A Case of Bigamy

An article from page 4 of the Council Bluffs (Iowa) Daily Nonpareil, May 4, 1890.

MRS. LOUIS CLAYTON JAMES

She Has a Grievance Which She Has Brought All the Way From Lincoln County, Nebraska And now She Airs It for the Readers of “The Nonpareil.”

There is a woman in Council Bluffs who has a story. Her name is Mrs. Louis Clayton James, and besides her story she has four small children. She came here Sunday from Lincoln county, Neb., and is living with her divorced husband’s mother at the corner of Tenth street and Avenue H. Mrs. James, the mother, has a number of children, and the two families are living in a two room hovel. Mrs. Louis Clayton James is very bitter against her husband-who-was. She declares that she will have him arrested to-day for securing a divorce from her by false testimony. She consulted an attorney yesterday and if the story she told a Nonpareil man last night is true, Mr. Louis Clayton James had better elope at once. Her story is rather difficult to follow, because Mother James was present during the interview and chimed in so often in defense of her “darling boy” that at times the air was a bedlam of confused prattle. Here’s what the reporter heard:

“Mrs. James is my name an’ my husband’s name’s Lou James.”

“Taint so,” remarked Mother James, “my son’s name aint ‘Lou’ James; It’s Louis Clayton James an’ I want it put in th’ paper that away.”

“Mother, I wish you–”

“I aint your mother,” said Mother James in frigid tones, “an’ I don’t want t’ hear no more of your motherin’ me.”

. . . Miss Louis Clayton James continued:
“Me an’ my husband we went to Nebraska three years ago an’ we took up a claim in Lincoln county. Not quite a year gone he told me he was tired o’ me an’ he left me, so he did, an’ him [come] back t’ Council Bluffs. I didn’t hear no more from him an’ only twiced he sent me money. He sent me $1.50 onced an’ $2 ‘nother time, an’–”

“No look ahere,” protested Mother James, “that’s a lie. He sent you $2 th’ first time an’–”

“He didn’t nuther, he–”

“He did, I say–”

The reporter called time and Mrs. Louis Clayton James proceeded:

“Last month I sent my little darter t’ Council Bluffs t’ visit an’ she [sent] him back t’ me in Nebraska all beat on an’ bruised an’ my husband, he–”

“No he didn’t nuther,” screamed Mother James, “he didn’t do nothin’ o’ th’ sort. He never beat the child, an’ I can swear he didn’t.”

“Well that’s nuther here nor there,” said Mrs. Louis Clayton James, “so I’ll drop it.”

“Your’d better drop it,” chimed in the aggrieved Mother James, and the woman went on with her story.

“I didn’t know just how I was fixed wi’ my husband so I pulled up an’ [come] back t’ Council Bluffs an’ now I find he’s got a divorce from me an’ is married again t’ a Kissell woman, who is janitor o’ the’ Hall school. He got th’ divorce on th’ grounds that I ‘aint a good woman an’ I am told by neighbors that he married th’ Kissell woman afore he got th’ divorce from me, an’ if that’s so I–”

“I know better’n that,” said Mother James. “He didn’t marry Miss Kissell afore he got his divorce from you. I know this because we went down t’th’ court house one evenin’ an’ paid $10 for the divorce an’ then he went an’ got married;”

“I don’t care nothin’ ’bout what you say. That’s what th’ neighbors tell me,” continued Mrs. James. “An’ then I’m told that he paid a man t’ swear I was a bad woman, an’ when I find out th’ name o’ th’ man I’ll make him dance. I went down t’ th’ court house an’ looked at th’ records, and they only show that he was given a divorce; they don’t say what for. I’ve seen Lawyer Boulton, I have, an’ I’m go’n’t make it hot for that man. I’ve seen th’ chief o’ police too, an’ I’m goin’ t’ have James arrested too. He just wanted t’ get rid o’ me an’ I’m goin’ t’ get even with him an’ that huzzy he married.”

Mrs. Louis Clayton James and Mother James commenced another round and the reporter sneaked off, leaving them to fight it out.

Olivia James outside her “hovel” around 1910

Despite the journalists’ sensationalism and his attempts to make my ancestors sound like bumpkins, I was pretty excited to find this article and even more excited to prove that these two are my ancestors. The shady Louis is my great-granduncle, and “Mother James” is my 2nd great grandmother, Olivia. I feel like this gives me an idea of who she was: fiercely loyal to her children and able to speak her mind. She was the kind of woman who told the journalist exactly how her son’s name should appear in the newspaper and the journalist listened. As for how this situation resolved, here’s one more document:

Transcript:
Line 5267
Name: L C James
Sex: Male
Birth year: 1849
Age: 42
Occupation: Carpenter
Birth state: Ohio
County of Residence: Pottawattamie
Date of incarceration: 26 Mar 1891
Term of sentence: 2 yrs
Charge: Bigamy

(Click for genealogical sources)

Writing for Amy Johnson Crow’s #52Ancestors. The prompt was Strong Women.

