Shakin' the Family Tree

For so many years, she was Elizabeth MNU.

Then she became Elizabeth Harris, born about 1830 in Pennsylvania.   She married Nathaniel Foster Chapin about 1853. 

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Then, one of my Chapin cousins found me, and the focus immediately narrowed with wonderful details in three handwritten pages.

They were enough for me to find her parents, and several of her siblings.

She was my third great grandmother.

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She was Elizabeth Harris, born on 19 Nov 1831 in Pennsylvania, to James Elisha Harris and Sally Miller.  She died in Fort Scott, Bourbon County, KS on 30 Oct 1887.

She had at least 8 or 9 younger siblings.

The ones I have documented (thanks to those three handwritten pages) are:

• Lyman Harris, born 9/1837 in PA. Married Catharine Hoover on 4 Jul 1868;
• Mary Harris, born 1839 in Pennsylvania;
• John Harris, born 1841 in Pennsylvania;
• Emma (Emily) Harris, born 1843 in Pennsylvania;
• Henry Orten "Ort" Harris, born 9 Aug 1846 in Ridgebury, Bradford Co., PA. Married Mary Elizabeth Green on 30 Oct 1873 in Elmira, Chemung Co., NY;
• Elisha Alden Harris, born 1847 in Ridgebury, Bradford Co., PA;
• Sarah Harris, born 1851 in Ridgebury, Bradford Co., PA;
• Josephine Harris, born 1854 in Ridgebury, Bradford Co., PA; and
• James Harris. (E C Shephard's handwritten notes at page 3, in private collection.)

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James Elisha Harris must have died before the 1860 census. In 1860, Sally Miller Harris was living with her children Lyman, John, Alden, Sarah and Josephine in Ridgebury, Bradford Co., PA.

In the 1870 census, Sally was living in Ridgebury, Bradford Co., PA. Her son Henry, daughter Josephine, and a granddaughter named Ella Harris (born in 1864), were living with her.

I have been unable to find Sally Harris after the 1870 census, and still have a lot of work to do to find spouses and dates of death for many of Elizabeth Harris Chapin's siblings.

I know that Elizabeth died on 30 Oct 1887, and when I get my recently ordered cemetery transcription book, I believe I will find where she is buried.

But those three little handwritten pages flung the door wide open...

I guess he did a Google search, and hit on my entry about Essie Chapin. She was his great-grandmother. That makes him my third cousin once removed.

He left a comment and his email address. We have been corresponding for about a week.

Turns out mine is not not the only mind Essie messes with...

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At issue is our very own Chapin version of who's your daddy?

Today, my cousin sent me three pages of Chapin genealogy handwritten by his grandfather that made me realize I had the wrong daddy (and mommy) for Nathaniel Foster Chapin. I corrected the GEDCOM, and now need to figure out just which Joel Chapin we are dealing with in that generation.

That should be a piece of cake when compared to puzzling through all of Essie's relationships.

Because I am not yet convinced she was married to all those men.

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I've tried to be thorough in researching Essie, following her from cradle to grave. At first glance, it appears that she was married four times.

First, on 15 Oct 1889, to Frank G Shephard in Fort Scott, Bourbon Co., KS.

I tracked her after her marriage in both Kansas State and US censuses. In the 1895 Kansas State Census, as well as the 1900 US census, she was Essie Carr, and said she was a widow.

And my heart went out to her. Oh wow, only 29 years old and twice a widow, with two little kids, Broshia and Elbert Shephard. Then, I found a Chapin message board post that said Elbert was really not a Shephard...that he was Elbert C Carr's son, and after she became pregnant with him, Essie married his father in Oregon.

So I moved little Elbert to the second marriage.

Then, I got the comment from my cousin:
The story in my family is that when EC Shephard (my grandfather) was 2 years old, his family...Essie, Broshia and EC, were abandoned by their father Frank Shephard. The only mention of other husbands of Essie was a vague mention that she later married a man named Finn. I am very interested in tracing back the line of Frank Shephard and have little information. I have a photocopy of a REPLACEMENT birth certificate for EC Shephard, born Sept. 5, 1891, issued Feb. 3, 1932 or 1942 (date blurred). It lists his father as Franklin Shephard, 20 years old, undertaker, born in Fairfield, Iowa and residing in Ft. Scott, KS at time of birth. It lists his mother as Essie Chapin, 19 years old, housewife, born in Olean, NY, residing in Ft. Scott KS. I would very much like to know the date and place of death of Joseph (Franklin?) Shephard and the date and place of marriage of Essie and Elbert C. Carr. It seems a real question as to why the baby is given the name of Essie's second husband and surname of the first husband. Who is the biological father? This of course is an important question to me. I would REALLY appreciate any information I could obtain about this.

I looked back at the 1900 census. Essie said the father of both her children was born in Iowa.

I moved little Elbert back to the first marriage.

And wondered who it was who "widowed" her in that census...

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Elbert and Broshia lived with Essie and her third husband, Joseph Young Lebolt in Altoona, Blair Co., PA in the 1910 census. Even though the "kids" were almost grown, they were using the Lebolt surname. (More about Lebolt later.)

