One of the things I learned when starting out in genealogy was that while family members might not actually lie, they might not tell the whole truth. I had been researching for quite some time when I learned this fact the hard way.
After researching my dad's family for a couple of years, I learned that my paternal grandmother, Florence Halliday (1897-1967), had been married before she married my grandfather, George Michael Martin (1900-1973). And not only had she been married to a man named Harold R. Edwards (1894-1930), but she had also had a child with him, a son named Richard Eugene Edwards. I figured this was a deep, dark family secret that my dad didn't know about. But I learned I was wrong. He knew. He would likely even have known his half-brother when he was very young.
So why did no one ever bother to mention this to me? My aunt had no problem talking about it later when I asked her. She was the one who explained that he had some kind of physical or mental issue and that he lived with my great-grandmother, Margaret Clark Halliday (1872-1948). He was 18 years old when he died in 1934. My dad would have been about five.
But there's more to this story. Until I was writing this blog post, I hadn't looked at his actual death certificate. I had the FamilySearch index information and a note that it was a locked record, and I had added it to my list. But I forgot about that (didn't read my notes), clicked the link, and discovered that the death certificate is no longer locked.
Reading the death certificate made me re-examine what I thought I knew. The death certificate was from Franklin County, Illinois. His name was listed as Richard Eugene Edwards, born 17 August 1916. That confirmed what I knew about him. He died on 12 September 1934 at the age of 18. Then I noticed the informant. It was my grandfather, Mike Martin. So that meant he was likely living with my grandparents, not my great-grandmother in Iowa.
The second thing I noticed was the cause of death -- general paralysis for 9 1/2 years. It went on to list the contributory cause as "Injury to head at birth, bedfast for 18 years". Those couple of lines explained a lot, yet left many unanswered questions.
First, what was the injury at birth? I haven't located a birth record for him. He's not in any Iowa index where I think he was born, and those records are locked, so I'll need to spend time looking through them at some point.
Second, it would have been quite difficult for my grandmother to take care of a bed-bound son while trying to raise a new family after she married my grandfather. But it's unclear who was really taking care of him. My aunt Betty claimed her mom, my great-grandmother, was taking care of him. She was the youngest and still at home, so she might have had firsthand knowledge.
Richard doesn't show up in the 1930 census either with his mother or his grandmother. His father, Harold, had remarried to a woman named Blossom Cheek, and they cannot be found in the 1930 census either. When Harold died in December of 1930, his obituary made no mention of his young son, so it is unlikely that Richard was living with them.
That got me wondering if he wasn't in some kind of institution? If he were truly bedfast, caring for him would be quite a challenge. My great-grandmother was getting older, and my great-grandfather had died in 1933.
My grandparents had moved to West Frankfort, Illinois, sometime between the birth of my Aunt June in January of 1926 and the birth of my father, George Robert, in December of 1929. Richard wasn't included in their household in 1930, but neither was my father, who had been born about three months before the census was taken. Had they taken Richard with them when they left Iowa, or had they taken him in after the death of my great-grandfather?
Writing this blog post has been a turning point in searching for Richard Eugene Edwards and has changed my thinking. I went from being sure my great-grandmother had been caring for him all his life to wondering who was caring for him.
My next steps will be to conduct additional research on possible homes or institutions near West Frankfort where my Uncle might have lived. I also need to find Richard's birth record. Does it mention any injury that occurred at birth? I may never uncover the mystery of Richard Eugene Edward, but I'd like to honor his short life by telling his full story.
________________________________________________________
This week's #52Ancestor Prompt is TURNING POINT. Last week's prompt was CHANGING MY THINKING
