Herschel Field

One more note about Herman Carstens. After talking to my mother, I learned a little more. After high school, Lois enrolled in nursing school. She got sick and was unable to finish. A man was advertising for a housekeeper, so she answered the ad and took the job. This was Herman Carstens, who she later married. The marriage didn't last long -- years later, when Karl died and she had to apply for Social Security survivor's benefits, she had to show her divorce papers from that marriage, and couldn't even remember the man's name. Social Security was able to get them. Maybe someday I will see if I can get copies -- just to add another piece to the puzzle of her life.

Lois' father, and my great-grandfather, was Herschel Weston Field. When I started my travels through my family history journey, I knew nothing more than his name. My grandmother also told me that his father's name was George, who was the son of a William, who was the son of a George. Although we can't always trust oral history, my grandmother was a wonderful historian and I had no reason to doubt this. In fact, the records show that she was absolutely correct.

When I first started looking for Herschel Field, I had the advantage of his first name: Herschel is not a common first name. The 1880's census had been indexed at that time, and I looked through the index on microfilm until I found a Herschel Field -- in Maine! The father's name is George, as I suspected. Maine is not where I expected to find him. Today, selecting the "Person" view in FamilySearch and clicking on the FamilySearch.org search link would do in a few minutes what I spent hours doing back then.

The last name is recorded as "Fields". We see this often in the records, as the "s" comes and goes at the end of the name. Herschel's name is recorded as "Hurchel". This is not uncommon; each census is only as accurate as the person giving the information, the person recording the information, and the person extracting the information. When searching for records, try variations of the names if you are not finding what you want.

Notice that "Villa" is listed as "consumptive". She had tuberculosis and died just a few months after this census entry. Herschel also died of TB at a very young age.

Let's find Herschel in the 1900 census (since the 1890 is not available). Now, we find the name is overwritten and extracted as "Herrel". He also does not know where his parents were born.

It is also interesting that their first three children were born in February: 11 Feb 1897, 8 Feb 1899, and 5 Feb 1900. Three girls almost exactly 3 years apart. How difficult that must have been for a young woman (she was only 21 when Millie was born) at that period of time.

 How did Herschel end up in Iowa after having been born in Maine? His father died in 1891, when Herschel was 16. Did a relative take him in? Or did he just start wandering, looking for a home? In any case, he ended up in Modale, Iowa, where he met Minnie Mae Olmstead and planted roots.