A Second Look at the Life of Susan Bliss

This blog post was inspired by Amy Johnson Crow 's "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" challenge.  Learn more at her blog.

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In all the research I have done into the lives of my ancestors, never have I uncovered such a chronic set of poor circumstances than those of Susan Bliss.  There is just something about her life story that is so sad, but brings up so many questions.

She was born in 1838 in Pennsylvania, and married Jacob Givens there.  Three children were born to them - Ella, Josephine, and a little boy, who lived such a short time that, except for Ella's obituary, there's no trace of him.  And they would lose little Josephine within a few years.

About 1865, Jacob, Susan, and Ella came to Princeville, Illinois, where Jacob was a wagon-maker for O'Brien Brothers.  When the company expanded operations to Kewanee, Illinois, Jacob took his wife and daughter there, but he contracted typhoid fever and died.  Susan moved back to Princeville, where several of her siblings had made their home.

Two years later, Susan married William T. Lair, a young farmer and Civil War veteran.

William had no children of his own, but apparently was close to Susan's daughter Ella, who named one of her sons after him, and William provided for Ella in his will.  A young man by the name of Franklin Stallman also made his home with William and Susan, and shortly before his death, William added a codicil to his will stating that he considered Franklin "a member of my own family."  Franklin was also an heir in the will, provided he stayed with Susan after William's death, and that he contributed to her support.

During William's Civil War service, he contracted a "lung disease" from sleeping on damp ground and in swamps.  The last two years of his life, he was unable to perform any manual labor.  He did, however, own properties in Princeville.  William died in 1877.

By this time, Susan's daughter Ella had left home and married; Franklin Stallman, whom William considered one of his own family, was gone.  Seven months later, Susan married prominent druggist and grocer Solomon Bliss.  I found Franklin Stallman in the 1880 census, and he was in the home of Susan's sister Sarah, listed as her grandson.  I was surprised to see that he was just 12 years old.

1896 would be a difficult year for Susan.  Her third husband Solomon Bliss would die in September, but prior to that, it appears, trouble was brewing.  The Bureau of Pensions received an anonymous letter from someone in Princeville accusing Susan of pension fraud.  That anonymous person, who later was revealed to be a man named D. M. Potts, stated that Susan had been drawing a pension on the service of her husband William Lair, and had continued drawing it after her marriage to prominent businessman Solomon Bliss.  The letter alleges that she was still using the name "Lair" and getting her mail in nearby Peoria.  An agent was sent to Princeville to investigate.

Three men seemed to be the most knowledgeable about the situation: D. M. Potts, Fred Gladfelter, and J. A. Pratt.  All three were interviewed under oath.  Potts said he had no firsthand knowledge, only that there was "considerable talk" among the people of their small town.

Gladfelter did a fair amount of backpedaling in his testimony.  His only firsthand knowledge, he said, was that he heard Susan's sister remark that it was odd that some soldiers' widows got $12 a month pension, and others (which he inferred to mean Susan) got only $8. 

Pratt said the bulk of his knowledge on the subject came from Gladfelter.  Gladfelter told him that his sister, Susan Tarbox, who lived with Susan for a time, told him that Susan Bliss was drawing the pension and getting her mail in Peoria.

While Potts and Gladfelter signed their testimonies, Pratt refused.

After all was said and done, it appears that Susan never received a pension at any time, let alone committed pension fraud.*

However, Susan's headaches with the Bureau of Pensions was just beginning.  Solomon Bliss died in 1896, and perhaps he didn't have as much money as generally thought, or perhaps Susan went through it quickly.  But in 1901, she applied for a widow's pension from William Lair's Civil War service.  Apparently bureaucratic red tape was alive and well in the early 1900s, as it took 2 years for her to receive an official rejection letter based on the fact that she was not William's wife during his military service.  Appeals were filed.  Reading over the correspondence between the Bureau and Susan was frustrating and heartbreaking.  Numerous affidavits were given by men who served with William, testifying about his health both before and after his military service, and his lung problems in general.  The government chastised Susan for not providing William's death certificate, though Illinois did not require them in 1877, and no such document existed.  The same documents and affidavits were required of Susan over and over again.  In a letter dated Jan. 2, 1906, Susan states, "while I would not wish to be troublesome to the Department, yet I am very anxious that some action be taken in my case.  I am an aged woman and my health is very poor.  Added to this, I am somewhat in want for the reasonable comforts of life.  I feel if I were to receive anything under my application, I ought to have benefits soon."

