#MeToo 1916

From the North Platte (Nebraska) Semi-Weekly Tribune, June 9, 1916, page 3:

"Anna Yankaus, a domestic living in Omaha, has commenced a $50,000 damage suit against Thomas Towey, a wealthy retired farmer of Schuyler. She alleges that while she was employed as housekeeper by Towey's sister, who was dying from tuberculosis, Towey came up behind her and stole a kiss, which caused great mental anguish. The suit was filed in the district court in Omaha."

Thomas Towey is a distant relative of my husband, but obviously, that is not what stands out about the article. A hundred years ago, a woman working as a housekeeper had the gumption to sue this gropester for $50,000. I haven't found out yet how the case was resolved -- Towey had a lot of friends in government and in other high places and I assume Yankaus did not. But even if he settled the case or had the case thrown out of court, he had been embarrassed and inconvenienced. 

Three cheers for Anna Yankaus!

~ 

Genealogy Before the Internet

A few months ago I bought a huge box of genealogical magazines on eBay. The magazines ranged from the early 1970s to around 2011. There were a few dozen issues of Everton's Genealogical Helper and there were some British genealogy magazines, as well as Family Tree, Heritage Quest, and others. 

Obviously many of these magazines have information that is out of date, but that was the point as far as I was concerned. I wanted to know how people did genealogy before the internet. I've only started researching my family trees recently, about a year ago, and in addition to finding out more than I thought was ever possible, I've also run into many cases where there just doesn't seem to be any information at all. And that's with so many documents digitized and scanned and indexed and transcribed. How would it be possible to find anything at all without FamilySearch.org and the National Archives, etc?

It's been revealing to look through the magazines from before the internet, before personal computers, even before Roots. My impression of genealogy enthusiasts from those days is that they were generally looking for English or German ancestors, people who had been in America since colonial times. There was almost no discussion of Italian or Jewish ancestors, a few references to Scandinavian or Eastern European roots, and nothing at all about Asian or African family lines. Once in a while someone would mention the possibility of a Native American ancestor from many generations past.

Genealogy before the internet also took a lot of time. Every issue of Everton's had pages of personal ads for people requesting information about certain family names. What were the chances that someone would see your ad and have information that you were seeking?

There was a lot of advice about how to write to various court houses and libraries in Germany and England for vital records and other documents. It seems as if you had to develop a talent for writing good letters to churches and city halls in the U.S. and abroad. Your letter requesting information and documents had to be succint and precise, getting to the point quickly and being specific about what you were requesting. And it was vital to be polite, acknowledging the time and trouble the recipient would take if your request was entertained at all.

So the ideal family genealogist in pre-computer days would have English roots, be patient, and polite. Since I'm 0-for-3 in those departments, it's just as well I waited until now to get into genealogy! 

~

Boxer, Actor, Laundryman, Chef

Crisogono de la Garza was my grandfather's half-sister's husband and since I don't think there's such a thing as a half aunt or uncle, I guess that makes him my great uncle. Whether we're related or not, he was a whirlwind of energy. 

Born in 1893 in Mexico to academics, he left home at 17 to become a boxer in Los Angeles. His parents would have preferred he go to university, but Crisogono needed to get some life experience first, as well as some cash for college. He claimed to have won a national title in 1912 and to have worked as an actor in 1914, working on location in Africa for a major U.S. movie studio. This was the era of boxing champions with names like Fireman Jim Flynn and Gunboat Smith. Cris styled himself Jack Rivers.

He registered for the draft in 1917, stating that he worked at the Marfa, Texas Steam Laundry, and that he was married with no children, and had served in the Red Cross in 1909 in Mexico. He was still married to Petra in 1924 when he became a naturalized United States citizen in San Antonio, Texas, but now he said he was a student. In the 1920s he opened a radio shop but it went under with the onset of the Depression. By 1926 he and Petra had split up and he married Bertha Romeo, daughter of Louis Romeo, previously profiled here, in New York City.

By 1930, Bertha and Crisogono had three daughters under four years old and Cris was working in a restaurant as a baker and applied to the Columbia University School of Medicine. The 1930s took a toll on the family's finances as the family grew to include seven daughters and a son. In 1940 Cris was working for the Works Progress Administration (WPA) as a draftsman and researcher. Money was tight and his medical school dreams were long gone.