I looked at that census to get the year that Essie and Joseph married.

I don't know who said it - Joseph or Essie...that it was the first marriage for both of them and they had been married 21 years.

Not.

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By 1920, Essie had married Daniel J Finn. She was enumerated with him in both the 1920 and 1930 censuses.

So I was thunderstruck to find her obit details from the Altoona Mirror archived at the Altoona Library, which listed her as Essie Lebolt Finn.

Because in 1930, Joseph Y Lebolt was living in Los Angeles, CA with his brother and widowed sister...as a single man.

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I decided to take a different perspective in looking at Essie's life.

I was going to track the husbands.

Hubby #1 ran off. So if the information in the 1900 census about Essie's marital status was correct, then that meant Elbert Carr died.

But shouldn't there be a divorce on record in Bourbon Co., KS for Essie and Joseph Shephard? And why was Essie's son named for husband #2, and carrying husband #1's surname? (I think the preponderance of the evidence indicates that E C Shephard was Joseph Shephard's son...maybe Elbert Carr was just the kind of guy who would pick up another man's slack...)

If Essie was married to Elbert Carr, then he died (or disappeared) before the 1895 Kansas State Census. I can find no record of a marriage for them in either Kansas or Oregon.

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Likewise, I have no idea where or when Essie married Joseph Lebolt. He was the son of German immigrants, Lazarus Lebolt and Jeanette Rubel, and was born in Chicago, where his father and brothers made silverware and fine jewelry. Even to this day, the Lebolt family is still dealing in fine jewelry in Chicago.

Essie's marriage record to Lebolt could reasonably be in any one of three states - Kansas, Illinois or Pennsylvania. In the 1900 census, 40 year old Joseph was living with his parents, several younger adults siblings and two female servants in Chicago.

In that census, Joseph's father, Lazarus, was an agent for the California Wine Association. Three years earlier, he won his petition for a writ of habeas corpus against the City of Chicago, arguing that it was not in the City's power to regulate the interstate commerce of liquor sales from California to Illinios. See decision In Re Lebolt, 77 F 1d 587, in the West Reporter, Vols 77-78 (West Publ Co.), digitized at Google Books.

Joseph died in Chicago on 16 Jan 1938. At the time, Essie was married to Daniel J Finn - for at least 18 years. So it makes even less sense to me for her obituary to read Essie Lebolt Finn.

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I think Daniel J Finn was hatched.

All I know about him is that he was born in Pennsylvania in 1877, died in Altoona on 19 May 1953, and had to have married Essie in Altoona sometime before the 1920 census.

But I can't find a marriage record for them either.

Whatever could they have been thinking - Fred and Eada Belle - when they let their only daughter marry at the tender age of 14?


Hattie Belle Chapin, around the time of her marriage in 1901

Hattie Belle Chapin married Victor Claude Balding in Little Rock, AR on 25 Sep 1901. She was 14. He was 27.

She called him Mr. Balding - all her life.

They were my maternal great grandparents.

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Their kids called her Mama and him, Pop. The grandkids called them Mema and Pop.

We great grandkids called her Mema, and not too many of us ever met Pop. He died in 1945, just a month after her mother's death.


Victor and Hattie Balding, undated photo

Everyone who knew them said they were head over heels in love with each other.

And Pop's Hattie Belle never let the romance end. She remained a widow until her death in 1976.

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Life was hard for the Baldings. Pop worked for the railroad as a telegrapher. There were many mouths to feed.

By the time Hattie was 20, she had three children (my grandmother was the youngest at the time). By 1917, their family was complete, with seven children in all.

My grandmother talked about how the home was run. Every evening when it was almost time for Pop to come home, her mother would go to the kitchen, put on her apron and begin to get supper ready.

Even though times were hard, Victor and Hattie were aware that they were harder still for others. Every holiday, Pop would bring home various and sundry people who had nowhere else to go. Everyone made room at the table.

Pop coached a boys' baseball team when his own sons were young. Mema made their uniforms, and those of their teammates.

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Mema loved family gatherings. She seemed content to show up and take her place as a matriarch. And she was good to pose for photos.

She is on the far left in this one, taken in my grandmother's backyard in 1967.

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Shortly after that photo was taken, Mema's mental faculties started to decline. At first, it was just a little forgetfulness.

But soon, the forgetfulness became apparent, even to her great grandchildren. I remember going to see her. I'd go into the den to talk to her, and I'd have to introduce myself. If I left the room, and came back, we had to start all over again.

My name didn't seem to register with her any more. So I started saying I was Doris' granddaughter.

She beamed at me. That made sense.

We carried on.

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One day when my grandmother and mother took me to see her, something strange happened.

We were sitting and having a nice chat when all of a sudden, Mema got up and left the room.

My grandmother found her in her bedroom, getting ready to curl her long hair and put it back up again. She used one of those skinny little metal curling irons that heated up in its own electrified holder. And real hairpins.

I followed my grandmother in. She asked Mema what she was doing.

