Findagrave - Eva L. Allen

This weekend is Findagrave weekend. People all over the country will gather in cemeteries to photograph and document graves. Findagrave.com has been one of the most helpful resources in my genealogy research. Profiles are searchable by name and by cemetery. Sometimes the information in these profiles is extensive! One can submit a request to have a gravestone photographed and documented by someone local to a particular cemetery. I have posted a few profiles online myself.

The most amazing discovery on findagrave for me was the gravestone of my great grandmother, Eva L. Allen - a simple engraved brick. She was buried among hundreds in the hospital cemetery of a mental institution in Oklahoma. The gravestone was uncovered in 1998 as the cemetery was cleaned up. Until the moment I found her profile on findagrave, no one in the family had any clue what had become of Eva; her daughter died without ever knowing. It was certainly an emotional discovery. It also opened up other questions about her - why was she in a mental hospital? Why was she listed as "widow" when her husband was still alive?

I ponder these things every day without really getting anywhere. Last night, it occurred to me that I should contact the person who posted Eva's profile on findagrave. Turns out he is a really nice, helpful, genealogy-obsessed fellow! He got her information from a survey of the hospital cemetery and from census data. He was able to give me some perspective on the time that she lived. For instance, he said that often a woman who was divorced would list herself as a "widow" because of the shame. I had not thought of that but it makes perfect sense. He also told me that only the folks with no family to claim them were buried in that cemetery.

All of this fits with what I have learned about her life. My mind fills in the sad details as I try to imagine what might have happened:

Eva was married to Augustus Allen in 1886. Around 1893, after their only daughter Ethelyn was born, they left their families in Illinois and moved just across the river to Kiokuk, Iowa, where Augustus worked as a mercantile clerk. They moved to Wichita, Kansas in 1900, taking Eva's mother, Eliza Bosworth, with them. There was a huge real estate boom going on in Kansas at that time. Augustus emerged as an ambitious real estate businessman, and he became something of a celebrity. Seems like every move he made was written about in the Wichita newspapers.

Eva's brother, Richard Bosworth, and his wife and family also moved to Wichita around the same time. Unfortunately, their mother Eliza died shortly thereafter.  The two families got together socially; a 1903 Wichita newspaper describes a birthday party for Augustus where the Bosworths were present. My grandmother Ethelyn was ten years old at that time, so she must have been close to her four Bosworth cousins.

Something happened in 1903 or 1904.  Eva is listed in the 1904 Wichita City Directory as the "widow" of A. D. Allen. I don't know why I didn't think of this until now, but a divorce would be a logical explanation. This must have been around the time that my grandmother was sent to boarding school in Paris, Texas, almost 300 miles away. Eva would not have been able to support her daughter on her own. I don't know why her brother, Richard Bosworth, did not step in and help, but records indicate that he died before 1910 so perhaps he was ill. Augustus was a proud man - maybe he enjoyed being able to afford to send his daughter to boarding school.

The Old Fort Supply Mental Hospital opened in Woodward, Oklahoma in 1908. There are stories online about the wagon trains going to the hospital that year. Woodward was about a day's ride from Wichita...less than 150 miles. I am assuming that Eva was among the first patients there.  She is listed on the 1910 Census there as an inmate with status as "widow." She died in 1911.

My question now... where was Eva from 1904 to 1908? I wondered if she stayed with her brother, but she is not listed in his household in the 1905 Kansas census, and their addresses were not the same in the City Directory. What was her life like without husband and daughter? She must have been aware of Augustus' new marriage and his growing real estate business. I can't imagine how devastating a divorce and separation from her ten year old daughter must have been. The highly publicized birthday party that she gave for Augustus in March 1903 may have been a last, desperate attempt to please him..?

I have to say, I am less inclined to think of Augustus as a bad guy.  I guess divorce is easier to understand than lies and abandonment though there is very little emotional difference. It also explains why he was legally able to remarry in 1905. I wonder what made him send his daughter so far away - did he need to get her away from her mother for some reason? Augustus probably visited Ethelyn in 1910.  Newspapers tell of his trip to Texas, and my grandmother recalled this visit.  Why didn't he tell her about her mother? She was 17 years old and would have been able to understand by then. I guess there was shame all around... divorce, mental illness*... he did not want her to have that stigma.

So Eva died in 1911 - a "widow" with no family to claim her. Her mother and brother were dead. There was no contact with her extended family in Illinois. Augustus, her (ex)husband, had a new life. Her only daughter was unaware of her existence.

*UPDATE Sept. 25, 2021: I just found a photo on ancestry.com of Eva’s brother and his family. As I added the photo to each ancestry profile, other hints popped up, including the death certificates for two of his five children. I looked at the cause of death…both died of tuberculosis. I also observed that her brother and three of his children died within three years, from 1907 to 1910. I think I can assume, then, that all four family members died of tuberculosis. Since Eva was divorced by 1904, she probably remained close to her brother and his family in Wichita. It is not a far leap to assume that she died of tuberculosis as well.

Augustus - updated April 2019 with new findings!

I think I may have solved the mysterious disappearance of my great grandfather, Augustus Allen. Here is a clipping from The Wichita Daily Eagle, 24 April 1917:

Transcribed:

To Commit Mr. Allen

A hearing in the sanity case of A. D. Allen of this city in probate court yesterday brought a verdict of insanity from the examining board called by Judge Jones.  Mr. Allen will be taken to one of the state institutions for the insane sometime the latter part of the week.