Her appeal was finally rejected, again, in January of 1907, this time because she could not prove that William's lung disease was a result of his time spent in the swamps and sleeping on damp ground.  A local attorney came to her aid, and officially questioned the rejection in light of the evidence provided, and on July 23, 1908, received notice that the claim was rejected due to her remarriage.  Unfortunately, it no longer mattered, as Susan had died two weeks earlier.  
 

As I went through all of this, several thoughts came to mind -

How did Susan go through two estates so quickly?  Were the estates of William Lair and Solomon Bliss not as large as it seemed?

Regarding young Franklin Stallman - how did he come to be in William and Susan Lair's household, and being only nine years old when William added the codicil to his will, how did William expect that Franklin would be able to contribute to Susan's support?  Was William presuming he had much longer to live than he did?  He had been bedridden for the two months' prior to his death. 

Why were some people in Princeville so anxious to conclude Susan was involved in pension fraud?  That the federal government was brought into it based only on conjecture, it would seem that Susan had made enemies.

Regarding her desperate financial condition and poor health when Susan wrote to the Bureau of Pensions - she had written another letter a few months later asking for an update on her appeal, and said that friends and neighbors were concerned about her living alone, but that she had no money to pay anyone to stay with her.  She did not mention that her family was concerned, just friends and neighbors.  Considering that her daughter, and numerous siblings still lived in this small town, it seems that someone could have taken her in.  Was her family not involved with her, and if so, why?  Did she deliberately not mention her family in that letter, and if so, why?

These are all questions that I have little hope of answering, but you never know! 

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*The official investigation concluded that if Susan had received a widow's pension, $8 would have been the appropriate amount, but the investigator never cited any records of a pension, which I found odd.  He also concluded that if Susan were receiving a pension after William's death, it would have gone up to $12.  It seems like it would have been an easy matter to consult the Bureau's own records.  In addition, in one of her appeals, Susan asked to collect a widow's pension for the time between William's death and her remarriage to Solomon Bliss, but was told that she did not meet the criteria, so it seems unlikely that she was ever able to receive any monies.

The Best Place in Town - J. J. Newberry's

On the corner of Third Street and Dakota Avenue, the busiest intersection in town, sat J. J. Newberry's Department Store.  In many ways, it was the hub of downtown - it offered a little something for everyone.  Below is the only picture I have of the store, sitting prominently on it's corner perch, probably sometime in the 1940s.

I'm not sure when Newberry's came to Huron, South Dakota, but it was before my time.  I would love to have such a store available now - where you could purchase a variety of things without breaking the bank, have some lunch, socialize over a cold coke, or just browse in a comfortable environment.

I can still see the wide staircase leading to the basement, where the toy department was, and still feel the thrill.  We didn't go there often, but it always paid off when we did.  There was a lunch counter where my little brother learned to drink out of a straw - but not before he blew through that straw as hard as he could and soaked the waiter and everyone around with splattered Coke.  And the cafeteria!  Where you could just walk the line and pick what you wanted, and there it was, immediately!  Later, when I was in Junior High, we would frequently walk there and sit in the cafeteria, boldly smoking cigarettes and drinking Coke, watching people go by through the huge glass windows in the front and side of the store.  I remember nearly spitting Coke myself when one of my cohorts exclaimed, "Look at the boobs on that old lady!" and looked up to see it was a relative of mine walking across the street.  I never did say anything...

I don't remember exactly when Newberry's closed, but I believe the building is still there, and the space has been converted to some other use.  It will always be Newberry's to me, and hold some of the best memories.

Hupmobile

 

An unidentified South Dakota family stands proudly in front of their Hupmobile on a visit to Hand County in 1926.  These cars were produced from 1909 - 1940 in Detroit, Michigan.*   

Photo from private family collection.

*Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hupmobile

Many of us have one - an ancestor who was a stinker, put quite frankly.  And this can be quite a can of worms when writing and documenting our family histories.

I descend from William Nickerson, a fellow who gave the colonial government quite a run for their money back in the 1600s, and was well-documented for it.   There are amply written, unbiased sources documenting his behaviors and punishments, and it's a part of who he was.  He poses no problem for me in writing the family history - he was a character, and his own person, and no one is likely to be offended by what I write about him.

Then there's Aunt L.  She's not so far back in history, having departed this life not quite 30 years ago.  Many in the family still remember her.  She left no descendants that might be more easily offended than the rest of us.  But still, how exactly do I handle her in the family history?

