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.

Research Strategies

So far, all of the research I've done has been by computer, except for family documents shared with me by relatives.  I recognize and appreciate the fact that much of the information I've discovered on Ancestry is there only because someone did a lot of the original legwork in the pre-computer days. 


Here are the resources that have helped me the most in my research:


Findagrave - this website is just amazing.  People from all over the world visit cemeteries and contribute photographs of tombstones, transcribing the information on them.  Some entries are created by family members or descendants, with detailed biographical information.  Others are created by people who have no relationship with the people in the graves, but who wish to add to the body of knowledge.  If a relative of that person wishes to add information, the creator of that entry can transfer it to the relative. A network is created where people can request a photo of a grave in a certain locale, and someone in that locale will provide it.  I cannot express how valuable this website has been to me. 


Google Maps - whenever I have clues to a location, I look it up on a map and explore the area.  Exploring the streets, viewing buildings, and looking at the relationships between places, I have gained insight into my ancestors' lives that at times has broken through a wall in my research.  This strategy has made my research immensely more real and tangible, and has greatly affected my understanding of the way of life of my forebears.  I can go to street view and visit the actual places where my ancestors built their lives.  I can take a snapshot of a building and include it in my documentation.  If I find a plat of a town from colonial times, I can compare it to the current landscape and pinpoint the location of property owned.  Street names have provided clues to my family's stories.  The number of instances where this resource has helped me are countless. 


Ancestry - this goes without saying.  This database grows continually as members add documents and information.  I have learned which sources to ignore - Ancestry trees, Family data, Millenium files - all of these are rife with errors due to amateurs' enthusiasm and lack of discipline!  Their information is valuable only to pick up possible names to verify.  With experience, I have learned which researchers are the most careful and accurate.  I have actually contacted a few of these folks to find out more information.  On Ancestry, there are indexes listing the names but not the actual information included in a variety of resources.  There are also sources such as DAR applications, Census documents, and Veteran's pension applications which contain reliable information.   


Google books - many original transcripts of old books can be found here.  A Google search using a person's name will turn up many of these sources.  I can scroll through a major portion of a book to learn about my ancestors' part in history. 


Postcards and letters - family memorabilia or online - these provide major clues to family relationships, important places, and life events.  There are photos of buildings from as long ago as the mid-1800's.


Journals, stories, personal accounts - these can be original documents or online resources.  Carefully chosen search terms yield a surprising number of sources, such as newspapers and local histories, that might mention your ancestor's name.  Searching multiple ways with different combinations of search terms will affect the results.  These are fairly reliable, especially if they are firsthand accounts, though not necessarily.  I discovered that my great grandmother was a storyteller, and her stories were often passed down by word of mouth and often distorted. 


I have taken the step of expanding my search to International databases.  The next step will be to join subscription websites such as newspapers.com.  Right now I am working on verifying the information I have already added to my tree before adding anything new.