Shakin' the Family Tree

Getting that contact from my Chapin cousin rekindled my fascination with one of our bad boys, Charles E Chapin, whom James McGrath Morris dubbed The Rose Man of Sing Sing, in his biography of the same name.

The book was published in 2003, and in 2004, it was selected by the Washington Post as one of the best non-fiction books of 2004.


Since I have a holiday season staycation coming up soon, I checked it out of my library to read.

Only I'm peeking.

A lot.

Because it's good.

And sent me a private message through the blog.

Her g-g-grandfather was Lucius Milo Chapin.

Whom I did not have in the GEDCOM until I did some digging around this morning. I found out he was my 5th cousin, five times removed. So I have no idea what kinship she and I are, because I let the software tell me.

If any of you can figure that one, let me know.

But while I was digging, I found a whole bunch of her ancestors buried in Lowville Cemetery in Wattsburg, Erie Co., PA.

So naturally, I had to stop and figure out who was whom, and add them also. You know about my genealogy ADD. (Yesterday, I was all over some Kellys in Lancashire ENG.)

Chapins now number 745 in the GEDCOM.

They were quite prolific. I wonder if it would shock the boots off of our common progenitor, Deacon Samuel Chapin, to know how much his descendants enjoyed and engaged in sex? Since they were raised not to cuss, drink alcohol and raise hell, I guess there was only one thing left to fill the time when they were not in church.

His likeness was used to craft the monument called The Puritan, by Augustus Saint-Gaudens in Springfield, MA in 1887.



What can I say? I was born curious...

These are the obituaries for my great-great grandparents, Eada Belle Parrish (1859-1944) and Fred Chapin (1858-1938).

---

Fred Chapin

Fred Chapin, 80, of 913 North Valmar street, died at a Little Rock hospital at 1:30 p.m. Thursday. He is survived by his wife, a daughter, Mrs. V C Balding of Little Rock; a sister, Mrs. Essie Finn of Altoona, Pa.; seven grandchildren, and two great grandchildren. Funeral services will be held at the P H Ruebel & Co. chapel at 4:30 p.m. Friday in the charge of the Rev. Hay Watson Smith. Burial will be in Oakland cemetery. Pallbearers will be Joe D Williams, E V Balding, R Ellington Balding, and Marvin Balding.
Published on Friday, 30 Dec 1938, in the Arkansas Gazette

---

Mrs. Eada B Chapin
Octogenarian Dies.
Mrs. Eada B Chapin, aged 85, died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. V C Balding of 217 Denison street, at 7:30 a.m. Saturday. She had been a resident of Little Rock for 50 years. Also surviving are seven grandchildren and four great grandchildren. Funeral services will be held at the Ruebel Funeral Home at 10 a.m. Monday by the Rev. Marion A Boggs. Burial will be in Oakland cemetery. Pallbearers will be W L Terry, L C Gring, J S Holtzman, W M Brandon, J D Williams and Lt. Eugene Balding.
Published on Sunday, 3 Dec 1944, in the Arkansas Gazette

So I went by Roselawn today as I was in town taking cemetery photos.

And I drove by this grave.

Chapin.

Now how could they not be related? But I didn't recognize the name.

I took the shot anyway.


Chester C and Mary Ruth Chapin

And came home and dug around.

Yep. Cousins.

I wonder if Chester and his eighth cousin, Hattie Belle, ever knew each other. They lived in Little Rock at the same time - for years.

And if they did, I wonder if they were ever able to puzzle through exactly how they were related?

I finally took my camera and went in search of four homes where my Baldings, Chapins, and Williamses lived in Little Rock.

The first one - the address listed on the World War I draft registration card of my great grandfather, Victor Claude Balding - was at 223 Rice Street. He signed his draft registration card on 12 Sep 1918.

The house is still there - although I'm sure it looks a bit different today than it did 93 years ago.

---

Next, I went in search of the houses at 213 and 217 Dennison.

They are next door to each other.

My maternal grandparents, Joe Duffie Williams and Doris Geneva Balding, lived at 213. I found them at that address in city directories from 1940 to 1949.



A whole bunch of people lived at 217 for many years - including my grandother's parents and siblings, as well as her maternal grandmother, Eada Belle (Parrish) Chapin after the death of Fred Chapin right after Christmas in 1938.

According to Polk's Little Rock/North Little Rock City Directories, Fred and Eada lived at 913 North Valmar, and Eada was listed at that address in the 1939 City Directory. (I'll have to make another photo journaling trip to see if that one is still standing.)

But by 1940, Eada made her home with her daughter, Hattie Belle and son-in-law, Victor, at 217 Dennison.



In 1940, the house at 217 Dennison must have been full to overflowing, with Victor and Hattie Balding, Hattie's mother, Eada Chapin, and adult children, Ellington (Linky), daughter Marion (Murney), Marvin and Vera. All the children were employed except Linky, who was the youngest.