Finding Finny Grace

So this mystery goes back years ago, when I finally confirmed through a Social Security application that my 2nd great-grandmother’s name was Fanny May Grace. Naturally, after discovering her I went to the census records to track her whereabouts. Here is what I found of her family in the 1880 Census:

The first thing I noticed were the twins. My dad’s side has a very strong twin pattern. Next, I noted that Rachel had been married before Ambrose so I knew to find her with a different last name in the 1870 census. The rest seemed pretty straightforward. I looked into the histories of Fanny, Willard, Willis, and Mary, and found marriages and census records for all. But Finny was elusive. I searched “Delfinia,” “Serafina,” “Frances,” even “Virginia” (thinking the census worker misheard “Ginny”) any female name that could be shortened to “Finny.” Since most of the 1890 census was lost in a fire, I had to skip ahead 20 years to try to find her again. Nothing came up for her in 1900. She remained a mystery for years.

Last year, I ordered Ambrose Grace’s Civil War pension records. A large packet came with Ambrose and Rachel’s applications, Ambrose’s death certificate, and Ambrose’s military gravestone application. I found out so much good information about the Grace family. For instance, I now know my 3rd great-grandfather was 5 feet 7 inches tall, had a dark complexion, gray eyes, and dark hair. I know Rachel’s name had been Boyt before she’d married a McGinnis, and that she and Ambrose wed in Jonesboro, Illinois, on November 26, 1871. I even know that Ambrose had been a widower that day. He lost his first wife, Ann Hanson, in May 1868.

But the most interesting information I found was a questionnaire on a pension application form:

[transcript: Have you any living children? If so, please state their names and the dates of their birth. Answer: Willard July 24th 1873, Fannie M. Grace Dec 5th 1875, William H Grace Mar 25 1878…]

Did you catch it? FINNY WAS A MAN!

Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to locate him anywhere either; you can imagine pinpointing the needle of a William Grace in the haystack of the 1900 U.S. Census would be difficult. Also? What were Ambrose and Rachel thinking naming their first three sons Willard, Willis, and William? Maybe they just called them all “Will” and were done with it.

As for Willis being left off the pension application, I think it was a mistake on the part of the government employee. Looking at the form, it was obviously done by interview with Ambrose talking and the pension worker taking dictation. So Ambrose probably said “Willard July 24th 1873, Willis July 24th 1873” and the worker just thought he was repeating himself. I’m confident the twins existed; they were buried next to each other in the Parma Cemetery in Parma, Missouri.

Writing this for Amy Johnson Crow’s #52Ancestors. This is in response to the prompt “In The Census.”

For sources on the documents used in this post, click here.

Henry Ford’s Brain

It seems like at the end of every episode of Finding Your Roots or Who Do You Think You Are? each guest tells the host or the person holding the camera that they have a different sense of themselves after finding out they are Arcadian or they are related to William the Conqueror. It’s my favorite part of the show because I came to those same conclusions, although there were no cameras to capture it. I felt that same inner light when I learned who my people were and how I got here. A certain kind of relief comes with the knowledge that who you are isn’t entirely your responsibility, that the chapter you are writing of your life isn’t the first in the book.

I definitely started my own research looking for my place, trying to find out where I belonged, and I quickly learned that I owe my entire existence to Henry Ford. Before the auto industry, my foreparents were scattered in Upstate New York, Ontario, the boot-heel of Missouri, and Council Bluffs, Iowa.

My New York relatives, the Wilsons, were the first to settle near Flint. They were farmers who were pushed out of the Rochester, New York, area due to a population boom and a land shortage. Thomas Wilson moved his family to New Lothrop, Michigan, using the money he received fighting and being injured in the Civil War. By 1920, all of his grandsons were employed in the factories or in auto-related businesses in Flint.

The Harburns, my Canadian family, immigrated to Flint in 1919. Having been farmers of flowers in Hensall, Ontario, they moved to Flint to become the official florists of the Ford Motor Company. It was just after Teddy Roosevelt and his conservationist movement took hold in the United States. The auto industry was getting flak from residents of the city for polluting the Flint River. Ford Motor Company hired my family to refute the conservationists’ claims. The Harburns were given a deal on a small white house just a little downriver from a car plant and grew the flowers for the company’s corporate events. The company hoped to prove the purity of the river with my family’s success. Unfortunately, it worked. Growing up, I only associate that river with stink. Swimming there was always considered a feat of daring; eating fish from there was downright nuts.

My Missouri folks, the Romines, had been struggling for decades to make a living by farming near Parma and Malden. It was the Depression when my 2nd great-grandfather moved up to Flint because of Ford’s promise of jobs. Once my 2nd great-grandfather was established, my great-grandfather followed, leaving behind his young family and marrying his second wife. Abandoned by her father, my grandmother left her own family in Missouri to find her dad. This abandonment was the end (thankfully!) of a long pattern in the Romine line.

The Jameses had been living in Council Bluffs, Iowa, since the 1870s. All but two of the eight siblings stayed there. My grandfather followed his older sister to Flint in 1941 after going through a bitter divorce and being fired from his job as county engineer in FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). His sister owned several bars in Flint, and he was made a bartender in one of them. That’s how he met my grandmother, who worked as a cook in a restaurant that catered mostly to factory workers.

Henry Ford. As far as I know, I have no relation to him, but he was absolutely responsible for putting my grandparents in the same place at the same time. Before learning this, I’d never thought twice about cars or the role the grubby factories we passed along the highway played in the history of my family and virtually every other family near me.

Writing this for Amy Johnson Crow’s #52Ancestors.

Photo is of my grandmother, Bernice Wilson, posing in front of the family car c. 1932.