There had been a Nelson family living at the corner of Genesee Avenue and Summit Street.  Perhaps this gentleman was related.  I saw that he was divorced and had a live-in housekeeper.  The housekeeper’s last name was also familiar, as I went to school with one or two girls with the last name Schwalm.  The name Royal sounds familiar too; I think one of them named their son Royal.  I think it is likely that this would be their grandmother and perhaps also their father.

Finally, we got closer to Saginaw Street; closer to where I lived and I could tell because the names were extremely familiar.

Three names showed up on this page on Genesee Avenue that I knew.

I knew a Healey family that lived just down the street from us.  They lived across the street and a few doors down from the three friends I mentioned earlier.  However, the Healeys here would have been much older than the Healeys that I knew growing up.  Perhaps they were the parents of Mr. Healey.

I knew where I was when I got to the Pero house though.  I don’t know if I had ever met Mr. Pero, but Mrs. Pero (I don’t think I ever knew her first name) I did know and would visit from time to time.  The were actually our next door neighbors; there was an empty lot between their house and ours.  Well, in reality only a portion of the lot was empty, but I’ll come to that in a moment.  Mrs. Pero kept a nice garden in her yard, and I would go over once in a while when she was outside and talk to her.  She was a sweet lady.  Her son lived in the house after she passed away.

The Ayottes were our next door neighbors on the other side.  They were nice people too, but I didn’t get to know them as well as the Peros because they weren’t there as long.  I got to know the family that moved in after them much better.

I thought I was about done with my journey through my old neighborhood, when I spotted one last set of names.

While the neighbors to either side of us were important, so were the neighbors on the street behind us. The Henrys were our neighbors for longer than any of the others.

The Henrys were great neighbors, and I knew them the best of any family that was living in this area in 1940.  Our yards were separated by some fencing that aged to the point of non-existence by the time I was in my teens.  Again, I don’t think I knew the senior Mr. Henry, but I did know Old Mrs. Henry, as I called her (the designation Old was likely as much to do with her age as to distinguish her from her daughter-in-law.  Remember that mostly empty lot between the Pero house and ours?  It belonged to the Henrys and that’s where Old Mrs. Henry kept her garden, and a wonderful garden it was!  It would begin to bloom as soon as Spring arrived, with Crocus, and then would come the tulips and daffodils.  She didn’t just have the yellow daffodils that grew in our yard.  She had other types as well.  And the tulips were so varied as well.  She had single and double varieties.  There were variegated ones, and solid colors from bright white to a deep purple that almost looked black.  In May there would be Periwinkles and Lilies of the Valley.  There were bushes of beautiful lilacs that would bloom in early June, and several varieties of peonies and some roses as well.

I can remember playing in the backyard, and seeing Old Mrs. Henry going back to work in her garden.  There was an old, tiny trailer (an Airstream perhaps) that held her tools, and I would often hear her whistle a tune as she worked (she’s the only woman who I had ever hear whistle a tune before or since).  I would get permission now and then to pick flowers, and I was careful not to pick too many of any one type.  After Old Mrs. Henry died, I would sometimes go out into her garden and admire her flowers, and though her son kept them watered and weeded, they did not thrive for him the way they did for her.

I would visit over the fence with Mr. and Mrs. Henry from time to time, and I made occasional visits to their house.  I would sometimes cut down their driveway when I was going to and from school in Junior High.  It became an accepted practice, and I often would say hello to them as I was getting ready to cross over from their yard to mine.

My last visit to them was the day Bill and I got married.  They were not able to come to our wedding, but we paid them a visit our way to the reception.  I can remember Mrs. Henry’s sight was failing then, and I don’t remember her being in the best of health.  But I can still remember her face lighting up as we talked to her, and I was so glad to see them one last time before leaving for California.

It amazed me how much taking a stroll through my old neighborhood years before I ever lived there would help me to remember so many things.  I would recommend looking at where you grew up, even if it was years before you were born.  Even if your family wasn’t living there, perhaps there were neighbors there that you’ve forgotten that the Census could help you remember.

Happy Census Day!

Tags

1940, adventure, familysearch.org, genealogy, hunting, information, investigation, journey, search, US Census

I know a lot of us are excited about the 1940 US Census being available for the first time today.  I’m wondering what your plans are, and who you plan on looking for first?

Unfortunately, I’ll need to wait another ten years before I’ll be able to see my parents on the census.  However, I still look forward to seeing my aunts and uncles on my Dad’s side of the family.  And, on Mom’s side, I look forward to seeing her older sister make her only census appearance.  I mentioned her in February; the little girl who died tragically.

Only “Poppa”, my Aunt Jeanette’s father, was my only living great-grandparent on my Dad’s side, but my great-grandparents on Mom’s side (with one exception) should all be alive.  And, I was interested to find out more about their children and where they were in 1940.

I asked Bill who he would like to find out about first on his side of the family, and he said if possible, he’d like to find out more about his great-grandparents.  We knew his great-grandmother Sabados would still be alive.  We also knew his great-grandfather Schreckengost would be alive.  However, we had no idea about when his mother’s maternal grandparents had died, and we had so far come up empty on the 1930 census, so they might be long dead, or we just hadn’t found the right connection to them yet.

One of the things I’m also excited to do tomorrow is that I have volunteered to help index the census records.  I’m looking forward to it.  It’s a way of giving back to the genealogical community, a community that has been so great in answering questions and giving advice to help further my adventure.  I’m setting a goal to transcribe 1,000 names for the month of April.  That’s about one full census sheet a day.  I know it’s probably just a drop in the bucket, but together with all the others that will be volunteering, it will help in getting the information out there to all.

So, I wish you all the best in your searches.  Good hunting!

🙂 Pam