Bertha and Cris returned to San Antonio sometime after the war, but split up. Cris resumed his job as an electrician and died in 1966.

 

Existential Mysteries in the Family Tree

There are the usual unanswered questions all over the family tree -- dates, locations, cause of death, etc. But a few relatives are especially stubborn and downright mysterious.

Take my great grandmother, for instance. She and my great grandfather, Jesus Cota, had five children by the time of the 1900 census. But she does not appear on the census. Jesus says he is married, and only one of the children has a birth certificate that I have been able to find. Michael, my grandfather, got a delayed birth certificate for his 1900 birth in 1936, likely to apply for the newly instituted Social Security Act. His sister vouched for him, and the birth certificate says his mother's name was Jesus Chacon. But that is the only time I see the name. Meanwhile, three of her children used the name Martinez as a middle name, the way many Hispanic families use the mother's maiden name as a middle name. So perhaps her name was Martinez. Jesus Cota's mother was Elena Martinez -- were the children using their mother's last name as their middle name or father's mother's last name as their middle name? Is the mysterious "Jesus Chacon" a mirage? Several women? Someone had those children! Who was she?

Then there's Patrick Towey, my husband's great grandfather, who arrived in the U.S. from Ireland in the late 1880s or early 1890s. He married Nora in 1896 and they had ten children and several farms in Nebraska that were perhaps not entirely successful. In 1925, for unknown reasons, the family broke up, with everyone leaving the farm. The children were mostly grown up by then and not one became a farmer. Most of them moved to Omaha, the city where Patrick and Nora had married. But Patrick did not return to Omaha. He disappeared. He turns up in 1927 on a return ship from Ireland -- he had gone back to the old country for a visit apparently. And then he stayed with his sister in Tarrytown, New York. But then he disappeared again. Maybe he went back to Ireland yet again. He did not reappear for any of his children's marriages or for the death of his oldest daughter. Where did he go?

My favorite for being mysterious is George, my own grandfather, who was born in Mexico in 1892 or 1893 or 1894 or possibly 1895. He arrived in Texas around 1903 with his mother and sister. He started playing around with new names in his twenties, styling himself as George Leele, then as George Lee Monsive. As far as I can make out, he was born Marcos Leal, so the Leele and Lee are easy enough to see, and George is a bit of a stretch, but since no one else on earth had ever called himself Monsive before, I would sure like to know how he settled on the name. He started a dynasty with the name, since he married at least six times, maybe seven, and had at least six children, most of whom also had children and grandchildren. Some of the marriages were conducted simultaneously, so George had a lot to keep track of. I can only theorize that George and Marcos are the same person, there is no paper trail.

Mysteries all. Will I ever crack these cases?

 Bethlehem via Broadway and Hollywood

My husband's aunt, Texas Gail Paulus, started singing and dancing as soon as hse could walk and talk. She taught the other kids in her Bethlehem, Pennsylvania neighborhood dance routines and they put on shows. She was in every church and school production and by the time she was in her teens she was ready for the Big Time. At age 15 she was making regular trips to New York City to act in live radio plays and sing in variety shows. In 1942 at age 16, she made her Broadway debut in "The Three Sisters" as one of the leads.

World War II was well under way by then and she was a regular in USO shows and dances in her home town. Another article told of her meeting in New York with a Hollywood agent who was impressed with her moxie and signed her up for a movie with dancer Ray McDonald. The movie, “The Army Rhythm,” was apparently never made and Texas does not appear in the Internet Movie Database or the Internet Broadway Database.

 

The next time Texas appears in the genealogical records is in 1952 in Albuquerque, New Mexico, with a husband who was an engineer at a nuclear facility, and no sign of her Broadway or Hollywood exploits. However, her artistic side was still in evidence with a newspaper item listing her as one of those exhibiting jewelry at the New Mexico Art League Exhibition.

Later, Texas would divorce the engineer and marry two, possibly three other husbands, and have a son. After all that adventure and travel, she died in 1992 in the same town where she'd been born, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.

Ancestors in the Insane Asylum

As far as I know, Nellie Bly is not an ancestor of mine, but her sensational expose of a New York mental hospital for women points up something that I have noticed in my research -- the frequency with which ancestors show up in the "insane asylum."

