Teresa Marie Allen, part 1

When I first began dabbling in ancestry research a year and half ago, progress happened so fast it was mind-blowing.  On Ancestry.com, it took no time at all to follow some family lines all the way back to medieval times in Europe (Europe has much better historical and genealogical records).  I happily paid the annual fee to join Ancestry.com so I could continue the excitement.  Then it began to be tedious as each branch of the family reached the end and the facts were more and more difficult to find.  Still, random discoveries have kept the fire burning.

Since I do not subscribe the International version of Ancestry, our tree mostly begins with the original immigrants to America.  But overall, it is an impressive assemblage of ancestors!   There are some famous and admirable folks in our family lineage, such as Roger Williams (founder of Providence RI) and Joost Van Den Vondel (the Shakespeare of the Netherlands).  Governors, religious leaders, pioneers, colonists, soldiers of the Revolution... I can't even begin to wrap my mind around it all.

I have learned to be discriminating about sources.  Sloppy research can become a contagion on Ancestry.com as researchers build on inaccurate facts from other family trees.  For instance, when double-checking the facts, I couldn't actually prove a Mayflower connection with reliable sources though there was some anecdotal evidence; therefore, I reluctantly disconnected that link from the tree.  Working on the research only occasionally and for short periods of time, I have spent most of the time over the last few months looking over my sources, fleshing out facts, and adding media.

Start with the biggest question
Last night, I decided to pick a random ancestor to investigate.  My maternal grandmother's lineage has been the most confounding mystery in our family tree, so I chose to look again at my long lost great-grandmother Eva L. Allen, who was born in Illinois.  I had previously been unable to find anything about her after 1900.  I was mainly concerned with finding proof that my grandmother "Teresa" was the same person as "Ethelyn" who was documented as the only child of Augustus and Eva Allen.  I did a search for "Eva L. Allen" on findagrave.com, and was surprised when a 2010 entry took me to Oklahoma.  It turns out that around 1998, an inmate at a low level security prison in Oklahoma had cleared out an old, overgrown cemetery at nearby Old Fort Supply and uncovered hundreds of grave markers no larger than bricks.

Cemetery at Old Fort Supply
http://yireng.blogspot.com/2013/06/another-old-cemetery.html

This photo was taken after 1908 in the early days of the mental hospital. It shows the north line of barracks used as wards. Some of the trees on either side of the road are still there. The tree-lined road or path led from the Superintendent's home, the former Commanding Officer Quarters to the hospital administration offices.
(Fort Supply Historic Site Facebook page).

The graves were of patients who had died at the mental hospital at Fort Supply.  One of them was Eva L. Allen, 1867-1911.  A mental hospital...!  Sure enough, Eva L. Allen is listed on the 1910 census as a patient at the hospital.  My heart raced as I checked facts against each other to be sure it was the right person.  I already knew that, according to the 1920 census, my grandmother had lived in a boarding house in Oklahoma City which is not far from where her mother had died. There were just too many coincidences to dismiss the information.  Sadly, Teresa never knew what became of her mother.  Raised by nuns at a Catholic boarding school in Texas, she remembered a few visits from her father, Augustus, but she never knew what happened to him either.  Teresa attended a nursing school in Paris, Texas - I tried to identify the school and came up with St. Joseph Hospital, which was run by nuns.  No proof... yet.  Mom and I conjecture that she changed her name while she was at this school, from Ethelyn to Teresa Marie (perhaps named for a favorite nun?) UPDATE:  see later post with more information about Teresa! 

Update, January 2, 2015:
Further research has brought up more questions about Augustus D. Allen.  I have created a timeline of confirmed events.

Year - Source - Subject - related persons:
1860 Census, Warsaw, Ill.  Augustus, age 1.  (Robert, b. Va.; Elizabeth, b. Ohio)
1870 Census, Hancock, Ill.  Augustus, age 11. (Elizabeth, widowed)
         Census, Littleton, Ill.  (Schuyler County) Eva L. Bosworth, age 3. (OM, Eliza)
1880 Census, Littleton, Ill.  Eva L. Bosworth, age 13. (MO, b. Ohio; Eliza, b. Kentucky)
1883 Marriage record, Littleton, Ill.  Augustus m. Eva on Nov. 25. (Robert, Elizabeth, Orlando, Eliza)
1890 .... (Census destroyed by fire).
1900 Census, Wichita, Kansas.  Augustus, real estate agent (Eva, Eliza, Ethelyn, b. abt 1893)
1904 City Directory, Wichita.  Eva L. Allen, widow of A.D.
1910 Census, Woodward, Oklahoma.  Eva, widow, age 43.
1920 Census, Oklahoma City.  Teresa, age 26.  (fellow boarder, Maude Marshall)
1930 Census, Waukegan, Ill.  Horace, Teresa, H.C. Jr.

This is where it gets tricky... there is documentation of "Augustus D. Allen" residing in Sedgwick, Kansas after Eva was supposedly widowed.  Like my ancestor, this Augustus was also born in Hancock, Ill. and moved to Wichita in 1900.  He was also a real estate agent.  In 1905, the year after Eva was listed as a widow, this Augustus married "Miss Emma Schindler" and became a well known business tycoon in the Wichita area, opening his own Realty Co. on Douglas Avenue in Wichita. (Coincidentally my grandmother grew up thinking her father's middle name was Douglas).  A brief biography by O.H. Bentley does not mention either Eva or Ethelyn/Teresa.  His year of birth is given as 1865, six years later than my ancestor. Also my ancestor was not known to have a love of horses, and he was not orphaned at a very young age (though his father died when he was a small boy). This Augustus must have died sometime between 1911 and 1925* because Emma is listed as a widow in the Wichita directory in 1925.  To complicate matters further, there is an Augustus D. Allen listed in Dallas, Tx, in 1915, spouse Emma S.; occupation, grocer. (Dallas is close to where my grandmother was living in an orphanage).

In 1905, Sedgwick County had a population of about 45,000.  What are the chances that there were two Augustus D. Allens, both real estate agents, born in Hancock, Ill., and moving to Wichita the same year?  Did my ancestor die before 1904, or did he live to 1917?  Did he die, or did he abandon his family to start a new life?  If he lived, why the discrepancy in birth year?   Did Eva claim to be a widow rather than bear the shame of divorce?  Was Eva mentally ill, or was she a victim of circumstance?  And the biggest question of all.... Are Ethelyn and Teresa the same person, or am I completely on the wrong track with her parentage?

Augustus D. with Eva
and seven year old Ethelyn