I love this picture of my great-great grandmother laughing. It’s fun to imagine who or what she is laughing at and what the occasion was. Maybe a picnic? The picture below shows from left, my great-great grandmother Mina (Bolt) Moore Thompson, Jessie (Johnson) Bodington, the sister-in-law of my great-grandmother, and my great-grandmother Mae (Moore) Johnson. I think this picture was taken sometime in the 1930s, since Jessie came over from England in 1929.
Week 33 (Aug. 12-18): Comedy
My great-great grandmother Mina A. (Bolt) Moore Thompson had 2 brothers. The first was George E. Bolt, born in Plymouth, Michigan in 1861. The second was Isaac, born in 1863 and died in 1865.
George Edwin Bolt was born January 20, 1861 in Plymouth, Michigan to William and Mary J. (Everitt) Bolt. George married Mary Emma Quick on September 7, 1880 in Detroit, Michigan (one of the witnesses was an uncle, Matthew Everitt). They had a daughter, Mary (or May) Emma Bolt, in August 1882. In the 1900 census, the family was living on Hubbard Avenue in Detroit and George’s occupation was tinter. According to the Los Angeles City Directory, in 1909 May was the widow of George Calton and the mother of 2 children. She was living in Los Angeles with her parents, where her father George was a shademaker. George Calton had died in Detroit in 1908, so I’m not sure why May and her parents moved to L.A. in 1909. In the 1910 census, George, Mary, May, Alta, and George were living in L.A. and George was listed as an expert tinter at a shade company. The 1911 L.A. City Directory lists George’s employer as the “Whitmore-Talbert Company” and the family was living at 116 W. Ave 34 (which was located less than 1/2 mile from the factory).
The Talbert-Whitmore Company was incorporated in 1904 and moved to its factory at 2620 Lacy Street in L.A. in 1908. In 1921, the company had 50 employees. It was the “largest [factory] west of Chicago devoted exclusively to the manufacture of shade cloth and window shades” (Los Angeles Times, Jan. 1, 1921). Interestingly, the factory has now become a filming location as part of the Lacy Street Production Center. Their website has lots of cool photos of what the factory looks like now, including this one that shows part of the “shade cloth rollers” sign from the middle building above.
The family is listed as living at 58 Goodwin St. in the 1912 Detroit City Directory, so they must have moved back sometime in 1911-1912. so I think they must have moved back to Michigan around this time. May remarried in 1916 to Frederick Covert, moved to Washtenaw County, and had 3 more children.
In 1920, George and his wife Mary were still living at 58 Goodwin, and he was employed as a paint maker at an auto shop. By the 1930 census, they had moved back to Plymouth and were living at 370 Maple. George was finally retired. Mary died on December 3, 1933 at the age of 75. I’m not sure where George was in the 1940 census, but he died on December 30, 1944 in Pittsfield, Washtenaw, Michigan.
Week 31 (July 29-Aug. 4): Brother
I saw this idea from Amy’s review of Week 25: “Debi shared the earliest photos of various ancestors. (I like how she broke them down by maternal and paternal sides).” So I’m going to give it a try!
Maternal
Paternal
Week 25 (June 17-23): Earliest
I think I may have found my 3rd-great grandfather in an unexpected place. There is a William D. Bolt enumerated in the 1856 Pleasant Township, Wapello County, Iowa census. This William was 21 years old and born in New York (same age and birthplace as my William). He is listed as widowed with no children. This is a surprise. If he had a wife besides my 3rd-great grandmother, it is news to me! He was living with James and Caroline Hyde and their family. James and Caroline had been born in New York, but married in 1847 in Wayne County, Michigan. Their children had been born in Michigan as well.
In the 1860 Federal Census, William was married to Mary J. Everitt (having been married within the year) and living in Plymouth, Wayne, Michigan. In the same census, James and Caroline were living in with their children in Ypsilanti, Wayne County, Michigan.
I haven’t found that the Hydes and Bolts were related, but maybe they came from New York to Michigan together, and then William decided to join them in Iowa for a while before they all returned to Michigan around 1859.
Week 16 (April 15-21): Out of Place
Mina Adell Bolt Moore Thompson, my great-great grandmother, lived for years with Bert Thompson while still married to my great-great grandfather Fred Moore! She and Bert were officially married about three weeks after Fred’s death.