---

Across town, my grandfather's parents, Jo Desha Williams and Maxie Leah Meek, lived at 2310 South Ringo Street.



That was the home to which my grandfather, Joe Duffie Williams, took his bride Doris after they married on Halloween in 1926. They were still there when the census was taken in 1930.

Somewhere along the way, I met a Parrish cousin online - I forget now how exactly it happened.

She shared some Parrish family photos, including one of my great-great grandmother Eada Belle Parrish, mother of my great grandmother Hattie Belle Chapin.

She also gave me a bit of information I was unaware of - Eada had another daughter, Ruth, who died as a child.

It was when I started nosing around in records for Evergreen Cemetery in Fort Scott, Bourbon County, KS, that I found little Ruth's grave documented. She was buried in the same plot as her paternal grandparents, Elizabeth Harris and Nathaniel F Chapin, on 27 Oct 1892. There was no date of birth for her in the records, but her parents married on 24 Dec 1885, so she was probably the younger sister of my great-grandma, who was born on 26 May 1887.

Some time, I'll have to go to Fort Scott.

You never know until you ask...

I was informed that Essie Chapin and Elbert Carr married in Umatilla Co., OR on 13 May 1893.

So one day I called the Umatilla County Clerk to see if there was a copy of the marriage license.

She said yes, but they weren't married on 13 May, it was 1 May instead. She also said if I'd give her my address, she would mail the license and affidavit.

So I did.





The ceremony was performed at the cleryman's home, and it looks as if two of his relatives were the witnesses.

The affidavit says Essie was a resident of Umatilla Co., OR, and Elbert W Carr was a resident of Whitman County, WA.

So now I have another area of the country to search to find out more about Elbert W Carr.

---

One of the keepers of the (Essie Chapin) family Bible has been active with comments today. She is quite pissed that I use ~ gasp ~ historic records in my searches of the family history.

You know - stuff like census records, marriage, birth and death records, military records, obituaries, gravestone information, etc.

Apparently this stuff is not agreeing with her family Bible - and let me add, her oral family history as well - according to her most recent comment, which I deleted.

Her Bible and oral history gave forth the date of the marriage above as 13 May 1893. So this entry will probably make her blow a gasket.

I am getting very weary of someone who won't put up, and can't seem to shut up.

She needs her own blog.

Keep the secret or not...that is the question.

I've discovered secrets in my family - on both sides. Some of more gravity than others.

But yeah...I blog about them.

And in some instances, I have questions...why did so-and-so do thus-and-such?

In most cases, I will never know the answer to that question.

Because most of the time, I lack the context in which to frame the answer to this...gee, do I think that was right or wrong?

So I really ought not to judge, huh?

It's also good to remember that they were then just like we are now. Most of them dealt the hand they were played.

Some better than others.

---

Yes, I write about things that were kept quiet for years - things that I or others have discovered.

From multiply married and murderous Chapins, to Burrises with multiple families or the mid-19th century bad boy Callaway who died so young and had a mysterious wife named Mary, my family tree provides me with countless opportunities to mutter, well, would ya look at that?

My newest curiosity is over a mystery Burris child, whom I would not be at all surprised to find was another of James Littleton Burris' sons.

The discovery of the Mountain Meadows massacre was probably the most shocking surprise I had one Saturday morning in my slippers, with coffee and cigarette...

No one in my family for four generations ever mentioned that.

Maybe they were just trying to forget.

It worked.

---

Some of the family secrets and mysteries are having an effect on lives today.

I know firsthand of multiple individuals who have questions about true parentage. The people about whom they have questions have been dead for decades - in one case, for over a century.

If there's information out there to help them establish *who they are* - their identity - then, I won't be keeping secrets about my family, and hindering that.

I won't attempt to draw some moral conclusion about my ancestors without knowing the context of their situation. Did James and Adeline have an "understanding" that they didn't blab to everyone else because it was none of their business?

They could have. I don't know.

But I also don't know that they didn't. That's not the point.

The point is - someone out there needs the facts in order to find out who they are.

Good enough for me.

It's inevitable when you start looking at family history, you encounter varying levels of dysfunction. I don't think there really is a family with no dysfunction at all. The very nature of humanity begs dysfunctional responses and behavior.

From the tragic life of one of my Williams grand-uncles (which ended in suicide and was spun by his survivors as an automobile accident a heart attack) to the decades long wandering of my g-g-grandfather James L Burris (which resulted in two separate families), my family history is replete with surprising twists and turns - many of which have created hurt and confusion that linger to this day.

But it wasn't until I started taking a harder look at Essie Chapin that I was able to witness - for the first time in the decade I've been searching - the rewriting of history as you go.

---

Essie Chapin was my great great grand-aunt. Because of this blog, I "met" three of her direct descendants.

