Photo Updates

The verdict is in: yes! Ralph is going home, too. Well, I mean his photo, that is. I heard from the Pollock descendant who gave me all that fascinating detail about Ralph's life after he left his childhood home in Colorado, so now I have directions on where to send young Ralph's photograph.

Out of all the photographs marked "Thirza," I have yet to track down a Van Noate descendant for the hundred year old picture of baby Louise. I mentioned the other day about posting baby Louise's photograph on our local genealogical society's Facebook group, and I did get a few general suggestions, and one member sent me a rather complete copy of the family's tree. But as for how to contact a living descendant, well, the best suggestion was to try poking around on Facebook.

So I did. And found someone. The problem is, no matter where I look, I can only find rather distant relatives. The same went for the trees on Ancestry.com. There were about six different Ancestry subscribers who had Louise in their family tree, but every one of those trees was posted by someone who must be much like me—a little bit too enthusiastic about their genealogy. And what I'm seeking is a close relative, not a seventh cousin twice removed. But, using another tactic, I found that possibility.

The nexus is a grandchild of Louise's husband's brother. At least, I think that's the connection—and, trusting that the trees where I found the family line are actually accurate, it looks like that's the closest I'll get to contacting someone who might know how to get in touch with Louise's grandchildren.

Of course, that leaves the squishy part of contacting a stranger, out of the blue. It is definitely so much easier to research dead people. Even sending an email to a living descendant of a dead person isn't too difficult. But going straight to a relative of a relative of a relative—who doesn't even show the slightest interest in genealogy—well, that's a challenge I'm not sure I'm up to. Yet.

Give me a couple days and we'll see whether I chicken out. Baby Louise may just have to remain in that folder on my desk until a closer relative stumbles upon this post via our research assistant, Google.

  

The Rest of Ralph's Story

In trying to learn about this young man portrayed in an abandoned photograph I found, figuring out who Ralph Pollock's parents were may have resolved one question, but that obviously led us to other questions. Mainly, if Ralph's father was still alive—not to mention, remarried—why wasn't Ralph still living at home? Why was he living with an aunt and uncle, even as early as the 1885 Colorado state census record for Greeley, just four years after he was born?

If Ralph's father, John Pollock, had been in such a rush to remarry, the presumption would be that he was seeking someone to serve as surrogate mother to his infant son. Yet, by the time John married Flora Forrest, Ralph was nearly a year old. Perhaps Ralph was already under the care of his aunt and uncle, long before John had remarried.

Then, too, there have been moments in history after a father remarries when the subsequent wife declares that she is not willing to raise the unfortunate step-children. Perhaps seventeen-year-old Flora was of that persuasion—though I doubt it.

Another possibility is that John Pollock's location might have been farther out in the country than would be of benefit to a bright young man interested in advancing his education. On the other hand, Franklin Pollock, Ralph's uncle, lived in the city of Greeley, at least in his later years.

In the 1900 census, when Ralph was nineteen years of age, he was listed as a student. Even later, he was still living with his aunt and uncle in Greeley and listed as a student in the 1906 city directory. By that time, Ralph would have been twenty five years of age. Since Greeley was home to the University of Northern Colorado, I suspect by that time, Ralph was well along in gaining an advanced degree from the then-seventeen-year-old college.

That may well have been the year in which Ralph graduated, for the next time we find him, he was exchanging wedding vows with one Irene Dorothy Gazelle in Alameda County, California. That was on February 18, 1909. By the time of the 1920 census, the couple was living in nearby Contra Costa County—strangely, the same place where many of my orphaned photographs originated—and Ralph was working as a chemist. The family had now grown to three, with five year old Carleton joining Ralph and Irene—although introducing a family mystery of his own with a listing showing his father to have been born in Spain, not Colorado.

From that point on, Ralph remained in California, though eventually moving to the southern part of the state, where he continued working as a chemist for a "research" organization, according to the 1930 census.

Long before that point, Ralph's father John had moved his second family from Greeley to Seattle, Washington—likely by 1904, judging from the birth of John's youngest son as given in the 1910 census—making me wonder whether Ralph even kept up much contact with his father.

Eventually, at the age of ninety three, Ralph Pollock passed away in San Bernardino County, California. As an interesting coda to Ralph's life song, I noticed he was not buried nearby, in one of southern California's many sprawling cemeteries, but was returned back to his hometown in Greeley Colorado. There, his headstone can be found in the Linn Grove cemetery, included in the family plot of the Pollock family.