At first I thought this was just the result of having come across so many relatives. In any population of several hundred people, a few are bound to have psychological problems severe enough to warrant a hospital stay. But I think there may be something else at play. Perhaps the asylum covered a wider range of symptoms then than now.

Unfortunately, few of the records of people being removed to insane asylums include the diagnosis or other details. One relative, my great aunt Rosa, was arrested -- the charge was "insane." She was eventually released by the judge to her sister's care rather than to a hospital, but her brother was not as lucky. He spent time at a state mental hospital for being suicidal, morose, and "talking irrationally." This did not keep him out of the army when he was drafted in 1918.

At this point, I was feeling uneasy about possible genetic implications for my own mental health. Whether those feelings are warranted or not, it isn't just that side of the family that had difficulties. My husband's family tree also contained episodes of stays at the state hospital. A great grandfather on his mother's side and a great uncle on his father's side spent time in mental hospitals.

Are our families unusually susceptible? Or was the mental hospital operating as what now might be a combination rehab center and retreat/spa? Not to suggest that a state mental hospital would be a vacation, but if you didn't have the money to get away to the mountains or on a cruise, the stress of daily life might build up to unbearable levels. It was not unusual for someone struggling with alcoholism to be sent to a mental hospital, sometimes voluntarily, often not voluntarily. 

There was also the political mental patient -- Woodrow Wilson had several suffragists including Alice Paul sent to jail when they would not stop demonstrating for women's rights. When they went on a hunger strike, they were sent to an insane asylum to be force fed. 

Were they too quick to pack off someone to the insane asylum in the old days? How will our attitudes toward mental illness look in a hundred years?

 

Louis Romeo (1861-1936)

The American Foreign Legion

Between the Civil War and World War I enlisting as a soldier in the U.S. Army was not a normal career option. Some estimates show as many as a third of soldiers in the late 19th century were immigrants. One such soldier was Louis Romeo (1861-1936) who arrived in New Orleans from the south of France in around 1881.

Louis is not technically related to me, he is the stepfather of my grandfather, or the second husband of my great grandmother. Still, his story is much too good to leave to those who are truly related to him.

He was born in about 1861, when Nice had only just stopped being a part of what is now Italy and became part of France. So far I know nothing of his life in France, including the names of his parents, although he indicated on the U.S. census that his mother was Italian. His death certificate states that his father was Joseph. Perhaps.

In 1884, he joined the Army as a private, enlisting with the Eighth Cavalry, K Company. In the 1880s the Army roamed the frontier, keeping the Native Americans and the settlers from killing each other, primarily by ensuring the Native Americans stayed on their reservations and returning them to the reservations when they were discovered elsewhere. This often involved force and bloodshed.

Sometimes though, diplomacy was successful, and Louis's facility with languages came in handy. He noted on the census that his mother tongue was French and he likely spoke Italian and the local Nizza (Nice) dialect as well. By the time he enlisted he also spoke Spanish and during his time in the Army, he learned several Native American languages as well. Although he was officially a cook in the Army, his superiors knew who to call when they needed an interpreter.

The Army was not a means of upward mobility at that time. Although Louis served admirably during his five year enlistment (his discharge record comments that his character was "excellent", he remained a private and this was not unusual. He reenlisted for another five year term, but was discharged two years later with "dis[ease] of eye and impairment of mind."

He settled in San Antonio, becoming a firefighter. His "impairment" continued to haunt him and he was briefly hospitalized after attempting suicide by poison in 1894. He was approaching forty when the Spanish-American War broke out and he applied for civilian work with the Army, which hired him as a cook and sent him to Florida and Alabama for the duration. It seems he returned to San Antonio after the war.

By 1903 he had finally married, to a widow named Teresa Garza who had two children. They had a child in late 1905, a girl named Bertha. Louis spent the rest of his life in San Antonio near Fort Sam Houston, working as a watchman. He died on Christmas Day, 1936.

I've been playing at this genealogy game for about a year now and have had a great time filling in all the boxes--birth, marriage, death, immigration information, etc. I've learned a lot about my ancestors. But now I want to concentrate on the characters behind all those facts and the history that surrounds the events. In this blog, I want to highlight the more colorful people and events that I've come across while researching my family trees. Some of this may be more like history than genealogy and some of the people I intend to profile are not actually relatives at all. Let the games begin!