I knew that my grandfather, Leonard Otte, was born in New Jersey, and my grandmother, Mary Gordon Simmons, was born in Iowa. With research that I have already described, I found that they were married in Tacoma, Washington in 1902. But, how did they meet? What possessed them to move to a barely-civilized area (Washington only became a state in 1889)?
There are many types of records available on the Internet besides US Census. Some of these records are found on sites besides FamilySearch. Some records are only available in libraries and dusty archives, but these are slowly being indexed and entered into FamilySearch.
A note about indexing: Indexing is fairly easy to do, especially if you are fluent in cursive writing. You can find instructions here: https://familysearch.org/indexing/. This week, FamilySearch has an indexing challenge: https://familysearch.org/blog/en/week-thousand-volunteers-fuel-find-world/. Join with us in making more records available for searching.
Let's first see what we can find out about Leonard Otte through FamilySearch.
When I search for him on Family Search, the first record that appears is the 1910 census. But, wait! He is in neither Tacoma nor New Jersey: He and Mary are in Toppenish, on the east side of the Cascade Mountains. He and Mary have been married for 7 years, and have just one child, Richard, who is 7. Leonard is listed as a "house carpenter," which is no surprise -- the Ottes have been carpenters of some type or another for many centuries.
While living in Yakima, I found some city directories for Toppenish in a local archive. Here, Leonard was listed as a "rancher." I asked my father about this, and he recalled a story told him by his mother. Leonard wanted to do something different with his life, and bought an apple orchard in Toppenish, probably in 1907 (http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=10400). After a couple of years working the orchard, the irrigation line broke above their fledgling crop and washed all of the trees down the hill. They returned to Tacoma just in time for their next child, Horace Taylor Otte, to be born June 18, 1910.
We still have not discovered how Leonard and Mary met, although we do have an inkling of their lives.
I visited the Tacoma Genealogical Library and found Tacoma City Directories for many years. The 1902 directory listed Leonard Otte as a boarder in the home of Robert and Nellie Jamieson. Nellie Simmons, a widow, married Robert Jamieson on 18 Feb 1899. I just found my great-grandmother whose maiden name, "Gordon" has been passed down as a middle name through the generations since (my grandmother, her daughter, and my sister all have "Gordon" as their middle name. When I gave the middle name to my son, my sister thanked me).
So, how did Nellie end up in Tacoma? This took a lot more research. Family history is not easy.
I found Nellie Simmons in the 1880 Census with her husband, John Simmons. They were in Kansas, apparently because Nellie's brother lived there. What happened to John?
In the early 2000's, a lot of genealogical databases began to show up on line. I became involved with one -- the Rootsbweb cemetery project -- at that time. It was through this project (now part of ancestry.com) that I found John Simmons' grave. http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=23817028&ref=acom
Tacoma City Directories showed me that John's widow, Nellie, moved to Tacoma where another brother, Franklin Gordon, lived. She soon met and married Robert Jamieson, and had a son, but died when the son was just a few years old.
We now know how Mary found her way to Tacoma, but how about Leonard? The most likely reason was the "Fire of 1902" in Paterson, NJ. http://www.patersonhistory.com/events/fire1902.html. This fire put 300 trolley car carpenters out of work. Leonard most likely took the first train out of town to Tacoma, where he would build rail cars. He needed a place to stay, and a coworker -- Robert Jamieson -- offered him a room. Robert lived with his wife, his baby son, and his stepdaughter, Mabel. Leonard fell in love with Mabel's identical twin sister, Mary, who actually did not live at home at the time.
This research wasn't done in a few hours or even a few days. But, we finally have a glimpse of Leonard and Mary's lives, how they met and married, and where they lived during the short time they had together.
I wish I had some pictures to post of Leonard and Mary, but have yet to discover any. Today, we take pictures of our children every minute of their lives; in the early 1900's, photography was only available to people with much more money than these families had.
Next: I will post a generic description of awesome databases that I have used to research my family.
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