Just the facts, ma'am.
This is what I've learned about Minnie Floretta Wood, a half-sister of my husband's grandmother, after a week of intensive research.
Minnie Floretta Wood was born on May 14, 1874, in Macoupin County, Illinois. She was the first of three children born to William Charles and Hester Adeline (Scott) Wood. William and Hester divorced sometime after 1880, and in 1886, "Mrs. Hester Wood" married Isaac H. Reed.
The entire collection of 1890 Federal census records, except for a few pages, perished in a 1921 fire, so there's no record of the Reed/Wood family for that decade.
The 1900 census shows Isaac and Hester Reed living in Stoddard County, Missouri. They had four children together, and their youngest daughter (my husband's grandmother) was 8 years old. An 8-year-old granddaughter, Mabel Cooley, and two of Hester's children from her first marriage, William Wood (21 years old) and Louise Wood Adams (a 23-year-old widow), were also living with the Reeds. Mabel Cooley was Minnie Floretta Wood's daughter.
Minnie Floretta Wood married several times. Here is a chronological list of her husbands and the dates and places of the marriages:
Unknown Cooley (father of Mabel)
Married abt. 1892
Probably in Indiana
Lorenzo J. Sweat
Married 07 May 1901
Chanute, Neosho County, Kansas
Joseph Barclay
Married 18 Nov 1903
Greenville, Montcalm County, Michigan
John H. McBain
Married 31 Dec 1904
Clearfield, Juneau County, Wisconsin
At the time of the 1905 Wisconsin census, our Minnie ("Florence" McBain) was living with her husband John H. McBain (nickname: "Bert") and her daughter Mable Cooley in Vernon County, Wisconsin.
In the 1910 census, John McBain was recorded in Rockford, Illinois. He was divorced and living with his daughter Violet from his first marriage.
Mabel Cooley (17 years old) and her daughter Christina were also living with her step-sister Violet and her husband. Mabel was married to John McBain's nephew, Duncan Walter McBain , who was recorded in the 1910 census as working in Stephenson, Illinois, and living in a boarding house there.
John H. McBain
Married 15 May 1917
Dubuque, Iowa
In the 1920 census, John McBain (married) was living in Vernon County, Illinois, with his sister and brother-in-law.Meanwhile in the 1920 census, Minnie (married) was living in Rockford, Illinois, with her half-brother Charles Reed, her mother Hester, her daughter Mabel McBain (now divorced), and Mabel's five children (Christine McBain, 12; Lillian McBain, 8; Orville McBain, 6; Glen McBain, 4, and Birdie McBain, 11 months).
Mabel's children are recorded twice in the 1920 census. They're listed with their mother as described above, and they're also listed as residents of the Rockford Home for Children (a certified orphanage, according to documents of the period.) Mabel's ex-husband, Walter McBane, was working as a machinist is Batavia, Illinois.
So far, I haven't found any further record of the five McBain children. I don't know what happened to Mabel after 1920. Walter McBane seems to have remained single after the divorce. He died in Aurora, Illinois, in 1967.
In 1930, John McBain was working as a carpenter and boarding with a Jones family in Wilmington, Illinois. He was recorded as being married, but he wasn't living with a wife. He died in.Los Angeles, California, on March 23, 1942.
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| Find-a-Grave record for Minnie McBain |
Minnie Floretta Wood McBain died in Independence, Missouri, on Feb. 28, 1936, at the age of 62, She was buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Independence.
Updated on 9/20/2011.
3 comments:
Yikes. Makes my head hurt!
My head hurts, too, Collagemama. I have a few questions that I'd like to ask her:
Was she legally divorced from all those guys?
Who was Mabel's McBain?
Why was Mabel the only child?
And above all, what happened to the five grandchildren?
But you have to look at the times. There weren't any social safety nets in those days. She wasn't well-educated, so she had to do low-paying work (laundress, cleaning lady). The multiple husbands may have been her efforts to better her lot in life.
I answered one of my own questions tonight -- Mabel was married to Walter McBain. Updated the post to include that bit of information. I also changed John McBain's burial place.
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