01 May 2012

Who's Your Mommy?

Comments after the jump.

WILLIAM GEORGE PALMER's spouses and children
All children have the Palmer surname.
All births are in Utah.

Maryetta Phillips             rachel crump loveless           Rachel Mahala Loveless
married 1885                  married 1903                         married 1903                   
William lewis                     William Lewis                          William Lewis
(1887-1943)                     (1887-1943)                            (1887-1943)
William Lewis
(1887-1943)
Mary Lozelphia                  Mary Lozelphia                        Mary Lozelphia
(1889-1927)                     (1889-1927)                           (1889-1927)
Emmett Acle (son)             Emmett Acle                           Emmett Acle
(1891-1919)                     (1891-1919)                           (1891-1919)
Emmett Acle (daug.)        
(1891-1919)
Ervin Ray                           Ervin Ray                               Ervin Ray
(1892-1961)                      (1892-1961)                          (1892-1961)
Emma Elvera                      Emma Elvera                         Emma Elvera
(1895-1971)                      (1895-1971)                          (1895-1971)
                                         emma jane                            Emma Jane
                                         (1904-1981)                          (1904-1981)
                                         joseph w                               Joseph Wesley
                                         (1907-1979)                          (1907-1979)



I have no idea why some names are capitalized and 
others are not but that's the way it is on this tree.

ⓑⓐⓡⓚⓘⓝⓖ  ⓤⓟ  ⓣⓗⓔ  ⓦⓡⓞⓝⓖ  ⓣⓡⓔⓔ

So three wives and all births and marriages occurring in Utah. Either we're dealing with practicing polygamists or the person who created the tree has been completely careless. Any guesses as to which? If you guessed polygamy, welcome to my blog. I hope you'll take a look at some of my other posts ;-) One look at the children will give you the answer, unless you think one child can have three different birth mothers. *head/desk*

I feel the need to sort some of this out. I'm going to assume that:
1) The two Rachels are the same person (same surname, married William Palmer the same year).
2) There's only one child named Emmett and it's probably a boy.
3) There's only one William Lewis, not twins named the same that happened to die the same year.
4) It's unlikely Rachel had children with William before they married.
That leaves us with:

Maryetta Phillips                    Rachel Loveless 
married 1885                          married 1903        
William Lewis                           Emma Jane                           
(1887-1943)                            (1904-1981)                          
Mary Lozelphia                         Joseph Wesley                       
(1889-1927)                            (1907-1979)                           
Emmett Acle                                               
(1891-1919)                                            
Ervin Ray                                                      
(1892-1961)                                              
Emma Elvera                                          
(1895-1971)                                        

Maryetta Phillips                   Rachel Loveless
(1869-1931)                            (1873-1915)

Now it's looking much more logical. From this it looks as though William divorced Maryetta and married Rachel. There are still questions though. All the information below was figured out in a few hours. Imagine what someone who actually took time to piece everything together could do.
The death certificate attached to William in numerous trees has his spouse as "Marian". That does not match either of the names above but it's certainly closer to Maryetta than to Rachel. Remember that Maryetta is the first wife if both of the above are his families. Of course it is possible that one of William's children from his first marriage was the informant and chose to put their mother's name. Still, it's a question.
The information for Rachel's death, copied on numerous trees, comes from this death certificate. The transcription says she's a widow (she died in 1915, William in 1938). It could be an error but I'll leave it to one of her descendants to order the microfilm and find out. Was her marriage status transcribed incorrectly? If not that leads to many more questions.
Going back through the censuses...

1930: William is living with his oldest son's family (son, daughter-in-law, two grandkids age 13 and 15)
1920: William is with the same son and daughter-in-law. There is no sign of the grandchildren. The only sign of William's children might be a Wesley Palmer (possibly Joseph Wesley) living as a foster child in another county in Utah. So where are William's grandchildren and, as you'll see in 1910, children?
1910:

George Hoggard                                                 William Palmer
Mary E Hoggard*                                                Rachel Palmer
Marriage #2 for him                                              Marriage #2 for him
Marriage #3 for her                                              Marriage #3 for her
Married 6 years                                                    Married 7 years
Remaining household members are listed as sons and daughters.
Wm L Palmer                                                        Charlie Davis
Emmet A Palmer                                                   Leona Crumb
Ervin Palmer                                                         Andrew Crumb
Elva Palmer                                                          Jane Palmer (6 y.o.)
Lillie Hamblin                                                        Rachel M Palmer (4 y.o.)
Martha E Hamblin                                                 Joseph W Palmer (2 y.o.)
Louis Hamblin                                                       Beatrice Palmer (10 mo. old)
Aldon Hoggard
Lawrence L Hoggard
Don R Hoggard


*Along with the Palmer children in the household that suggest Mary E is Maryetta, there is this death record showing this is "Mary Ettie" Phillips.

With the numerous online trees with one or more of these names it's surprisingly difficult to find a public tree that has all the marriages and relationships sorted out properly. I'm not related to these people but I felt compelled to sort out some of the craziness. This is as far as I'm going though :-P

Hat tip to Ana for the heads up about this profile ;-) Ana writes Genealogy for the Everyman.