Above: From an undated photograph in the collection of Thirza Browne Cole, labeled Ralph Pollock. Photograph currently in possession of the author.

Didn't Look Far Enough

Our task for today: find out whether the "Baby" Pollock of the household next door to Thirza Brown's family was one and the same as the Ralph Pollock whose picture was included in Thirza's photo collection, years later.

I'm not sure why people would actually name their baby something as obvious as "Baby" but that, apparently, is what some people did in the old census records. In our case, however—trying to locate the true identity of one Baby Pollock in the 1880 census for Weld County, Colorado—the frustration of not knowing will impel us on a chase through a few census records to determine not only who Baby really was, but what became of his father, Harvey Pollock.

Not only had we already discovered this Baby Pollock next door to the Browns in 1880, but we had located a Ralph Pollock in the 1900 census. Only problem: that Ralph was living in the home of his uncle Franklin Pollock. If Ralph was really "Baby," what happened to his dad Harvey? And if Ralph wasn't "Baby," then whose son was he?

Let's first take a look at the household of Harvey, father of "Baby." This family included Harvey's wife, Mary M. Pollock, two daughters and four sons, including "Baby." In case something horrible did befall Harvey before the 1900 census, that meant we'd be searching for a family constellation including at least the latter part of the string of names of the children: Lawrence, Florence, Alvin, Franklin, Baby, and Rosa May.

Thankfully, the state of Colorado had taken a census in 1885—a much more helpful gap than having to wait the twenty year span to 1900. I began searching that record set, using the names of the oldest children first. While I couldn't find anything for the eldest, Lawrence, I did locate a Florence Pollock in that census and pulled up the result.

The census taker hadn't done this page justice. Besides applying occasionally abysmal handwriting—prime example being the head of household for the Pollocks—he had mixed a boarder right into the midst of the family entry, and then, hadn't even written the names down in age order. Still, that result left us with a Lawrence, a Florence, a Franklin and a Rose. Close enough for me.

Upon a second look, I realized that the 1885 entry for Wilbur might have been the same as the 1880 entry for Alvin W. Pollock, so it seemed we located the right family—all except for one discrepancy. The wife of the missing Harvey—whom I noted was reported as a widow by this point—was not listed as Mary M., as she had been identified in 1880, but as Margaret. Well, at least I think the handwriting said Margaret. Perhaps it was wishful thinking.

Still, how many Mary Ms do you know who turn out to be Mary Margarets? All the family's ages seemed to be in the right ballpark for this to be the late Harvey Pollock's family.

And the one who would have been the right age to be Baby? The one listed as a two year old son in the 1880 census would have been seven years old in the 1885 Colorado state census. There was a seven year old in this household, too: his name was Harvey, the perfect explanation for why the family preferred to call him Baby, back in 1880. He was named after his dad, who had apparently died in 1883.

If Baby wasn't Ralph, then who was Ralph's dad? Not Franklin Pollock—we already know that Franklin was his uncle. Not the deceased Harvey, either. Not any of the brothers, as we determined yesterday, based on where those brothers' wives were born. Something was not adding up here.

Since only one of the Pollock wives had come even close to being born in Maine—as Ralph's mother was reported to have been, according to the 1900 census—I decided to try my hand at locating other documents which could reveal anything further on that suspect wife, Flora, wife of John. As it turned out, John and Flora were married on New Year's day, 1882. He was thirty two at the time; she was seventeen and required her parents' consent.

This pointed out a problem: our Ralph—at least, if we can believe the documents we'd already reviewed—was born in 1881, according to the 1900 census. Forget the problem about Flora coming from Connecticut instead of Maine. She was likely not Ralph's mother, simply according to the dates. In fact, the oldest child in John and Flora's household in 1900 was a daughter named Marion, born in May, 1884.

Where was the mother of Ralph Pollock? My guess was that, since all the Pollock men from the previous generation—except, obviously, for the late Harvey—were still living by 1900, it wasn't Ralph's father who had had a tragic demise, but his mother. Perhaps the sudden need for a wife to serve as surrogate mother of his baby had impelled one of the Pollock men to marry again—quickly. My guess was that that would be John, and that the 1882 wedding was marriage number two for him.

Looking back at the marriage records for Weld County, Colorado, sure enough, I found that there was an entry for the 1879 wedding of John M. Pollock and Emma J. Carleton. This would be the one.