She was my grandfather's aunt, and out of his own mouth come the memories of her locking he and is brothers in a dark closet and terrorizing them, and calling them names, because she hated their father.   Or all of the Christmases that the girls got gifts and the boys got nothing. One of her nieces has less than fond memories of her as well, saying that she tried to cheat their mother out of anything that she could, be it family heirlooms, inheritance, or their brother's insurance money.

My own memories are much tamer, but then, Auntie was quite a bit older by the time I knew her.  Once a year, at Christmas, we would gather at her house for a Christmas dessert and open small gifts.  She got out the family china, and spent time trying to tell us about her father and mother, and trying to show a largely (unfortunately) uninterested bunch of people about the family history.  No one, including me, seemed to care at the time.  Under that tame exterior, though, still lurked the same anger and temper that she had as a young woman.

After a bad fall, she ended up having to go into a nursing home.  She was furious.  And it was my grandfather, the same little boy she terrorized as a child, who looked after her.  He and my grandmother went to her house those last few years she lived there, and mowed the lawn, took her shopping, helped her clean, and visited with her... and in the nursing home, they went out twice a week to see her.   One particular week, they took me with them.  I was standing in the doorway when Auntie L., in a fit of rage, suddenly kicked her trash can violently out into the hallway. Two older gentlemen with walkers were approaching when the projectile shot out of her room, ricocheted on the opposite wall and came to rest in the middle of the hall.  Without missing a beat, one of them said, "Well, looks like another one kicked the bucket!"  Nursing home humor... not a great situation, but it has ended up being one of my favorite memories of Aunt L.  It was so very... her.

So, do we try to leave future generations with positive impressions of their departed family members, or do we do our best to capture them as they were, warts and all?  Should the wishes of other family members be taken into consideration, and if so, to what extent?  Do we, as family historians, respect truth, or respect the dead?  Is there a way to to both?

Thoughts on the 1880 Agricultural Schedule

A year or two ago, I checked the 1880 Agricultural Census available at Ancestry.com for two of my Ancestors from Peoria County, Illinois: William Graves, and Lawson Lair.  While I was able to locate them and read their entries easily, the headings on the forms were nearly completely illegible – so much so that the data was meaningless.  I tried different scans from neighboring areas, and looked around the internet for a blank copy of this form, but to no avail.  I emailed Ancestry requesting a blank form, and received no answer.

Today, I tried again.  The scan has not changed in quality, unfortunately, and I still saw no link to a blank form at Ancestry.  Overall, I’m a happy Ancestry customer, but this major oversight for this database left me disappointed.  Data isn’t worth anything if you don’t know what it means.

However, eventually a Google search pointed me to a wealth of information on not only the 1880 Agricultural census, but others.  Blank forms were provided, as well as background information.  This information, in the form of a pdf, can be obtained at the government’s census website here.

The information provided by this enumeration gives a good “snapshot” of what life on the farm was like – at least during the year 1879.  Land ownership, or the nature of the rental agreement, is the first item to be addressed, progressing into how much land is both improved and unimproved.  Farm values are noted, as well as the worth of the implements and machinery owned by the farmer, so comparing to that of their neighbors, it was easy to get an idea of the financial standing of the farm relative to its neighbors. 

The details help forge a picture of the farm as it was then – was livestock raised, crops planted, or both?  Did the family keep milch cows?  Did they produce butter or cheese?   How many horses did they keep?  Did they keep poultry, and if so, how many eggs did they produce?  Sheep and Swine details were also given.

If crops were planted, what kind?  How many acres?  What was production like in that growing season?  These agricultural censuses will differ in what specific crop questions were asked, depending on region of the country.  Orchards, vineyards, and bee-keeping were also addressed.

Looking at the data for Lawson Lair, who was at the time 47 years old with a family of nine, owned an 80 acre farm just west of Princeville.  With farm values of his immediate neighbors ranging from $2,600 to $15,000, Lawson’s farm was toward the bottom at $3,200.  Interpreting this data isn’t always straightforward, however; other sources paint a different picture of Lawson, who owned property in the nearby town of Princeville, deriving a great deal of future income as a landlord.  He passed away with quite a tidy sum of money accumulated.  Had I not already known this, I might have been tempted to decide Lawson was financially compromised, based on the value of his farm.

Lawson had 4 milch cows and sold 450 gallons of milk in 1879; however, they didn’t make butter or cheese on the farm.  He had 45 head of swine, and 40 barnyard poultry which produced 125 dozen eggs over the previous year.  With his family of nine, this averages out to 3 eggs per person per week, which leads me to believe they produced eggs primarily for their own consumption. 

