The Challenge of Finding Just One

If that was money, the hundred year old photograph I found of the Samuel Tucker family would have long since burned a hole in my pocket. For some reason, despite having had at least eight children, Samuel and Annie Tucker have descendants who are either hard to find, or just don't answer email. I'm still wishing to find just one who will say "yes" to my offer of mailing these family photograph treasures back home.

If you've been following along with me at A Family Tapestry as I attend to my photo-rescuing project, you've seen how it works. I find an abandoned picture—including enough clues to help with identification—and do the research to find the right person and build his or her family tree. I then look at online genealogy sites to locate a researcher who is a direct descendant of the subject in the photo—although, in some cases, a diligent descendant may find me first through online searches of surnames.

In the Tucker case, despite having posted about several members of that family, I haven't heard from anyone related to that line. So, it's on to searching for direct descendants.

There are always others who include my target person in their tree. Some of those are trees much like my own—numbering in the tens of thousands of individuals—and the person who built the tree is not necessarily a direct descendant of that target person. Once I discover that is the case with a tree I'm reviewing, I set it aside and look for other possibilities among those researchers more closely related to the target person. Sometimes, almost all of the trees fall into this distant-relationship category.

Then there is that one tree which lines up well enough to demonstrate that we are looking at the right person, and that the target person is indeed a direct-line ancestor of the tree's owner. That qualifies as Happy Genealogy Dance Number One. But it sometimes is a dance which doesn't last for long.

In the case of the Samuel Tucker family, I did find one direct ancestor fairly early in the process. Unfortunately, I could tell almost right away that the chances of hearing back from this individual were slim. For Ancestry's "last signed in" category on their messaging page, this researcher was last seen "3-11 months ago." That didn't sound too promising.

Nevertheless, I sent my message. And waited. And heard nothing.

Once my research progress moved on from the parents to eldest son Jim Tucker and then to next oldest daughter Eva, it was encouraging to see that Eva had some grandchildren whose families might have been active in family history research. The only problem now is, if I message a second candidate to receive the photos, Murphy's Law dictates that the first person I had contacted will immediately show up in my inbox, delightedly claiming the photographs. Having two candidates is much more messy than having none.

As of now, that's a moot point, as I await an answer from candidate number two. Hopefully, that person will reply in the affirmative, and I'll send off the Tucker photographs, thus qualifying me to do Happy Genealogy Dance Number Two. In which case, I hope you will join me in the celebration.

Tracing Eva's Family

If a person was fairly young at the time, yet experienced an untimely death in 1918, what would you think might be the cause?

A date of death in 1918 might lead to the savvy guess of military cause, if it was due to a wartime casualty at the conclusion of the Great War—but the place of death in such cases would most likely be in Europe, not North America.

Robert Rawlin, however, did not die on the war-torn European continent. He died in Spokane, Washington. He breathed his last on October 23, 1918, on account of complications following a case of influenza in the midst of the worldwide influenza pandemic begun that same year.

Robert's arrival in Spokane was at the end of a long journey. He was born in July of 1877 in Australia in a city called Grafton. Son of Australians Nicholas and Marion Rawlin, Robert nonetheless chose, in his late twenties, to sail for California, and arrived at the port of San Francisco in 1904. Though I can't, as yet, determine just how—or why—he journeyed from San Francisco to Oregon, within eighteen months, he had found himself a wife in Malheur County, Oregon.

That wife was the former Eva Tucker, daughter of Samuel and Annie Tucker, whom we've been discussing, ever since locating several photographs of their family in a northern California antique shop over one hundred years later. Just shy of thirteen years later, Eva was once again without a husband, having lost Robert to a case of pneumonia subsequent to his exposure to the flu.

Tracing Eva, after Robert's 1918 death, was best accomplished by locating her whereabouts in each of the subsequent census enumerations. Less than two years after Robert's death, Eva was by then married to a man whose name is, by now, recognizable to us: Leslie Earl Purkey. This second Purkey-Tucker liaison produced a son before the couple split, and Eva went on to marry a Kansas man by the name of James P. Thomas, who served, at least briefly, as step-father for her three Rawlin children, as well.

