Lost Angel Found

Vivian May Lester Bromley  1892-1978

Collaboration: I’m cheering for it. Things go more smoothly; so much more can be accomplished when we put our heads together. None of this camel-is-a-horse-designed-by-committee stuff. I value the comments readers leave for these posts.

It’s “Intense Guy” who’s picked up the conversation on this one, again. When I posted the story about the Little Lost Angel the other day, I had thought that “Lester” was an unusual middle name for a young girl, but had set aside my misgivings. “Intense Guy,” however, saw it differently. What a difference a changed viewpoint can make. I got fooled by the wrapper. Instead of looking at the little girl on the packaging, he took the approach of maiden name/married name of the woman she eventually became.

It took a little detour through the genealogy of this Sullivan line, half-siblings and all, to entirely piece the story together, though. As a brief review: yesterday uncovered the Sullivan sites from others’ online work, including the fact that Edna Tully McCaughey’s grandmother, Mary Ann Sullivan, had a half-sister named Maria.

Maria married Francis Luther Lester sometime around 1890, and although the 1900 US Census reports that she was the mother of three living children, the only one I’ve found so far—and thankfully, I now can say I’ve found her—is Vivian May Lester, born May 9, 1892 in Chicago.

As expected, Vivian did eventually marry a Bromley—John F. Bromley, whom she wed May 15, 1920, at her home on 3919 Lowell Avenue in Chicago—and by the time of the 1930 US Census, had six-year-old daughter Margaret and four-year-old son John. Apparently, Vivian was a lifelong resident of the Chicago area, for the Social Security Death Index finishes the tale with the record of her passing in May, 1978, with a last record of address showing her hometown.

Somehow, I can’t help but wonder how many people who knew Vivian in that year of 1978—who saw the packaging encasing the Mrs. Bromley they knew at that stage of her life—could see her in their mind’s eye the way that A. Morse, the photographer near her Irving Park childhood home, caught her as a young child.