Mina A. Bolt and Fred L. Moore were married on September 10, 1885 in Plymouth, Michigan. They had five children between 1888 and 1897. Two daughters died before 1900. Two sons, Glenn and Earl, and another daughter, Mae, survived into adulthood. In 1900, the family was living in Plymouth and Fred was a railroad freight agent.
I’m not sure what happened to the marriage between 1900 and 1910, but in the 1910 Detroit City Directory, Mina was listed as widowed. In the 1910 Federal Census, she was listed as married and was boarding with her daughter Mae. She was listed as the housekeeper for the head of the household, Alta Fisher.
Sometime between 1910 and 1918, Mina met Bert Thompson. She was listed as his wife on his September 12, 1918 WWI Draft Registration card. And they were living at 370 Maple Ave. in Plymouth. Meanwhile, in 1919, Fred was selling grapes in Benton Harbor, Michigan.
In 1920, Bert and Mina were living as husband and wife on Columbia in Dearborn, while Fred was listed as divorced and living as a roomer with the Dean family in Benton Harbor. By March 1923, Fred was living in the Berrien County Poor Home. He died on November 4, 1924. On his death certificate, he was listed as widowed and his son Glenn was the informant.
This is odd, because Glenn’s mother Mina, was alive and well and married Bert Thompson in Toledo, Ohio on November 22, 1924. She was listed as divorced, but I’m not sure that Fred and Mina were ever legally divorced. Ancestors always keep you guessing!
Week 50 (December 10-16): Naughty
Mildred Wade was the wife of my 1st cousin 4x removed, William I. Bolt. She was born July 22, 1856 in Hillsdale, Michigan. Both her parents died by 1870 and she went to live with her grandmother in Geneva, Ohio. In 1877, she married William I. Bolt in Jackson, Michigan. William was my great-great-great grandfather William D. Bolt’s nephew and the son of Isaiah Bolt. William was a plumber and Mildred was a teacher of elocution in Detroit. They lived at 1191 Jefferson Ave. In 1888, she founded the Detroit School of Expression and became its principal.
In what must’ve been the annual back-to-school issue on Wednesday, August 29, 1906, the Detroit Free Press devoted a large section to “Schools and Colleges of the Northwest.” The paragraph describing Mildred’s school is as follows:
Mrs. Mildred A. Bolt, principal of the Detroit School of Expression, is not only a teacher of the highest ability, but she possesses those invaluable qualities of earnestness and enthusiasm which seem to be transmitted to her pupils, inspiring them to greater diligence and higher aims.
Mrs. Bolt studied elocution with Prof. Moses True Brown, of Boston; attended lectures under Prof. S. H. Clarke, at Chicago University and graduated from the Detroit Training School, where she studied under Mrs. Edna Chaffee Noble.
Under her immediate direction is a staff of highly efficient teachers, who assist her in conducting the classes in elocution, English literature, Delsarte, philosophy, Shakespearian study, voice training, dramatic reading, criticism, physical culture, deportment and general literature.
Five new teachers will be added to the faculty this year, making it possible to give an increased amount of personal attention to each student. The Detroit School of Expression is located in one of Detroit’s finest residence sections, 1191-1195 Jefferson avenue, and was established by Mrs. Bolt in 1888.
William died at the age of 50 in 1907. Mildred’s home continued to be at 1191 Jefferson until at least 1920. Mildred was well-known in Detroit society and was involved in the Detroit Shakespeare Club. She died of uterine cancer on July 24, 1922 at 3578 Joseph Campau, which was the home of Dr. and Mrs. Siefert. Louise Siefert was the Secretary-Treasurer of the school. I’m glad Mildred had a friend to go to at the end.
Mildred and William were buried in Detroit’s Woodlawn Cemetery.
52 Ancestors #35 – School Days
A challenging ancestor to research has been Fred L. Moore, my great-great grandfather. The challenge came from a combination of misinformation and my own assumptions.
I first discovered his name from my great-grandmother Mae’s birth certificate. Then I found him in her marriage records. From there, I discovered his 1885 marriage certificate and the 1900 census in Plymouth, Michigan. After that came the confusion!