Of course, one of Eva's children—if I can ever find him or his descendants—would be interested in a photograph I have of Leslie Earl Purkey. But we now also have the chance to locate Tucker descendants through the three Rawlin children—at least one of whom had a daughter by the time of the 1940 census. 

Following a Different Line

As we learn more and more about the family represented in several century-old photographs abandoned in a northern California antique shop, it becomes clear that finding a descendant to whom we can bestow these treasures is still challenging. We know the pictures are connected to the family of Samuel and Annie Tucker of Oregon, but despite boasting a large family, the Tuckers have not gifted us with a simple path from these great-great grandparents to the present.

It already appears we may not find any living descendant of eldest son James Tucker's only child. There are, however, seven other siblings whom we can attempt tracing. Going in order, the next oldest child would be the Tuckers' daughter Eva. Let's see what can be discovered about her—and her descendants.

According to the 1900 census, Eva was born in March of 1887, back in Illinois, before the Tucker family moved first to Nebraska, and then completed the trip all the way to Oregon before 1900. Though she and her younger sister Maud—whom we've already met—were so close in age, in their family photograph it still looks pretty clear whom we can identify as the oldest of the two girls.

By December 14, 1905, Eva had married a man by the name of Robert Francis Rawlins. While the marriage index gives very little information about Eva's husband, we learn from the 1910 census that he was working as an electrician in Spokane, Washington.

We also learn from that 1910 census that its enumerator had horrible handwriting—particularly frustrating in that it bars us from understanding where this Robert Rawlins came from. From what we can decipher from the census, he was an immigrant to the United States, claiming an arrival in 1904. His country of origin was somewhere in the English-speaking world, though the transcriber of the original document interpreted the scrawl to state, "Austria."

One other detail we could determine from that 1910 census was that Robert was almost ten years older than his bride—perhaps leading to the situation Eva found herself in, not much later, in which she and her young son Francis were left without him at his passing in 1918. Though there was no photograph accompanying his Find A Grave memorial, a volunteer gave Robert's place of birth as Grafton in New South Wales, Australia—thus, if correct (though unsourced), solving the mystery lingering from that 1910 census entry.

Thus, young Francis was left fatherless at about ten years of age—and widow Eva soon did what many women did in such a situation: remarry. That's when we realize that, once again, this family has crossed paths with names we've already researched in this quest to reunite abandoned family photographs with their subjects' descendants.

Above: Say, where? Excerpt from the 1910 U.S. Census for Spokane, Washington, showing the line items on left column for place of birth for Robert, Eva, and Francis Rawlins; the upper line is difficult to interpret (Aut? Ata?) for Robert's place of origin. Image courtesy Ancestry.com.

So . . . Who Is E.T.?

Okay, I'll spare you the suspense. I'll tell you the answer up front: I don't have the slightest idea. Other than one brief mention of the daughter of James Tucker as Mrs. E. T. Lilly in the 1962 death notice of her father in Portland, I've failed to pull up any mention of a man with those initials and surname. Ditto for the daughter's alternate identity as Mrs. Jan Lilly of Portland in her mother's 1966 obituary. Perhaps that photograph of a young James Andrew Tucker may have to languish in my office for a while longer.

Not that there weren't Lilly family members in the Portland area. I did pull up a few other mentions of earlier obituaries for people with that same surname. None of them, however, included a Lilly descendant with a name which could be reduced down to those initials. Nor were there any mentions of a Lilly by the name of Norma—just in case that given name came out of hiding for some official records.

As it appears that James and Edith Tucker had no other children, the search for a connection with Tucker descendants will have to occur through another branch of that family. Fortunately, I was able to follow the winding path from one of James Tucker's siblings, down through the generations to a descendant who died only a few years ago. Thankfully, his obituary is accessible, and the path through this line of the Tucker family leads us once again to California—this time, to a spot in the northern portion of this state which boasts an active genealogical society with which I've been privileged to have some connections.

Wonder if it's time to call in some family history favors. Perhaps someone in that town knows someone who knows someone who...

It worked for me once before. In the meantime, we'll take a look at that wandering line tomorrow. Never know when it will help to lay down some cousin bait in this waiting game.