I have to get ready. Mr. Balding will be home soon. He likes for his women to look pretty.

It was one of the only times I had seen my grandmother at a loss for words. She helped Mema curl her hair and put it back up again.

Mema headed for the kitchen. Pots and pans started clattering. She was going to make supper.

Grandma tried to stop her - to explain that Mr. Balding wasn't coming home.

Mema shushed her. Couldn't she hear the baby was crying? She needed to tend to the baby and get supper ready before Mr. Balding came home...

My grandma turned away from me, but not before I saw the tears in her eyes.

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The decline was rapid toward the end. She was diagnosed with Altzheimers, and the family found a female companion to live in with her.

Mema lived in a world decades past. We humored her.

Her doctor said she was not aware that she had developed breast cancer, and at her age and overall medical condition, there was no point in surgical intervention. He would make sure she stayed comfortable.

Hattie Belle Chapin Balding died on 18 Jan 1976.

And finally re-joined Mr. Balding.

This afternoon, I found the old news clipping that describes the death of Ward Chapin on 18 Sep 1894 at Fort Brown, Texas. It's pretty graphic, as I have come to expect from older obituaries.

FORT BROWN ITEMS
The Sad Death of Private Chapin
Other items

The funeral of Ward Chapin a private of Troop K, 5th Cavalry who was drowned at the post yesterday afternoon took place this morning at 11 o clock a m. He was buried with military honors. The entire garrison attended the funeral. His grave was covered by many and beautiful floral offerings sent by his comrades and friends.

Ward Chapin was born at Olean New York state. He enlisted in the service of the United States at Fort Scott Kansas on Jan 23 1893 and was 22 years of age. The circumstances of his sad death is deeply regretted by his comrades who used every means in their power to save him but were unfortunately unsuccessful. There is every reason to believe that he was seriously injured if not fatally before he disappeared from the surface of the water, as there are the imprints of the horse's hoofs on his chest where his horse must have struck him in his struggle to free himself from the drowning man. One of these imprints is directly over the heart which if not fatal must have rendered him unconscious.

This young man was a faithful soldier and his character and morals wore of the highest standards, an example to his comrades and all who were thrown in contact with him. His memory will be long cherished by his comrades and their deepest sympathy is extended to his bereaved relatives.

As a result of yesterday's sad accident there will be no more swimming of horses in the lagoon excepting under the direct supervision of the troop commanders.

Okay, that tells me he was buried at the fort. So I went looking for that cemetery, and found this instead.


This Military cemetery, once located on the "island" of Ft. Brown, held the remains of the military soldiers stationed at the fort. Their remains were removed and moved to Alexandria, Louisiana and reinterred in the National Cemetery there in 1911. The contractor for this removal was N.E. Rendall. The headstones were not moved with the bodies. Mr. Rendall sold the headstones and some of these headstones are the foundations for some of the buildings in Brownsville. One of these buildings was the Nebraska Apartments that was located between 13th and 14th streets on Jefferson street. (The link in that article for the cemetery at Pineville is dead.)

So I went looking in Rapides Parish, LA. There is no record of him there, and the VA's Nationwide Gravesite Locator doesn't have him either.

So I wonder - what happened to my second great grand uncle's remains?

All the preachers in my family have had that characteristic booming voice.

I could hear the voice of Rev. Edwin Hubbell Chapin in my head, as I read the lengthy article published on 28 Dec 1880 by the New York Times on the occasion of his death.

This time, he lowered his voice.



He never was troubled again with signs of dissent...

I just bet not.

Left to right: Hattie (Chapin) Balding, Jo Carleton "Buddy" Williams, Sue (Keene) Williams, Russell Ellington "Linky" Balding, Judith Ann (Williams) Burris Neumann, Jo Duffie Williams, Lucille Balding.

Sadly, only one of those folks is still alive.

Oh those Chapins, they are a mixed bag. Meet Charles E Chapin, sixth great grandson of The Puritan, Deacon Samuel Chapin.

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No one knows for sure what happened to Charles, former city editor of New York's The Evening World, on 16 Sep 1918. That was the day he shot his wife, Nellie L (Beebe) Chapin, to death in their hotel suite at the Hotel Cumberland in New York City as she lay sleeping.

When he turned himself in to police on the day following the murder, he told them he had intended to also kill himself, but chickened out. Chronic money woes seemed to be at the source of his misery, and his wife had already hocked her jewelry to try and ease the troubled family finances.

The New York Tribune covered his plea agreement before NY Supreme Court Justice Weeks on 14 Jan 1919, during which Chapin pled guilty to murder in the second degree, and was sentenced to not less than 20 years hard labor and not more than life, with the possibility of death in the electric chair.

He was committed to Sing Sing Prison to serve his sentence. Charles Chapin was 60 years old at the time of his sentence. He died in Sing Sing of bronchial pneumonia on 13 Dec 1930.

I'm still looking for his grave - I understand that historian and author James McGrath Morris knows where it is.

ETA: I sent an email to James McGrath Morris, and he answered. Charles Chapin is buried in Glenwood Cemetery in Washington, DC.