The Quiet Heros - Remembering Wartime France

Today is July 14, Bastille Day, an important date on the French calendar. It reminded me of this video I made a couple of years ago, honoring the World War II service and sacrifice of family members.

The Quiet Heroes - Remembering Wartime France

Left, Bobby Glos, 1923 - 1944, killed in action
Eltie Glos, 1912 - 2007

John Pina, Jr. 1922 - 1983

Jack C. Francis, left, 1920 - 1989

Of the Tribe? Casting a Wider Net for New Details

     The rate at which new information is being digitized and made available online sometimes leaves us scrambling to keep up.  I've developed the habit of checking FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com regularly for new record groups, as well as other online providers.  Another approach is to plug a name of interest into the home page search fields, and see what turns up.

     Recently, I did a double take, when the name of my relative, Jack C. Francis, appeared in an Ancestry.com resource titled "U.S., WWII Jewish Servicemen Cards, 1942-1947."  Now, "my" Jack had been a Catholic schoolboy in Chicago prior to joining the Army, so I thought it unlikely that this entry was for him.  However, the name is pretty specific, so I definitely wanted to have a look.  Imagine my surprise at seeing that the digitized card did indeed refer to the Jack C. Francis I'm related to.  His father is listed as next of kin, and there's a residence address I'm familiar with.
     Further reading about the data set indicates that these records were compiled by the National Jewish Welfare Board, as part of the Bureau of War Records.  This was an organization which documented the role of the Jewish-American service personnel.  The cards were made of information extracted from service files. They had a color-coded system:  the red strip on the card of Jack Francis indicates wounded.  The explanation states that the cards might even indicate whether the subject turned out not to be Jewish, although that isn't the case here.

     This, combined with the combat history book (a lot like a yearbook of his unit), gives us some excellent detail about Jack's time in the service, despite the loss of so many of the WWII personnel files in the fire of 1973.  Of particular interest is the date and page number on this card, and what other information they might lead to.
     Jack always said that the kind of religion you practiced didn't matter in a foxhole...apparently, he was right.
     Another example of casting the net wider for new information.

A Life in One Sentence: Lucetta Luhr Clark Francis Browning

On the rare occasions when the death of an early ancestor is noted in the local newspaper, the lack of detail makes the item resemble a telegram, or perhaps TV character Sgt. Joe Friday of Dragnet, known for his dead-pan delivery of  "Just the facts, ma'am."  One such example is the death notice of my ancestor, Lucetta (Luhr) Clark Francis Browning, which appeared in the Canton (Lewis Co, Missouri) Press of 12 April 1878:  "Died, March 27, 1878, Luzetta, wife of J. H. Browning, aged 27 years, 9 months, and one day."

By the time of her death  at age 27, Lucetta had lost her father young, been married twice, given birth to at least six children, made the regrettable decision, probably at the direction of her first husband, to sue her mother, and gone through the public humiliation of a messy divorce.

I am grateful that I didn't stop researching with the death notice...there was a lot left to the story. 

Joseph Francis-Lucetta Luhr (Clark)

THEY DIDN’T POSE FOR NORMAN ROCKWELL

Turning Family Drama Into a Bridge Across the Atlantic

     For many years, I’ve known that my ancestor, Joseph Francis, was divorced from his wife, Lucetta Luhr (Clark) Francis, in 1869.  She filed for and was granted a divorce in Adams County, Illinois, where she’d taken the children to live with her mother.  This must have been especially difficult, being unusual for the era.  But, I felt fortunate that the divorce papers clearly stated their children’s names, birth places, and birth dates. 

     Fast forward, to a research trip in the more recent past to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City.  What I learned had never occurred to me:  while Lucetta was suing Joseph Francis for divorce, he was counter-suing her across the Mississippi River, in Lee County, Iowa, where they had lived as a couple in Fort Madison.  It would have taken me half a day to photocopy the many pages of the complete Iowa case, all of which had been microfilmed.  (After I returned home, I ordered the film at my local LDS branch library and made copies.)  While Lucetta’s case against her husband described his low habits, Joseph supplied many depositions attacking his wife’s character.  And, buried among them, was one from his German-born mother-in-law (clearly supplied unwillingly).  The mission was obviously to establish a familial history of “loose women.”  I can imagine a TV attorney screaming “Objection!” to the questions!  However, for my purposes, they proved to be a gold mine. 