In the 1910 U.S. Federal Census, as mentioned in the previous post, Fred’s wife Mina was boarding with her daughter Mae at a place in Detroit. She was listed as married. In the 1910 Detroit City Directory, Mina was listed as a widow. This made me think that Fred had died in 1909ish. In 1918, she was listed as Bert Thompson’s wife on his WWI Draft Registration. However, I have Mina and Bert’s marriage certificate and it lists their marriage date as November 24, 1924 in Toledo, Ohio. Hmm. 6 years after she is first mentioned as Bert’s wife and in Ohio?
So I went another direction. I researched Mae’s brother, Glenn Bolt Moore. He was also called Fred and worked on the railroad like his father. He lived in New Buffalo, Michigan. Poking around on SeekingMichigan.org, I found Fred Moore’s death certificate with Glenn B. Moore listed as the informant. Fred didn’t die in 1909. In fact, he didn’t die until November 4, 1924. Which explains why his estranged wife didn’t remarry until late November 1924. They were, for lack of a better term, waiting for him to die.
Now that I knew Fred was living in Berrien County, I could narrow my searching. I found a few interesting newspaper articles detailing what he was up to in the 1910s and 1920s.
According to the March 22, 1923 issue of the Benton Harbor News-Palladium, Fred was a resident of the Berrien County Poor Home (also called the Berrien County Infirmary). According to Deanna West, “Through the years the farm became a colony within itself with orchards, vegetable gardens, corn and grain fields, barns, cows, chickens and pigs. Everyone who was physically capable did chores that they could manage. One couple that managed the farm in 1924 and several years after, were Mr. & Mrs. Edward Israel, who became very well known in the area.” On his death certificate, it notes that Fred died at the Berrien County Infirmary at the age of 61 of “chronic paresis” which is defined as “a condition typified by a weakness of voluntary movement” including limbs, eyes, stomach, or vocal cords. To add to the confusion, it says he is widowed, even though Mina didn’t die until 1942.
So I guess the moral of the story is don’t assume someone is dead just because a city directory says his wife is a widow!
Citations:
“20 Years Ago.” The News-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan). 12 Nov 1940, Tue. Page 2.
Death Certificate for Fred Moore, Berrien County. http://seekingmichigan.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/
p16317coll1/id/174162.
“For Sale – Grapes.” The News-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan). 10 Sep 1919, Wed. Page 3.
“Michigan Marriages, 1868-1925”, database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:NQ3P-Z54 : 15 May 2018), Fred L. Moore and Minnie A. Bolt, 1885.
“Society.” The News-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan). 28 Jul 1921, Thu. Page 4.
“Township and City Poor Supported at the County House.” The News-Palladium (Benton Harbor, Michigan). 22 Mar 1923, Thu. Page 9.
West, Deanna. (2010). “Berrien County Poor House aka Poor Farm — or — County Infirmary, Berrien County, Michigan.” http://berrien.migenweb.org/Infirmary/Infirmaryhistory.htm.
Wikipedia contributors. (2018, March 23). Paresis. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Paresis&oldid=832006290.
52 Ancestors #30 – Challenging
Mary Everitt Bolt is my Great-Great-Great Grandmother. She is about as far back as I have been able to go on my matrilineal line, which so far consists of Mary > Mina > Mae > Helen > Mary > Me. I love this picture and that it was made in Detroit.
Isaac E. Bolt was born August 18, 1863 and died September 18, 1865. He is buried with his parents, William D. Bolt and Mary J. Everitt Bolt at Riverside Cemetery in Plymouth, Michigan. He had an older brother named George and a younger sister named Mina, who wasn’t born until after his death (in April 1866).
Newburgh Cemetery is an old cemetery located on Ann Arbor Trail in Livonia, Michigan. Many members of my Everitt ancestors (and one Bolt that I know of) are buried in this cemetery. Apparently, Everitts were early settlers in the area. The cemetery dates from 1827, when Salmon Kingsley, a Revolutionary War veteran, was buried here.
Above: Tombstone of George Everitt (1778-1854), Uncle of my 4x Great-Grandfather George Baxter Everitt
Above: Elizabeth VanGordon Everitt (1786-1872), wife of Uncle George. Her sister Catherine married George’s brother Marshall. They are buried in another Livonia Cemetery that I’ll talk about next time.
Above: Isaiah Bolt (1799-1856), my 4x Great-Grandfather. His son, William Dillon Bolt, married the above-mentioned George Baxter Everitt’s daughter, Mary Jane Everitt in 1860.
