Cruel luck, hard times

I always knew my maternal grandfather (born 1886) had a shockingly hard childhood after he and his elder sister were orphaned in Chicago in the early 1890s, both parents dying within a month of each other.  My sister, who has bitten by the genealogy bug, figured out a while back that they had a maternal grandfather in California, and she always wondered why the family didn't hear what had happened and somehow take them in.  Instead, my grandfather ended up being hired out to do farm labor for other families while he was still quite young.  His sister went to an orphanage.  I knew that my grandfather, whom I never met, was a singularly hardened man in adult life.  He died when I was still quite young, so estranged from my mother (who predeceased him by a few years) that he didn't attend her funeral.

My sister has dug up an 1891 article from an San Diego newspaper that explains a little:
Asa White [my maternal grandfather's maternal grandfather], a well-to-do rancher living near Otay [California], died suddenly about one o'clock yesterday morning at the residence of his friend, John B. Palmer, at 1157 State street.
Mr. White had written for his daughter [my grandfather's mother] and son-in-law in Chicago to come to California. They were preparing to do so, when his daughter was run over by an omnibus in that city, from the effects of which she died. The husband then intended to bring the two children and come on, but was taken ill and died within twenty days after his wife's death. There being no relatives in Chicago, friends put the two children, a girl of seven and a boy of five years [my grandfather], on the train, and they came through, safely arriving [in San Diego] at 8 o'clock Monday night. They were met at the train by their grandfather, Mr. White, and taken to the residence of Mr. Palmer, an old friend, where the three were to pass the night and get an early start in the morning for home, where the children would find a home in the loving arms of tender hearted grandma. During the night Mr. Palmer heard a strange sound emanating from the room occupied by Mr. White, and entering, found him speechless and gasping, and he breathed but twice after Mr. Palmer's entrance. Dr. Magee was summoned, but of course could do nothing. The body was removed to undertaking parlors, where the post mortem and inquest was held at 10 o'clock. The verdict was death from heart disease. Mrs. White was notified, and is grief stricken over the sudden death of her aged partner, Mr. White being almost 70 years of age. They have another daughter married to one of the cooks at the Commado hotel. The funeral will take place on Thursday.
Who knows what happened then? What became of "tender hearted grandma," widow of the aged well-to-do rancher?  She was a second wife, no blood relation to the orphaned children.  Somehow the children ended up back in Kansas without a dime, where distant relatives or friends made some effort to provide for them. I don't know whether that happened right away, but it can't have been much more than a few years later, because by the age of 12 or so my grandfather was already a hired farm hand in Kansas and my grandmother was in an orphanage. We've never found out what became of her.

Mother, father, distant would-be rescuing grandfather, all dead within a month.  What those children must have thought!  These events cast long shadows in my family.

7 comments:

Grim said...

Wow, that's really tough. Even one unexpected death can cause a family to reel. I'm sorry that your family had to go through that.

Gringo said...


That was a lot to endure. Back up plans don't always work.

My paternal grandmother's mother died when my grandmother was an infant of 6 months or so. My great-grandfather moved back from Nebraska, where he had homesteaded, to his home state of Illinois. An aunt and uncle took over most of the care of my grandmother. The aunt lived with my grandparents after they they were married. I assume the aunt and uncle also took care of my grandmother's older brother.


I take it that my grandmother didn't have a great relationship with her father, as he died in California. My father suspected alcohol was a factor, as my grandmother had a very negative view of alcohol. My great-grandfather did remarry. I don't know how long, if at all,my grandmother lived with her father and stepmother, but I do know that my grandmother, in the family history she complied,wrote fondly of her stepmother. I also recall as an adolescent my grandparents took me to visit my grandmother's stepbrother and his wife, which also implied a good relationship between my grandmother and her stepbrother.

Assistant Village Idiot said...

Unimaginable, really.

Tom said...

Hard times and cruel luck indeed.

douglas said...

We often forget, of don't even know, just how much better life is today. My Paternal Grandmother's parent's both died in the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918. I've known this for some time, but never thought to ask my father what happened to her when they died. I think she was a teen then. My Maternal Grandfather's first wife died shortly after my eldest Aunt was born. He was lucky enough to remarry and have six more children with my Grandmother. The lack of knowledge of these things by people today probably has a lot to do with the anti-vax movement. Likely also allows us to be more callus about the state of our souls at any given time, not having quite the specter of death hovering about that our ancestors did.

At any rate, we are all the descendants of survivors, and many through some awfully hard times. We are lucky indeed.

Texan99 said...

I suppose I always knew that people could lose their whole families in epidemics or wars, but for such young children to suffer the loss of one caretaker after another so rapidly in three different unexpected tragedies--! They were really rolling snake-eyes. My sister now points out that, although their mother had no family in Chicago, their father had, and we don't know why none of them stepped up. Did they assume the problem was handled when the kids were shipped off to California? It turns out tender-hearted grandma died of dementia within a few years of their arrival, and that's when the still-young kids got sent to Kansas. Grandma wasn't up to providing for them properly in a will, maybe. Makes you think about your arrangements for dependents, doesn't it?

douglas said...

Indeed, that's quite the combination of blows to absorb. And now that you mention it, about that life insurance policy...