     Until now, I’d only had a brief sketch of Lucetta’s mother, based on a short county history, obituary, and census records.  She was born Doris Frantz, perhaps in Domitz, Mecklenburg-Schwerin, and widowed about 1844 in Portsmouth, Ohio.  Joseph Francis’ divorce papers supplied so much more:  Doris’ approximate date of birth, HER mother’s name, when Doris’ parents had died, when she had been first married, when and where she’d first had children, about when she came to America, where she had first lived (Buffalo, New York, unknown to me), when and where she had married her second husband, Charley Clark (Canada:  again, news to me).  Using the marvelous resources of the library, I set to work.  I had a rare run of luck:  there was only one town in present-day Germany that looked close to what I wanted, it was in Mecklenburg-Schwerin, the records were filmed, and they had a surname index.  (Trust me, it’s only happened once!)  It still required careful study of unfamiliar writing and language, and much trotting up to the help desk, so that the gracious, multi-lingual staff could translate what I was seeing.

     I now have more details than I would have thought possible to get for my 2^nd great grandmother, Dorothea Maria Augusta Franz.  So far, I have her birth date, christening date, confirmation date, marriage date, complete names of her parents, grandparents, occupations, and so on.  I have the same details for her husband, who I only knew as Frederick Luhr, but who was born Johann Joachim Friedrich Luhr.  He came from Lubtheen, a village close to that of his future wife.  I hope to find earlier generations in this family, but it will take careful reading.

     I’ll never know the whole story behind my ancestors’ divorce, but I do know I have been reminded of the same, basic lessons:  look for ALL the records in ALL the locations.  And, keep reading that old handwriting; you’ll be surprised at what’s hiding there.

Marriage notice: the rest of the story

    Using the website http://www.deathindexes.com/ as a portal, I recently made my way to an index of digitized newspapers for Quincy, Adams County, Illinois.  That website is at:  http://www.quincylibrary.org/library_resources/NewspaperArchive.asp .  There, I discovered a treasure trove of news snippets about my ancestors and their connections.  Notices of  trips taken, new jobs, illnesses, and the like, were all used to fill small corners of the pages.  However, a wedding notice of Fred Francis to Florence Dempsey, from 1916, points up the dangers of recording these items as "proof" of anything, or even a starting point for further information.  Here is the article from the Quincy Daily Journal of Saturday, 12 February 1916: 

     From my research in other sources, I know that the story is accurate on many points.  The last sentence, however, needs major clarification.  "She is the daughter of a prominent business man in South Chicago," diverges from the truth on two major points.
     Florence Isabell Dempsey was born in Cleveland:  Ohio, the youngest child of James Dempsey and Louise Coleman.  James and Louise were natives of New York state, and met when both were living in Oswego, NY.  The couple moved to Cleveland around 1880, and were the parents of 7 known children.  Theirs was not a happy marriage, and by the early part of the 20th century, lived apart.  Research to date hasn't revealed whether they ever actually divorced.  Louise Coleman Dempsey moved with her two youngest children, James Gleason Dempsey and Florence Dempsey, to Chicago by 1913, where she worked as a "practical nurse," and may be the individual listed in a city directory of that year described as widowed.   James Dempsey, the father of her children, remained in Cleveland, where he died in 1916.  He's buried at Calvary Cemetery, Cleveland.   
     Based upon the addresses which appeared in varioius Cleveland city directories, as well as the job description of stationery engineer on his death certificate, it's possible that James Dempsey worked at the Walker Mfg. Co. of Cleveland.  This was a forerunner of Westinghouse.  The addresses for the likely James Dempsey and his known children all surround a massive property where the factory was located.  Using a plat map of the time, I was able to identify the name of the factory on the site.


     And so, using additional available sources, the prominent South Chicago businessman emerges more accurately as the factory heavy equipment operator in Cleveland.