Regarding his crops, he grew Indian corn, potatoes, and sorghum, from which he produced 90 gallons of molasses – far more than his immediate neighbors who grew sorghum.


All in all, this was an interesting look at the 1879 picture of Lawson’s farm, and that part of his life.  The most significant piece of information I learned was that he was not as invested in his farm as I had imagined – he made his money from other means.  Previous farm schedules may paint a different picture.  Every little piece of the puzzle helps to put flesh on the bones. 

More Clues from Envelopes

I recently posted about gleaning some very helpful hints from envelopes.  After I thought I had gotten all the additional information I could from them, I was surprised once again.  I had been dealing with two addresses: 1605 Market Street and 16217 Manhattan Place, the former belonging to my great-grandparents, Pete and Ella Christensen, and the latter belonging to their son, Clarence.  After Ella’s death, when Clarence was married with a child, they traded houses, as Pete’s was a much larger home.

After having gone through most of the letters and envelopes, I realized there was a third address, 16029 Manhattan Place.  Due to the similarity to the other Manhattan Place address, I overlooked it completely.  It was an early return address for Pete and Ella Christensen in Gardena – they apparently did not move directly into their home on 1605 Market (162nd) Street.  My mother confirmed that they lived in a smaller home for a time when first moving to Gardena.

I then noticed another address: 1605 162nd St.  I was struck by the fact that the house number was the same as that of Pete and Ella’s house, but was on a letter written by Clarence’s widow in the 1960s.  Since they had traded houses with Pete, this would tend to confirm my suspicion that 162nd Street was once Market Street.

The return addresses, along with the postmarks, should help me pinpoint exactly who lived where, and when.

Working on a Box of Roots, and Overlooked Clues

It’s finally happened – I’m tired of working and cleaning around the boxes of genealogy goodies I brought up from the basement months ago.  I’m working on the many storage bins full of this and that, trying to make sure everything is scanned, and put into archival sleeves in three ring binders.  My hope is that by putting things in binders, the originals will not need to be “disturbed” nearly as much, plus, I’ll be able to find things a little more easily.  I’m finding many things that just aren’t made for a binder, so I’ll still have boxes, etc. of things, but it should be much more manageable with fewer, and well-labeled, boxes.

I’ve learned a lot this week, but first and foremost is the need to go back and review old documents with a fresh mind.  I found a number of old letters from my great-grandparents, Pete and Ella Christensen, after they moved to California in 1946.  I had these items scanned and transcribed, but decided to print out the transcription for each letter, put it in a sleeve, with the original kept in the envelope behind the transcription.   But this time, I noticed the envelopes.  Ten years ago, when I first scanned these letters, I completely overlooked their value.

As I mentioned, Pete and Ella Christensen moved to Gardena, California in 1946.  Ella passed away in 1952, and her daughter Lillian and family (of which my mother was one of the children) moved to California for a year.  For some time, I’d tried to find where their home was located, but apparently street names had been changed at some point, as Market Street was no longer shown anywhere in Gardena.  I sat down with my mother, and we attempted to find the general vicinity of the house, based on her memories of landmarks from 60 years ago – an elementary school across the street, and a church to the back of the house, but the memories were too faded to remember the names.  As one could probably predict, it wasn’t very successful.

Then came the envelopes.  As my mother recalled, Pete and Ella’s son Clarence lived a short distance from the house on Market Street, and I just happened to have a couple of letters Clarence had written with his return address on the envelope.  Luckily, Manhattan Place must not have been included when the street names were changed.  His house appeared to be on, or near the corner of Manhattan Place and 162nd Street.   We knew it was pretty much a “straight shot” to Clarence’s house from Pete and Ella’s.

I “googled” Gardena Elementary Schools, fully expecting that after 60 years, buildings would be gone and schools relocated, but one school, Denker Elementary, had been at the same site since 1932, an address on 162nd Street... the same street Clarence lived on.  Using Google Earth, I looked at these two addresses, and especially focused on the block across the street from the elementary school.  Mom remembered Pete having two lots, the lot to the back being full of fruit trees, and the church, possibly Seventh Day Adventists, was behind that lot.  Here is what I found on Google Earth:

Right above the “A” marker would have been where Pete and Ella’s house stood – there’s now a house behind it where the lot of fruit trees stood, and behind that – a Seventh Day Adventist church.  Toward the bottom of the picture, in the center, is Denker Elementary School.

I feel comfortable that this is where 1605 Market Street was located, and where my great-grandparents lived.  I tried to find information on street name changes in Gardena in the 1950s, but there’s nothing online, so I will need to get confirmation from the city by snail mail.