Eva Lathrop SandilandsOr, The Mystery of the First Marriage

Very early in my blogging — when I had no idea what I was doing, few resources and fewer readers — I happened to stumble upon a titillating item about George Lathrop, and that was enough to endear all the Lathrops to me, whatever their faults may have been.

Now we have lost a woman who was only temporarily a Lathrop.


(Click on image to enlarge)

Eva Niles had been just short of 16 when she married the 25-year-old George Lathrop in Lake County, Indiana. I do not know when the couple separated. George's disgrace came in 1885; perhaps Eva decided that the shame of divorce was less than the shame of being married to a thief. Her joining the Berrien Springs church in 1890 may mean that they were already living apart, but not necessarily. By 1900, George and their son Samuel (along with George's father, Samuel Sr.), were living in the household of George's brother, Charles. Eva was nowhere to be found.

Though the 1900 census describes George as married, by December 1902 he was free to marry again:

Geo. Lathrop returned a few days ago to his home at Ainsworth from central Michigan where he had been packing apples for some time and was accompanied by a bride, formerly Cora Baker, to whom he was married at Portland, Mich., Dec. 6th. This part of his late affairs was a surprise to his numerous friends but all will join us in extending congratulations and a welcome to the bride.

Notes on the 1910 census suggest that this was Cora's third marriage.

I cannot find Eva in the 1910 census. She does not resurface until her 1913 marriage in Cook County, Illinois, at which time she was still calling herself Eva Lathrop. Her having been "a patient sufferer for the past eight years" before her death in 1920 suggests she was ill throughout their marriage.

George Sandilands has proven as elusive as Eva. I cannot find any history on him, and together they evaded the 1920 census.


Sources:
♦ 1880 Census.
♦ 1900 Census.
♦ 1910 Census.
♦ 1920 Census.
♦ Ancestry.com. Cook County, Illinois, Deaths Index, 1878-1922 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011. Original data: "Illinois, Cook County Deaths 1878–1922." Index. FamilySearch, Salt Lake City, Utah, 2010. Illinois Department of Public Health. "Birth and Death Records, 1916–present." Division of Vital Records, Springfield, Illinois.
♦ "Funeral of Former Hobart Resident Held in Chicago Tuesday." Hobart News 29 July 1920.
♦ Indiana Marriage Collection.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 26 Dec. 1902.