Bluebonnet Country Genealogy

Posts Tagged ‘McBurnett’

This week’s blogging prompt couldn’t come at a better time! Seek help for records that don’t make sense.

Who knew!

Just a couple of weeks ago I located a new reference to my great-grandmother Dovie C McBurnett’s third husband Lon Washington Epperson. That’s great, you say, the more, the merrier (References, that is. Not husbands! But that’s for another post…)

A new reference with a new source. Isn’t that what a genealogist is supposed to be happy to see? Maybe not…

Let me explain.

If you’ve been following this blog, then you already know about Dovie and her 6 husbands:

1. William Earl Hall- married Dovie in 1906, gone by 1913 (believed to have died in a railroad accident)
2. Oliver Stanley Porter- married Dovie in 1913, divorced in 1920
3. Lon Washington Epperson- married Dovie in 1920, gone by 1935
4. John Otys Priddy- married Dovie in 1942, gone by 1953
5. Joe Farr Bailey- married Dovie in 1953, died in 1961 (don’t know whether death or divorce separated these lovebords!)
6. Unknown Copeland- don’t have a name or a marriage/death/divorce date for this gentleman, but Dovie’s last name at her death was Copeland

Confused yet? Dovie’s love life gets even more interesting, believe me!

Let’s look at the details of the McBurnett-Epperson marriage.

Lon Washington (L W) Epperson first appears in our Desperate Housewives spin-off in the 1920 US Federal Census, dated 9 Jan 1920, living

next door to Mr and Mrs Ollie Stanley!

How convenient! I wonder if he knows what he’s about to get himself into…

Next appearance of Hubbie #3 is in the 19 Sep 1920 edition of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, this time

divorcing Dovie (by this time she had adopted her younger sister’s name Ruby. What happened to the original owner of this name? Working on it…)

Wait a minute… Ruby and L W are getting divorced? When did they get married?

Somewhere between 9 Jan 1920 and 19 Sep 1920, it seems. That musta been marriage on the fast track!

An interesting little tidbit from the Star-Telegram, dated 29 Nov 1921

Could explain a lot! (This is L W Epperson. The address, 1600 D Street, is the same as in Epperson’s 1920 Census enumeration.) Notice that “Dan” Epperson has a wife and family.

Where in the world is Waldo (I mean L W) now, in 1930?

Back living with Ruby D(ovie), now with a son born in 1925! Guess that divorce in 1920 didn’t take. Or was it the head injury? Maybe L W forgot about the divorce

In the 1935 Fort Worth City Directory, Lon is listed

with no spouse. Where in the world is Dovie?

Here is L W Epperson in the 1938 Fort Worth City Directory

Married to some lady named Willa M and with 2 kids. L W has been busy!

To be continued

Finished up with Harrison Wardlow McBurnett and started on his wife, Margaret C Brown. I’ve never really looked into her life too much, so there is a lot of work to be done with Margaret.

Created an image and posted Wordless Wednesday: Veterans Day. Good timing!

When I started reviewing each and every person in my database a couple of months ago, I really kinda thought that, although not truly wasting time, it would be a lot of busy work that would keep me from “new” research efforts. As it has turned out, that is far from the case. For almost every ancestor that I have reviewed so far, I have found out new information and found new sources. It’s like knowing your next-door neighbor’s last name vs knowing her first name, all of her kids’ names, where she works and what she likes to do. It’s been pretty interesting!

(please click on the image to enlarge it)

I finally found Dovie (aka Ruby) and LW Epperson’s marriage in the Tarrant County marriage index:

Did you notice something?

“1936 Epperson L W | Mrs Ruby Epperson”

This is a remarriage! Remember the item at GenealogyBank from 1920?

This was from 19 Sept 1920!

If this index is correct, then Dovie has another marriage! 7 marriages to 6 different husbands! Oh my!

P. S. Skip down 4 lines and you’ll find LW Epperson marrying a different lady, just a year later. Maybe… could Dovie cast spells…?

Today I went to the downtown main Fort Worth Public Library. I arrived there shortly after it opened at noon and left at almost 3 o’clock. Why does the time matter. ‘Cuz I’m cheap, that’s why. You can park for free at a nearby parking garage, but only for 2 1/2 hours. This little research trip cost me $1.25!

So, how did my trip go?

Started out kinda slow & frustating. My first stop was the city directories section, looking for my grandfather (trying to figure out when he divorced my grandmother and trace his steps after that period).

• 1928 living with mother
• 1929 living with wife at her parents’ home (my Dad was born in 1929, so that puts the marriage at 1928-1929, which is what I had already decided on)
• he is present in the 1932 directory, shown living in 2 different residences (with his mom and with his mother-in-law). Interesting…
• doesn’t reappear in the Fort Worth directories until 1942, then is gone again until 1947. He married my step-grandmother in 1938 in Denton County (north of Fort Worth), so I’m guessing he lived there until his return to Fort Worth

Also looking for Dovie and all her husbands in the city directories. I found her several times with Hubbie #3, LW Epperson and then several instances of her living alone (with different last names). Didn’t really clarify or learn anything here. On my next library trip, I need to concentrate strictly on Dovie and The Boys, I think!

Next stop was the Tarrant County Marriage Index 1876-1945. This was a very frustrating and oh-my-head-hurts experience! The very nice Genealogy Library Lady gave me a USB drive containing the index. Cool, glad I brought my laptop!

Problem was, the index is in it’s original, huge-image form, saved in .tiff format. My Picasa won’t show a .tiff image, so I tried the Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. Since the images were so large, it was taking forever for them to open, then forever longer to zoom in enough to be able to read them. I ended up opening each image in my Paint Shop Pro. Here I could zoom them easily, but it was still taking forever and I only had 2 1/2 hours, remember?

I browsed for (oh yeah, no search capability either) my grandparents’ 1928-1929 marriage for an hour, until I thought my eyeballs were gonna fall out. Still haven’t found it. The solution? I copied the file to my hard drive so I can search it at home. I promise not to sell it or post it online or anything like that. I promise!

By now, it was almost time to go. So my last stop was the newspaper-archives-on-microfilm section. The last time I went to this library and needed the microfilm, all the rolls were back in a separate room and could only be provided by this not very nice library lady. I was dreading meeting her again!

Well, I guess it’s been awhile since my last trip, ‘cuz now all the microfilm is out in the main library in self-serve fashion. Wonderful! I quickly found the film I needed and almost as quickly found all 3 obits I was looking for. Snap, snap, snap with my Sony digital camera and I was done.

Time to go, my head was about to split in half and my stomach was growling…loudly.

When I got home, I went to the marriage index file and started looking for that elusive great-grandmother of mine again!

I finally found her with husband #4 Priddy, but… a different Priddy that I thought! John Otys Priddy, not Hugh Frank Priddy!

Oops, sorry Hugh Frank, if you’re up there looking down here!

I knew she had married a Priddy, as I have her 1942 signature as Ruby Hall Priddy, but I didn’t know his whole name. I hunted around Ancestry.com and found a Priddy (Hugh Frank) that seemed to match the age and location and assumed he was my man. I had his death certificate, WWI registration and a couple of census entries and he seemed to fit pretty well. Oops again!

I have corrected my database with the correct Priddy and in the morning I’ll add in all the new data that I got today. And make a new list for my next library trip!