Bizarre True Family Stories

[Loyal]

I am suffering from writers block or else this novella would have been sent off to publishers to be....rejected multiple times. Such is the life of a writer....lol

I have combed historical newspapers for almost all of the information I will tell you about. Some of it was verified through family legend, or the distorted version of it was passed down through the generations.

The first one dealt with a many-greats-aunt and her prosperous farmer husband's bizarre suicide. This was the early 1900's when quackery mocked desperate people looking for medical relief. The man suffered from a bad back and was in constant pain and he travelled away from his farm to buy this potion or that one, none of which worked.. Finally, a travelling medical quack spoke of his miracle machine that was a sure fire cure for back pain, but to purchase it was prohibitively expensive. After being turned away in one town, this man sought the same salesman in a different town, imploring him to take less.

He said no.

This relative by marriage was in such despair over the hopelessness of relief, he waited for his wife and children to leave him alone at the house, and then chopped the heads off 101 parlor match sticks and swallowed them all. He didn't want to be stopped and so he told no one, until the phosphorous poisoning wracked his body. He finally confessed to what he had done, but it was too late for early 20th century medicine to deal with. He went through such agony for two months before he died in a hospital in Omaha, for he was an otherwise strong man. Yes, they pumped his stomach early on, but the phosphorous had already been absorbed.

 

[Loyal]

Maybe these only interest me, so I may be writing these stories just for me… I wrote story for the same novella called, “And Then There Were None.”

I was confused by the disappearance of a whole household that existed in the 1900 US Census, but everyone disappeared by 1910. The home was owned by my Great-great-great Grandma Mary and her two orphaned grandchildren that stayed with and her youngest son Charlie.

Mary Wagner‘s mother died early (most likely in childbirth). She was 16 years old and was engaged to marry a farmer’s son across the border in Iowa. He drove a wagon over to pick up Mary and a girlfriend to spend the afternoon at his farm. He prepared a target rifle to shoot rats in the barn and Mary was interested in the gun He extended the gun, but somehow the trigger was pulled and it shot her in the head, killing her almost instantly. A coroners jury was convened at the house and the fiancé was declared careless, but innocent of murder. Sympathy drew a very large crowd at her funeral in 1904.

Grandma Mary grew ill in 1905. She was diagnosed with stomach cancer and died in her son’s house. Mary owned her own home and most likely it was sold for an inheritance for six surviving children, setting loose son Charlie and the other grandson, Norva.

Six months after Mary passed, Charlie, who had been staying with his brother Lincoln’s family, became suddenly ill with pneumonia and died over a weekend in his mid 20’s in 1905.

Norva, had moved to Omaha (the Metropolis) and worked on a road crew in the sweltering Omaha summer heat and died of heat prostration in 1909 in his late 20’s.

It took me years to discover these things, and it has always fascinated me that the whole extended family disappeared in the course of five years, for vastly different reasons. Aside from Grandma Mary, all of them died extremely young, forgotten in time with no one but me to remember them…

 

[Memento]

Man, I love these family stories you have, Loyal.

Honestly don't know too much about my own family; I never was curious about that. It's not that I don't care because I love my family. But I paid more attention to the family who's alive than the ones who passed.

My only interesting story is that my dad's side has apparently been in the U.S. since the 1700s. Mom's side apparently immigrated in the very late 1800s/very early 1900s. Mom's side is Jewish (which means I'm ethnically Jewish); dad's side is Christian (I think Catholic, but I'm not sure.), which means I celebrated Jewish and Christian holidays.

 

[RhodyRams]

I've got no interesting stories, but I do have this newpaper clipping from the 250th birthday of the town my relatives settled in. There are some funny bits in it about the Kelsey family

 

[Loyal]

This is another segment of my book....

When I grew up, I never knew the name of my paternal great Grandpa. I knew of my Grandpa's step Dad, who was a man named Edward Foye. Foye was a US Marine that served in both WW1 and WW2, but he isn't the subject. By the time I became interested in genealogy, my Grandpa had passed away in 1983. I inquired about him with my Dad and my Grandma, but neither knew about this relative who had died before either was born. I thought to request a birth certificate to see what it said about his father, and the information given revealed that his name was exactly the same as his son's name and that he had died BEFORE Grandpa was born.

What the hell?

Around the same time, my Dad gave me an old stock business card. It was oversized with ornamentation that was similar to art deco of the 20's, but was older. It said "Denson's Orchestra" with a one of those funny phone numbers with letters. Dad figured it may have come from this Great Grandpa, which was before 1918.

I thought first, "he must have died in the war." No. Then I thought, "well, it would have to be the Spanish Flu, which was raging across the World and rumored, despite the name, to have originated at Ft Funston near Junction City, KS. But alas, No.

I grew tired of not finding any answers, until I contacted a distant relative that I was related to through this Great Grandpa's sister and she was able to fill in much about him, but not how he died. He was a natty dresser and was skilled at playing the piano and had a great singing voice. He had assembled an Orchestra that would play ay small events. Well, he was a railroader, as was his father before him and his son after him, for the Union Pacific. I had begun a careful search through digital town newspapers of the period and traced his life through print, until finally I came across the tragic story told in the Omaha Bee in 1918. Great Grandpa Roy was 24 years old and recently married to Great Grandma Ruby, and he was on a business trip to Missouri on the UP one week end. He became violently ill and was rushed home to die. He had a form of spinal meningitis that was merciless. He never knew that he would be a father. Great Grandma Ruby would walk herself to the Swedish Mission hospital in Omaha, NE and have their son named after him.
I have been to the gravesite in Council Bluffs, Iowa which is across the river from Omaha, and this forgotten Great Grandpa was buried with a Woodmen of the World Gravestone, indicative that he had purchased life insurance for his small family before he died.