52 Ancestors Week 39: Disappeared

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 39:

The theme for Week 39 is “Disappeared.” All of us have someone on our family tree who seems to have just disappeared. This is a good week to write about them. (Who knows – maybe writing about them will help you spot some gaps in your research and give you ideas on new places to look!)

Mmm....ominous

    I might be showing my age here. There was a show I used to watch called "Unsolved Mysteries" and it was hosted by a guy with the most epic voice ever. That man was Robert Stack and his show used to keep kids awake at night. Whenever I come across someone who vanished from the records, I think of his show and the ominous theme song. It's either that or the "Twilight Zone" theme. Both theme songs work. 

    Amy's right. We all have people in our family tree who have vanished without a trace and you have to wonder about them. Did they get abducted by aliens? Did they go into the witness protection program? Did they fall into a quantum singularity? Who knows? Today, I'll be presenting the strange case of a man who did vanish without a trace. Ladies, gentlemen and others, I present my third great-grandmother, Evaline Augusta Fisher.

    By all accounts Evaline had a fairly normal life. She was born in 1849 to John Sargent Fisher and Frances Frothingham. Eva had a twin brother who sadly didn't live that long. In December of 1870 she married Austin Webster Stevens and they had four children together including my 2nd great-grandmother, Gertrude Stevens.

    Seems like a sweet life, doesn't it? Unfortunately, life doesn't always work out like the way you planned. Eva and Austin eventually got divorced sometime after 1880 and she went on to marry a guy named Charles Lewis Parker in 1912.

    After that, she all but disappeared from the records. Many trees, including mine, list her death as being on December 27th, 1923. There are no sources to back up this claim and I'm honestly not even sure where I pulled that date from. I didn't make it up or anything. To tell the truth, it may have been on the family tree my grandmother Natalie made ages ago.  If she was around, I'd ask her where she got that information from because like I said there are no sources that can verify her date of death!

    All isn't completely lost. She does appear on a few other records here and there.  In the 1880 census in Malden, she was living with Austin and their children Gertrude and Arthur. In 1900, she was living with Gertrude and her second husband Walter Senter in Haverhill. (It always goes back to Haverhill.) In 1910, she was living with Walter and Getrude in Kingston, New Hampshire. Get this. She was listed as "widowed". Divorce was a taboo topic in those days, I guess because Austin passed away in 1926 in Haverhill.

Gertrude in the center of the Senters!

    The last census Eva appears in is in the 1920 census in Lynn, Mass. There, she was living with her son Arthur and again she was listed as a widow! Seriously?! I know for a fact she married Parker. It's her last name in the census. Chuck may have actually died prior to 1920. There's just no way of knowing at this time.

    After that, it's hard to say what happened to Eva. She may very well have passed away in 1923 according to the tree my grandmother made. I have no idea. Like I said, I haven't been able to find any source that can confirm her death. I've looked at the death records in Lynn since that was her last known address and came up empty.

    I even went so far as to check out Pine Grove cemetery in Lynn since that's where Arthur's final resting place is. Nothing. Arthur is buried with a sibling who died young and several unrelated people. No sign of Eva. There are three hundred women with the name Eva buried in that cemetery and none of them have the last name of "Stevens" or "Parker". 

    This is just beyond strange at this point. All records regarding my third great-grandmother seem to vanished after the 1920 census and all we have to go on is a vague death date of December 27th, 1923. I've checked newspaper obituaries in the area at that time and came up empty. What happened to her? Did she really pass away on that day? It's a big mystery. I've even checked with the cemetery in Lynn and she's not buried there! At this point I was getting a huge headache.

Arthur and Bennie's grave.

        At least we can speculate what happened to her, right? Right. Let's say for the sake of argument that she did actually pass away in 1923. Okay. Would she have been in Lynn? It's possible. She was there in 1920. Her final resting place may actually be in one of the other cemeteries in the city. It's hard to say.

    I've tried to solve this puzzle for a long time and it's one of the many genealogical puzzles that continue to vex me. I've had to put this one on the backburner because it's just so frustrating. You would think her death record would have been scanned and digitized and pop up as a hint on Ancestry or Familysearch, right? Eh, that depends. After all Haverhill newspapers aren't digitized, either.

    With no actual death record I am left wondering if she really died on that day?  I know she passed away before 1938 as that was the year Gertrude married Charles Berry and Gertie's mother was listed as deceased on that record. With all the information I have, there's really not much else I can do. The only thing I can do is play the waiting game and you all know how much I love playing that game! I think it may be best to put this on the backburner a while longer. "Stevens" and "Parker" are both fairly common last names. I'm sure something will pop up some day.

    Eva is just one person in my tree who seemingly vanished from records. There are a few other people and my third great-grandmother is clearly the one who vexes me the most because you would think there'd be records for her death online. It's been over a hundred years since she supposedly passed away! Where are the records?! I've looked everywhere and came up empty. Perhaps this blog will help illuminate the case and perhaps YOU can help solve a mystery.

Wow. That sounded like Robert Stack in my head. See ya next time!