Survived by His Sisters and Brothers

I didn't miss this article the first time through the 1919 microfilm, but for some reason I didn't put it in the blog at the time.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Hobart News, July 24, 1919.


Lynne was the illegitimate son of Sarah Jane Carey and an unknown man. What strikes me about the few records we have of his short life is how well his grandfather, William H. Carey, and William's second wife and step-family of Rossows seem to have accepted this child whose coming was, at first, such an unpleasant surprise.

In the 1910 Census (the only census Lynne lived to be counted in), William H. Carey claimed this boy as his own son.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from Ancestry.com.

The Careys seem to be naming William's second wife, Augusta, as the boy's mother – note that she claimed to be the mother of only one child, although she had seven from her previous marriage to Henry Rossow. (The enumerator, Charles Blank of Miller, may have made this mistake, not being a local.)

And then, in the 1919 News death notice, Augusta is described as Lynne's "foster mother," and Augusta's children are called his sisters and brothers — though in fact they were his step-aunts and step-uncles.[1] Lynne was living with two of his "sisters," who had long since moved out of the Carey home, when he left for that ill-fated trip to Michigan.[2]

And the survivors bought a stone to mark his grave, which is more than his mother or grandmother got.


When Charles Hendrix (husband of Lynne's "sister," Ida) went to Michigan to bring the boy home, he kept the family secret, according to the death certificate:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image from Ancestry.com.

Charles may not have known who Lynne's mother was — was it he who gave the name "Leonard" for a boy who had always been called Lynn? Or maybe Charles knew, but thought it nobody's business except the Carey family's.

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We have only one known photo of Lynne.


(Click on image to enlarge)
Image courtesy of the Hobart Historical Society and Tom Rainford.

Both the News and the Gazette agreed that he had been born on October 29, 1904, so the handwritten note on the photo, giving his age as 16, is probably an error.

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[1] The Gazette simply called Lynne the "grandson of the late Wm. Carey" and noted that Lynne had "made his home in Hobart with Mrs. Carey," but did not name any survivors — thus being correct, discreet, and a bit cold, if you ask me. ("Hobart Boy Dies in Michigan," Hobart Gazette, July 25, 1919.)
[2] The death notice does not mention any of Lynne's uncles or aunts on the Carey side; I wonder if that omission means anything?