I am not 100% sure this is the right A. D. Allen, but, sadly, this fits perfectly with the rest of the documentation that I have found.  A while back, I found a cemetery record for A.D. Allen at Osawatomie in Miami County, Kansas on Findagrave.com giving the year of his death as 1917.  The entry on Findagrave mysteriously disappeared (can't explain it), but fortunately I had recorded the information. An online search revealed that one of the few state mental hospitals - the closest one to Wichita - was at Osawatomie.  The only niggling doubt I have comes from the fact that there were other A. D. Allens in Wichita.

On a more positive note, I also found a delightful newspaper story (included at the end of this post) and a cartoon caricature of Augustus on his prize-winning horse, Rex Denmark. Augustus was the president of the Horse Show Association in Wichita.

The Wichita Daily Beacon, 1909

Below: one of the only two photographs my grandmother had of her father. 

Note the hairline, even to the curl above his broad forehead! The nose, chin, 

mustache, ears... he is a little older and heavier in the caricature, his eyebrows a 

little bushier, and he is wearing glasses, but his identity is unmistakable.

This photo was taken about 1900.

The amazing discovery of this newspaper caricature has answered a few questions and provided direct or indirect proof of some significant conclusions:

1) A.D. Allen did NOT die in 1904 after all, though his 1st wife Eva (my great grandmother) was listed as a widow in the 1904 City Directory and in the 1910 U.S. Census. 

2) The "A. D. Allen" who was the horse-loving subject of at least two published biographical sketches is the same man as the one in my grandmother's photo of her father, though neither of the accounts mentions the existence of his first wife and child.

3) My great grandfather had a second wife named Emma, whom he married in 1905 while his 1st wife was still alive. 

4) My grandmother lived in Iowa until she was seven years old, according to facts given in A. D. Allen's biography.  (Keokuk, Iowa was right across the river from Hancock County, Illinois, where Augustus was born).

Every new finding creates new questions!

• To what state hospital was A. D. Allen committed in 1917? Osawatomie?

4/23/2019 - I called the state hospital in Osawatomie and spoke with a woman named "Rose" in medical records. She said that there were few records from that far back, and those records were on cards with minimal information. She searched and found a card for A. D. Allen from Wichita! He was admitted to Osawatomie State Hospital on April 29, 1917 (in sync with the court date of April 24), and discharged on May 17, 1917 (which I surmise is the date of his death). Rose suggested that I call the legal dept. attorney, Kahlea Porter in Topeka, to find out if I can obtain a copy of his record and the location of his grave. I also called the Osawatomie Historical Society - they searched but were unable to find any information on A. D. Allen. They recommended contacting the Kansas Dept for Aging and Disabilities. No one could explain why the findagrave entry appeared and then disappeared.

• Where was Emma at the end of Augustus' life? (She is listed as a widow in 1920). 
• Why did A. D. Allen have to be legally declared insane by a judge at a court hearing? 
• Why did Augustus claim to have been orphaned at a very young age and all alone in the world while his mother and a number of brothers and sisters were all still alive in Illinois? (His mother died in 1896).

Here is the newspaper bio of Augustus:

I love the reporter's sense of humor: "He looks some like ex-Chief of Police George T. Cubbin, only a little more so."

Here is another biography from Genealogy Trails:

ALLEN, AUGUSTUS D.
Augustus D. Allen, who for some years has been actively engaged in the real estate business in Wichita, has two fads. One is that of owning and driving good horses, and the other is that of selling Kansas farms. This latter, however, is a business, and selling Kansas farms nowadays puts a man in the class of the diamond broker or corn king. Mr. Allen is a native of Illinois, he having been born in Hancock county, that state, on March 21, 1865. The lad's parents died when he was small, and he had to make his own way in the world. His education was acquired in the public schools of Carthage, Ill., and in the Gem City Business College, of Quincy, Ill. After leaving school Mr. Allen obtained a position as clerk in a store at Tioga, Ill., and he remained there for seven years, leaving to engage in the mercantile business at Keokuk, Ia., where he remained seven years. He then engaged in the wholesale egg business, in which he remained three years, and then entered the real estate field, selling land in Bureau county, Illinois, until 1900, when he came to Wichita, where for a time he was connected with the Kansas Bureau of Immigration and later with the B. D. Allen Realty Company. About three years ago Mr. Allen started in the real estate business for himself and has since conducted a large business. Mr. Allen is methodical in his affairs and keeps book records of all his business. In nine years of business he brought into Kansas from other states 3,700 people, over 50 per cent of whom remained permanently. Since he was fifteen years old, Mr. Allen has owned every minute of that time some sort of a horse. One of his horses, Midnight Denmark, has been shown in the model class nine times and brought home seven blue ribbons and two reds. Mr. Allen was married in 1905 to Miss Emma Shindler, of Wichita.

(History of Wichita and Sedgwick County, Kansas: past and present, including an account of the cities, towns and villages of the county; Chicago: C.F. Cooper & Co., 1910, Pages 705 & 706)

Note: the birth date in this bio is correct, but the year is wrong.  Augustus was actually born on March 21, 1859. In the 1910 Census and in this account, his birth year was given as 1865. To seem younger for his much younger wife, Emma?