One of them is seriously seeking answers to questions about his roots. I am committed to helping him find those answers, if I can.

The other two believe they already have all the answers, and their primary source of information seems to be a family Bible, plus the oral history that was handed down to them. They do not wish to share any written documentation in their possession. Neither is convinced I even descend from "their" Chapins.

Fair enough.

I just hope they are not equally wedded to a refusal to look at other written documentation that cracks the veneer of what they believe to be true, and lets sunshine in.

Because they might gain new perspective.

---

Essie Chapin had four husbands and two children that I have been able to document. One of the "family secrets" is the issue of the father of her son, Elbert C Shephard, known to his family as "E C."

If Essie's first husband, George Franklin Shephard, was not E C's father, then Essie started lying about it very early on. My understanding is that Frank left the family in 1893, when E C was 2 years old. If Elbert W Carr (whom I am having *great* difficulty locating) was E C Shephard's father, and Essie continued to live with Frank Shephard all that time, well...

In the 1895 Kansas state census, she said she was a native of Kansas - hadn't come from anywhere else. At that time, her daughter Broshia was 4 years old, and E C was 3. Essie's brother Cyrus was also living with them. She said both children were born in Kansas.

In the 1900 census, Essie said the father of both her children was born in Iowa. Frank Shephard was born in Iowa.

So where did the two cousins with the Bible records get the idea that Frank Shephard *was not* E C's father? Their comments on my blog entries seem to indicate it was from the family Bible and E C's sister, Broshia Shephard.

So, that stuff was written down in a Bible? That didn't make it gospel.

---

The more I learn about Broshia Shephard Boorman, the less credibility I am able to put into anything she allegedly said.

Broshia went through at least 12 years of her life saying she was a widow before her husband actually died.

Joseph Aloysius Boorman was born on 23 Jan 1892 in Altoona, Blair County, PA to David C Boorman and Sarah E Monaghan. According to census records, he and Broshia Shephard (who, according to the cousins with the Bible, preferred to be known as Broshia Lebolt - the surname of her mother's third husband) married in 1914.

They had 3 children - Broshia, Adaline and David. In the 1930 census, Broshia Boorman was listed as the married head of her household, and Joseph was not enumerated in that household.

By 1941, the Polk's City Directory for Altoona, PA had a listing for Broshia Boorman, widow of Joseph.



Ditto 1945...



1948/49 City Directory...



I have no idea what happened between Joseph and Broshia Boorman. Maybe they were divorced. Why not just say that?

Saying "He is dead to me," is one thing.

But saying "He. Is. Dead." is a whole 'nother deal.

---

One of the ironic twists in that lie was that even during part of the time Broshia was holding herself out to be a widow, Joseph Boorman lived 98 miles from his children in York, PA.

His World War II draft registration card listed his address as 316 South Duke Street in York.



He signed the card on 27 Apr 1942.

---

According to his obituary in the Altoona Mirror on 24 Jul 1953, Joseph Boorman died on Wednesday, 22 Jul 1953.

He was buried in Calvary Cemetery in Altoona.

---

If any of the Chapin kin want to produce some documents, I'm happy to look at them.

Cyrus F Chapin

Died at 3 o'clock this morning at the home of his sister, Mrs. Essie Lebolt Finn of 1421 Second Street, following an illness of six weeks. He suffered from a complication of diseases. He was born in Bradford County, Dec. 2, 1853, and resided with a sister in Denver, Colo., until March 15, last year when the sister died, Mr. Chapin then removing to this city. He is survived by three brothers, George Chapin of Atlanta, Ga., Fred Chapin of Little Rock, Ark., and Willard Chapin of California, and the sister in this city. Surviving also is a niece, Mrs. J A Boorman of Altoona, and a nephew, E C Shephard of Pontiac, Mich. He was a member of the International Bible Students' association. The funeral will be held from the Laferty and Tobias funeral parlors on Saturday afternoon at 2 o'clock. Interment will be made in Rose Hill cemetery.

Source: Altoona Mirror, Wednesday, March 3, 1926

---

Mrs. Essie Lebolt Finn

Died at her home, 1421 Second Street, last night at 8:10 o'clock. Surviving are her husband, Daniel J Finn; one son, Ward D of Philadelphia; one daughter, Mrs. Broshia L Boorman. Another son, Elbert, died in Pontiac, Mich., two years ago. Mrs. Finn attended the Fourth Lutheran church. Friends will be received at the Axe funeral home after 7 o'clock this evening.

FINN: Funeral services for Mrs. Essie Lebolt Finn will be conducted Wednesday at 2 p.m. at the Axe funeral home in charge of Rev. Ralph W Lind. Interment in Rose Hill cemetery. Friends will be received at Axe funeral home after 7 o'clock this evening.

Source: Altoona Mirror, Tuesday, December 14, 1948