But wait! If they were married in 1879, wouldn't they have shown up as a couple in the 1880 census?

Looking back to that census record, sure enough—and even on the same page as his brother Harvey's household and the family of our Thirza Brown—there was the entry for the young John and his wife Emma, way on the bottom of the page.

Added bonus: notice where she said she was born. Yep. It's Maine. 




Above: Excerpt from the 1885 Colorado state census for Weld County, showing the household of widow Mary Margaret Pollock. Image courtesy Ancestry.com.

What About Ralph?

Possibly discovering yet another photograph subject from Thirza Brown Cole's collection right next door to her own family in her childhood hometown was too great a coincidence for me. I had to check it out.

I decided not to go the route of "too good to be true" skepticism, but to play a research game of "what if."

What if the two year old child labeled simply "Baby Pollock" in the 1880 census turned out to be Ralph Pollock, the young man in Thirza's photograph collection? The census entry, right next door to the Thomas Brown household, put his age as two. I decided to play along and see if I could find a Ralph Pollock, born 1878 in Colorado, listed in the next census for Weld County, Colorado. Just in case the previous enumerator might have gotten Baby Pollock's age wrong, I built in some wiggle room with a two year range, plus or minus, from 1880.

As it turned out, I did find such a Ralph Pollock, but he wasn't in the home of Harvey and Mary Pollock, as he—the presumed Ralph—had been in 1880. This time, he was included in the household of someone named Franklin B. Pollock.

At least we got the Pollock right.

There, Ralph was listed as a nephew of Franklin and Susan Pollock. This being the 1900 census, I could also tell that, other than Ralph, this was a childless household; Susan had reported having no children of her own.

One other thing I discovered: this Ralph wasn't born in 1878 like Baby was. Ralph was listed as having been born about 1881.

So...who was Baby? And what happened to Ralph's parents?

I began imagining horrible scenarios befalling the hapless Ralph. We've seen these tragedies before, in family history research. Life wasn't exactly perfect in pioneer territory.

My task, first of all, would be to find both Franklin and Harvey Pollock in a previous census—hopefully even in the household of their own parents, assuming they were related to each other. Then, check all the brothers in that Pollock household to see who would be the actual father of the presumed orphan, Ralph Pollock.

Fortunately, it didn't take too long to locate a Pollock family with both a son named Franklin and a son named Harvey. Because I had already seen that Harvey's oldest son was born in Indiana, it was no surprise to locate the 1860 household of Robert and Fanny Pollock in Fulton County, Indiana, complete with sons Franklin, Hiram, Harvey, and John, as well as lone daughter Mary.

Because the 1900 census entry for Ralph Pollock had indicated that his mother was born in Maine, I fervently hoped that wasn't an enumerator error and began searching for which one of the older generation Pollock brothers married a wife from the Pine Tree State. I already knew Franklin's wife, Susan, wouldn't be the right one, but just for the record, she was born in Ohio. Hiram married another Ohio gal, Rebecca Zimmerman, as had his brother Harvey, as we'd already noticed from the 1880 census.

That left the baby of the older family, John. According to the 1900 census, John's wife, Flora, had been born in Connecticut. Could someone just have gotten their New England states mixed up, when it came time to provide those pesky details to the census taker?

As far as I could tell, there were no other Pollock sons from the older generation available to include in the tally. Taking a look at all the sons' sons before that 1900 census entry revealed that there weren't any named Ralph. The only Ralph I could find at any time was the nephew in the home of Uncle Franklin and Aunt Susan. Besides, if Ralph were actually born in 1881, he wouldn't have been showing in the 1880 census, anyhow.

But what about Baby Pollock? Who was he? I had to take a closer look at the family of Harvey and Mary, the ones we had originally spotted in the household next to Thirza's parents, Thomas and Ellen Brown. Could Baby Pollock also have been a Ralph? If so, where was the Harvey Pollock family? After 1880, I couldn't find him in any census records.

Above: Excerpt from the Weld County, Colorado, U.S. Census for 1900, showing the household of Franklin Pollock, including his nephew, Ralph C. Pollock. Image courtesy Ancestry.com.

Seeking Sisters

Searching for Brown. Or is it Browne? Or Browns? Time to activate the wildcard search technique.

Thirza may have been just the right touch of unusual as a given name, but its coupling with a surname as simple as Brown—or whatever spelling permutation it had taken over the years of governmental documentation—complicated the matter.