Above: Excerpt from the U.S. Census for 1940, showing the Klamath County, Oregon, household of James Tucker. Note the descending stroke for the father's initial letter "J" and the difference between that and his daughter Norma's clearly delineated "I."  Image courtesy Ancestry.com.

Gone to California?

When we're seeking a man who spent most of his teen and adult years living either in Oregon or just across the state line near his wife's family in Idaho, it doesn't seem likely that he'd have a daughter born a considerable distance to the south in the state of California. But that is what the census records tell us for Norma, only daughter of Jim and Edith Tucker.

It would be a simple thing to locate the Tuckers in the 1920 census—that is, if we could locate their entry in that enumeration. As it stands right now, I can't, so we really have no way to tell whether their work requirements—or maybe just their wanderlust—led them to a new residential location.

There are, however, other ways to find the Tuckers. Though they apparently ended up back in Oregon—Jim was buried in River View Cemetery in Portland in 1962, with his wife following in 1966—clues provided after their final days give a glimpse of the rest of the story.

Edith Jones Tucker's memorial at Find A Grave happened to include a transcription of her obituary. Disappointingly brief, it did reveal two clues: that she had a daughter, identified as "Mrs. Jan Lilly," and that Edith's obituary was originally published in The Oregonian. Checking that entry in a digital copy of the original at GenealogyBank, we can verify that it did indeed state those few facts, though nothing more of genealogical interest.

If Edith's obituary was published in The Oregonian, perhaps the same would be so for her husband, who predeceased her. Sure enough, on November 18, 1962, there was the funeral notice, confirming that this James Tucker was husband of Edith. Instead of "Mrs. Jan Lilly" from Edith's own entry, James' daughter was identified as "Mrs. E. T. Lilly."

The entry, however, continued far beyond that. This is where we need to double-check names and relationships with that 1900 census entry where we first found the Tucker family in Oregon, after their stop in Nebraska when the original family portrait was taken.

Jim Tucker's obituary continued listing relationships of those who survived him at his 1962 passing. There was a brother named Elmer, born in Nebraska in 1883, who was now living in Capitola, a town close to Santa Cruz on the coast of northern California.

Next mentioned in Jim's obituary was younger sister Clarice, whom we need to find in the 1910 census, as she wasn't born until 1901. By the time of the 1930 census, Clarice was still in Oregon, by then living with her husband and three children—none of whom, incidentally, were born in California. But by the 1940s, she was listed as a housewife living in the same downtown area in Modesto, California, soon to be immortalized in George Lucas' classic American Graffiti. And by the time her brother James had died, his obituary showed us that she was still living in that Stanislaus County city.

The final mention in James Tucker's obituary was that he was survived by his sister Eva. Eva, one of the older sisters appearing in the Tucker family portrait, was listed in her brother's 1962 obituary as Eva Thomas. At that time, she was living in a more northern location in—yes, once again—California. However, though Chico, California, was her home in the 1960s, in both the 1930 census and as recently as the 1940 census, she was still living in Oregon.

With all these California connections for James Tucker and his family, it is quite possible that he and Edith had moved south to check out the opportunities near his siblings in California—and while there, their late-life surprise baby made her appearance. If that is so, however, why was she Norma I. Tucker in the census records, but Jan Lilly in her mother's obituary? Furthermore, if Norma and Jan are one and the same, can she—or one of her descendants—be located and gifted with this photograph of the young man, James Tucker? That, of course, is the goal of all these musings.

What We Can't Find About Jim Tucker

Reuniting abandoned century-old photographs with family is not that much of a challenge, as long as you know at least a few details about the subjects of the portrait. A name or two is definitely helpful, but the location of the studio where the picture was taken can also help. From that point, with two or three facts, all it takes is some time and genealogical grunt work to produce the results—and then the serendipity to locate the family's descendants.

We have most of those initial requirements for working with the photograph I found in northern California of a young James Tucker. For one thing, someone had thoughtfully labeled the reverse of the cabinet card with his name and the additional detail that he was "Maud's brother." This agreed with the research I had already completed for another photograph—that time, the entire Tucker family, taken before 1900 in Wahoo, Nebraska—so it wasn't much of a surprise to discover the watermark on the card itself told us the location of the studio was in Oregon.