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5 comments:

  1. This is a family on which I am currently working on for a grandchild of Joseph Wesley Palmer, son of Rachel Loveless Davis Crump Palmer and William George Palmer.

    Since I was presented with a particular problem, I stayed away from other possible marriages of William George Palmer until I had to account for his whereabouts after the death of Rachel, in the 1920 and 1930 census, and determine whether he had a third wife after Rachel. I have not found one and don't expect to, but in the process did "meet" Maryetta i while placing William George Palmer in his oldest son's household in 1920 and 1930 so I have some information on her.

    I have marriage records for all three of Rachel's marriages: 1)Morris Davis 2)Andrew Crump and 3)William George Palmer; I have nothing indicating any formal dissolution of any marriages (and don't expect to)although you will note that the children's birth dates indicate that the unions were more sequential than concurrent other than one missing child Emma Elvera/Alvira Palmer (Pulley)(a second Emma, same father different mother)who may be Elva in your list and for whom I have a birthdate of 25 Aug 1895 and a death date of 12 Feb 1971; Emma Jane Palmer, child of Rachel and William George Palmer I have a birthdate of 15 Jul 1904 and a death date of 4 Aug 1981, birthdates definitely indicating polygamous marriage, which did happen during that time period.Rachel's marriage to Andrew Crump who she married in 1899, two children born 1900 and 1901 was not polygamous, he had a first wife, Elizabeth Lant, with whom he is buried, who died in 1898. Missing from your summary is Rachel's husband number one, Morris Davis, and the child from that union, Charley/Charles Davis. I have not explored MaryEtta's marriages or children in depth since she was not part of the problem with which I was presented, but have found three confirmed marriages that produced children:Anthony Hamblin,William George Palmer, and George Hoggard.

    The problem presented to me was basically why did Rachel essentially desert her children and what were the circumstances of Rachel's death? What was known by her great grand daughter was that in September 1915, Rachel delivered her three living children by William George Palmer (Beatrice died in her first year)to an orphanage in Salt Lake City. This was Kearns-St Ann's, still in operation as a school and I am trying to get records, so far I have chased them to the Sisters of the Holy Cross in Chicago and am waiting to hear back from them.

    Upon dropping the children off, Rachel told them that she had to go to the hospital and would be back for them when she was better, but she never came back. The story was that the children grew to adulthood in the orphanage, but this clearly was not the case since Joseph Wesley is found in 1920 as a foster child in the Hanks household in Clearfield,Utah.

    Rachel did not come back, she died in a hospital in Idaho Falls, Idaho of complications from surgery for gallstones on 1 Oct 1915. The informant was her oldest son, Charles/Charlie Davis, who gave his address as Idaho Falls. She was buried in the Loveless family plot in Payson, Ut. I have been able to trace all of Rachel's children to adulthood, marriage, children, death, but many questions remain and I doubt we can ever find a firm answer. The biggest question for Rachel's great grand daughter is why the children were not returned to and raised by their father. I know that in that time single fathers did not often raise children, they were often put into orphanages or sent to live with the mother's family. That does raise questions in my mind because Rachel had a huge extended family in Payson and several sisters with families, why they did not take the children we don't know and may never.

    I've found no records indicating the dissolution of any of Rachel's marriages, and all of her three husbands survived her: Morris Davis died 1918, Andrew Crump died 1912, William George Palmer did not die until 1938.

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    Replies
    1. So it is possible ;-) It's unfortunate that the error filled trees are the ones that get copied over and over. Thanks Laura!

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    2. Yes, and in this case it is easy to tell that that's what happened because Raymond Palmer occurs on more than one of these trees AND a couple of even worse ones I found on New Family Search. There are census records attached to the trees that include Raymond and he has a totally different set of parents and no matching siblings. Duh.

      We are trying to find a residence location for Rachel that will give us some idea of what was happening in the marriage at the time of Rachel's illness since she seems to have traveled from southern or central Utah to Idaho with three children (at least) to drop off on her way to die in a hospital in Idaho Falls. If she did do that the delay in gallstone surgery could well have caused her death. But, since her son, Charley Davis was living in Idaho Falls at the time she might have been living there too.

      So far our theory about her marital status (we know she wasn't a widow, grass widow maybe)is "trouble in paradise".

      She is buried in the Loveless family plot in Payson, probably the only alternative to an unmarked grave in a potter's field in Idaho and kind of her extended family to give her that courtesy since they apparently couldn't care for her orphaned children.

      FWIW, this is NOT the most complex blended family I've unscrambled; that was in my mother's father's line where generations of Mizes married generations of Tadlocks and one Tadlock wife died, Mr Mize married her sister who had been married to a Watkins and widowed, there were a total of about ten or twelve children, his, hers, and theirs, and the census taker never got it right.

      Someday after I have completely lost my mind I'll plot out Maryetta's children for fun. I'll be sure to let you know. Cough cough.

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  2. I'm pretty sure the ones who have no capital letters in their names are completely different people!


    Just kidding! :)

    ReplyDelete