In order to find a descendant interested in receiving the family photographs I had rescued from an antique store up in California gold rush country, it was beginning to look like I'd need to push back another generation.

We had already discovered that Thirza and William Cole's only child, Pauline, had died in the 1920s. Of the other photos linked to Thirza's collection by her telltale first name affixed to the reverse, I had yet to figure out the identity of Baby Louise of Salida or Mildred Rigg from Greeley, Colorado—to say nothing of Ralph Pollock, the young man from who knows where.

That left me with Thirza and her two sisters—Nellie and Mable—and a surname as common as Brown. To find the sisters in a census record all in the household of their parents was going to be a challenge. For one thing, the 1920 census revealed that Thirza was born about 1879 in Colorado—hopefully, an accurate enough report to place her in the 1880 census. As for her sisters, though, the soonest they would be enumerated would be in the 1900 census, as Nellie was born about 1883, and Mable in 1886.

Problem: by 1900, Thirza was married with a daughter of her own. I'd either have to opt for a Brown household with daughters claiming names as common as Nellie or Mable, or look for Thirza the one-year-old.

I went with Thirza.

This was one of the reasons I became thankful for that unusual given name. There aren't too many Thirzas around—not even Thirza Browns.

Remember the baby photo Thirza had in her collection from Greeley, Colorado? Well, it turns out that there was a Brown family, complete with one-year-old daughter named Thirza, in the very county for which Greeley serves as county seat. The parents, according to the 1880 census, were Thomas, a thirty two year old farmer from Illinois, and Ellen, his twenty seven year old wife from Indiana.

This Brown household was not just a family of three, however. There was another daughter, an infant born in October of the previous year, 1879—making Thirza's age in the census rather suspect. This second child was listed as a daughter, and also happened to sport an unusual name (at least for a girl): Adelbert.

What caught my eye even more than that, though, was the entry which came directly beneath the line containing baby Adelbert's information. Remember Thirza's photograph of young Ralph Pollock? Just below the Brown household's entry came that of a family named Pollock. More than that, the family included a two year old son whose entry contained only the interesting place holder as "Baby."

I couldn't help but wonder whether "Baby" was actually Ralph—wouldn't you? To answer that, though, would take some more searching.

 
Above: The Weld County, Colorado, enumeration from the 1880 U.S. Census, containing the information on Thirza's family just next door to a Pollock family. Image courtesy FamilySearch.org.   

Introducing Ralph

In researching the identities of the photographs in Thirza's collection, it would be quite handy if each of these people grew up to marry each other, or turned out to be cousins, or some other convenient and handy resolution to my research problem.

Apparently, that is not the case. The only nexus that I've been able to find, so far, is a link to the state of Colorado. Neighbors in Greeley, perhaps, but nothing more.

I can't help but think, though, that surely there is a story line weaving its way in and out of the three families we've discovered so far in this odyssey through Thirza's photograph collection. Perhaps at some point we'll discover it, but for now, it's a well-kept secret.

So we'll move on to the next photograph. Today's picture is the faded photograph I referred to the other day, one which makes me think it was taken much earlier than that of baby Mildred. This one, of the head and shoulders of a young man, bears no date or location. Though I don't know enough about photograph trends to date the style of the composition, I had thought this was an earlier type of photograph, perhaps from the 1880s, as opposed to the turn of the century date for Mildred's picture.

In a hand similar to the writing on the front of Mildred's photograph, someone had inked in the name Ralph Pollock. Just having a full name was a great help. However, trying my hand at locating a suitable census entry for someone with this man's name brought up too many possibilities. For one thing, the handwriting on the face of the card made it difficult to tell if the surname was Pollack or Pollock.

Time for a fuzzy search, I tried my hand at some guess work: what if Ralph was from the same town as Mildred? Figuring out Ralph's age and the date of the picture might make a big difference in finding the right Ralph, but it was worth a try.

Of course, to explain how I stumbled upon what I found, finally, will take another post, for there was another step in between these two that landed me on a page in a census record with a clue that nearly reached out to slap me in the face. Besides that, we have one more baby picture to examine before we arrive at that step.

In the meantime, let me introduce to you a young Ralph Pollock—yet another person whose likeness was sent with Thirza's name written on the reverse.

Above: Photograph of a young Ralph Pollock, from the collection of Thirza Cole. Undated and without any indication of location, this photograph is currently in possession of the author.