There are, however, some missing links in James Tucker's story, and those missing elements may be just what we need to locate a descendant interested in receiving this rescued photograph.

What we can find does flow nicely from the 1900 census entry for Jim's family in Oregon; we can see him there as the oldest child of Samuel and Annie Tucker. Six years later, we learn that this twenty-one year old had already married a woman from Missouri by the name of Edith May Jones. Since the location of the wedding was in Bannock County, Idaho, we can presume Edith had moved there with her parents. Indeed, by the time Jim had registered in 1918 toward the end of the Great War, he stated his employer was someone named Wilbur Jones—possibly a relative of his wife.

That, however, is getting ahead of ourselves. One key stopping place in this research rundown would be the 1910 census, right after the couple was married on December 18, 1906. We can see from the census the corroborating detail that Jim and Edith were married for at least three years—agreeing with the fact that the census was taken in April of that year, only four months past that third year. And we can also see that, though they've been married for at least three years, there are no children in their household. Edith claims no descendants, whether alive or deceased.

Fast forward to the 1930 census, and we see the Tucker household enlarged to three occupants: Jim, Edith, and a daughter named Norma I. Tucker. Though Edith lists her age as forty five, this daughter is only one year of age. Agreed, that age could easily be misread, as it appears that a lightly-inked fraction was crossed out in a bolder stroke, but fast-forwarding another ten years bears out that detail: in 1940, Norma was listed as twelve years of age.

There's another unexpected detail about Norma. Unlike her father who, though born in Illinois and captured in a family photograph in Nebraska as a boy, spent most of his adult life—as far as we know—around the border between Oregon and the Idaho home of her mother, Norma was apparently born in California.

California? Where did that come from?

The challenge is to find just where Norma's parents were in the decade preceding her birth. But there's a problem with that: no matter how I search, I haven't been able to find either James or Edith in the 1920 census. Not in Illinois, where Jim was born. Not in Missouri, place of his wife's birth. And certainly not in the two states where we've already found them, Idaho and Oregon. Could they have made the big move to California, leading up to the stock market crash of 1929?

If there's no way to directly answer that question, at least there are ways to work around this missing census record. We'll see, tomorrow, what can be pieced together about the details we can't otherwise find about Jim Tucker and his family.

Above: Difficult to spot in the original, enlargement of the scanned James Tucker photograph allows us to read the studio imprint clearly enough to determine its location in Ontario, Oregon; photograph currently in possession of author until claimed by a direct descendant.

Meet James Tucker, Maud's Brother

It's so helpful when someone not only decides to label those old family photographs, but includes a roadmap to help negotiate those twists and turns in the family tree. The portrait of a young James Tucker provided that very detail, naming not only James Tucker, but his relationship as Maud's brother.

I'm pretty sure this is the same James we noticed as a child in his family portrait, taken in Wahoo, Nebraska, before the family moved to Oregon. Since we've already traced other branches of this Tucker tree, we know that Maud Tucker married a man named Burt Purkey and lived in Idaho—having a child who married and eventually moved to northern California, where I found the set of Tucker photographs in an antique shop.

Though his younger brother Frank served—and died—during World War I, it is unlikely that Jim Tucker saw any military duty, as he was already married to the former Edith May Jones, back in December of 1906. However, though he may have claimed responsibility for one dependent at that time, it's hard to determine whether he had any descendants who might, at this point, be interested in receiving this picture of the young Jim Tucker. Next week, we'll begin tackling that question and see what can be done about reuniting this portrait with family members.

Above: Photograph of a young James Tucker, likely a son of Samuel and Annie Tucker of Oregon; photograph currently in possession of author until claimed by a direct descendant.

While we are Waiting

While three antique photos of the Wymer family are making their way back home—hopefully announcing their arrival today—we are still on hold when it comes to finding a home for the photograph of the Tucker family. I found a direct descendant of Samuel and Annie Tucker, I made my pitch, and heard...nothing. That attempt will take a bit more work.

In the meantime, we can take a lesson from the set of photos we found belonging to the extended family which included the Tuckers. There are indeed more Tucker photos from the antique store where I found this one—and each branch of the Tucker family represented in these various portraits may someday lead me to a connection who will be interested in receiving some, or possibly all of these treasures.

Maud Tucker—the one we learned eventually married Burt Purkey and lived in Idaho—had a brother identified in the family photograph as Jim. He was likely the tallest of the children standing in that old photograph I found in Sonora, California, for according to the 1900 census, he was listed as the eldest child of Samuel and Annie Tucker, arriving in July of 1885.

There is a lot yet to learn about James Andrew Tucker, and there's a reason we'll want to find out all we can about him: I have a portrait of a young man with a label on the reverse that reads, "James Tucker, Maud's brother." That photograph, too, will need to someday find its way back home.

While I Was Out

Currently, I'm writing from the hotel at a world famous amusement park, the name of which I'd refrain from revealing, except that (as my husband delights in putting it), "it rhymes with Shmizneyland." Even if I were to receive that coveted reply email I've been awaiting from the direct descendant of the Samuel Tucker family, I wouldn't be able to send the photo back home. Yet.

And that seems to be my problem. I'm embarrassed to say, that has not been the first time I've been faced with that dilemma. It's happened before—namely, during last January, when I went from a week-long training session at the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy to a research trip in Florida. Of course, it would be right in the middle of that when I received an email from not one, but two descendants of the couple featured in a hundred year old family portrait.

I was delighted to receive the news, of course, emailing exactly that message back to the waiting descendants. And promptly forgot to get the photographs in the mail when I returned home.

While I'm away, once again, from my stash of antique photographs, I'll take this opportunity to reintroduce you to the family who will soon—this time, I promise!—be flying their way back home.

Above: Remember George and Elmira Purkey Wymer and family  from Plymouth, Indiana? I wrote about them, back at the end of October, 2018. Their family photographs—there are at least two others besides this one which will also be returned—have long since been claimed by two direct descendants, and will make their way back home as soon as I do.

And Now, the Wait Begins

The cycle is almost complete. We've rescued a hundred-year-old photograph from an antique store in one of those quaint Gold Rush era towns in the northern California foothills—you know, the kind with the helpful label on the back, revealing names and locations. We've done our due diligence in zeroing in on the right family with those same names, then ascertaining which modern-day descendants might be out there, searching for their own roots.

Once a direct line descendant comes into view, the next task is to find contact information. Sometimes this can be a challenge, and sometimes it is a gift that falls neatly into our laps. In the case of this most recent family photograph, showing Samuel and Annie Tucker and their children from Wahoo, Nebraska, there were several researchers whose trees at Ancestry.com included that couple. Yet, of those many trees, only one belonged to a researcher who was, herself, a direct descendant of Samuel and Annie.

Trouble is, she hasn't logged on to Ancestry in several months. Maybe she will check in soon...and maybe she won't. All we can do is wait.

In the meantime, it just so happens that I was reminded of another photograph which should have been sent home to descendants...but wasn't. The good news came when I was traveling out of state, doing some research. I got the email, celebrated the fact that a photo was going to go home once I got home to send it—and then, continued my travels and promptly forgot about it.

Now, whether I hear back from the Tucker descendant or not, I still will have a photograph to send home—except for one thing: once again, I'm out of town. The return trip home for a family portrait will have to wait for the return trip home for the sender.

We've Been Down This Path Before

Ever get the sense you've traveled down the same path before? It can be years later, or taken from a different direction, but once the trip is over, you realize this hasn't been the first time you've been down that path.

In our case, this research trip all started about one year ago, when I and my intrepid genealogy guardian angel Sheri Fenley took a drive up to the foothills of northern California. I was on the hunt for some well-labeled cabinet cards at the antique shops of Sonora; she was along for the ride (and maybe a good cup of coffee or a fun lunch spot).

By last September, I was wrestling with the identity of the newlyweds, Mr. and Mrs. Adolph Brockman of West Point, Nebraska. It took us about ten days to discover that, though we figured out the identity of Adolph and Vernie Brockman, the photograph bearing their names probably belonged to another couple—leading to a detailed examination of the extended Brockman and Nieman families.

Disentangling ourselves from that dilemma, in the next month, we moved on to examine another photograph found in the antique stores of Sonora, California. This one led us to the Purkey family of Wisconsin, Erastus Manford and his wife, Rebecca Olive Lewis Purkey. By the middle of October, last year, I had already realized the connection between the Purkey and Brockman families, and had also found the marriage connections between two of the Purkey sons and women whose names were Tucker, which explained another photograph I had found, of an older couple by that Tucker surname, living in Oregon.

That was when I realized that the wife in that Tucker couple had a maiden name of Goodman, and that she likely came from Tennessee. Apparently, she had a sister named Dollie, whose identity I never could satisfactorily trace.

From that point, I moved on to another of the many photographs I rescued from Sonora's abundance of antique facilities. The next photo featured a relative from a different side of the extended Purkey family—Pleasant Fuller and her son—and from there, on to another photograph leading us in an entirely different direction. Soon after that, I set aside the photograph projects to focus on my upcoming Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy class that January, and my subsequent Florida research journey.

I haven't touched those family photographs until now, nearly a year later. From the few photographs I still have left to tackle, I pulled this one on the Tucker family, thinking nothing of all the connections I had bumped into while researching the Brockman, Purkey, and Goodman photographs last year. Nothing from those Nebraska or Wisconsin locations rang any bell, once I began the puzzle of this picture from Wahoo, Nebraska. I had to work my way down this family tree branch before I began to realize I had crawled up this branch from the opposite direction once before. Now, instead of approaching an elderly couple posing alone, I was dealing with a young couple and their many children. Instead of looking at the wedding photo—supposedly—of Adolph and Vernie Brockman, I was now tracing the photograph of the parents and siblings of the mother of "Mom B," wife of Adolph's younger brother.

How was I to know all these in-laws would connect? Of course, I should have suspected that, in one antique store in one tiny town, the chances of uncovering the results of one specific estate sale might be high. But it was not highest on my mind when I purchased all those photos. And they likely won't find their way to descendants who turn out to be related to each other. Each photo represented another branch of an extended and migrating family.

Next on my agenda, of course, will be to figure out who might be a descendant interested in receiving this photo of the young Tucker family. From that point, the next challenge will be to actually make contact and extend the offer.  

Clinching the Connection

There's just something about pushing one's genealogical research out toward that doubtful edge: how do we know we are headed in the right direction? If we are researching our own family line, we might have the help of a research partner in the family, who can rein us in when we choose the wrong path towards a person with what sounds like the right name. But when researching strangers, who's to say we're headed on the wrong track?

That's why I rely so heavily on documentation. I want to see the document—or at least an electronic facsimile of the form—for myself. I want to compare all the details on the record, including those extra lines of information that never seem to be included in transcriptions or indexed collections.

As we pursue the trail leading us back to the true identity of the Tucker family featured in the portrait I found in an antique store in Sonora, California, I crave these double- and triple-checks of this step-by-step research process. True, we first found the Tucker family in a tiny place called Wahoo, Nebraska, where the picture was taken. But then, no subsequent sign of them in Wahoo. No sign of them in the entire county where Wahoo is located. There was, however, another Tucker family with all the same given names as those in the photograph. Only problem was, they were not living in Nebraska; they were in Oregon.

The hunt for any record to connect this family with familiar details indicated on the photograph has been on for a while now. We've talked about the son, Frank, who was killed in action during World War I. We've also explored the whereabouts of his sister Maud, and that, as Frank's obituary asserted, she lived in Pocatello, Idaho—and that she eventually gave birth to a daughter who grew up to become a possibility for the "Mom B." mentioned on the back of the photograph.

So, forgive me for a little bit of overkill, while I mention yet another connection to documentation for this branch of the Samuel Tucker family of Oregon, formerly from Nebraska. Maud, as we've already mentioned, married a man in Idaho named Burt Purkey. The youngest of their daughters, Corinne, married a man whose surname qualified her to be known as "Mom B." Maud was born near the end of December in 1888 in a place referred to in her death certificate as Yuan, Nebraska—probably a slight error in reporting, actually signifying the town in the same county as Wahoo, known as Yutan, the very place where we've already learned her brother Frank had been born.

Maud probably lived her entire married life in Pocatello, Idaho. At least, that was where she was living as recently as the 1940 census, and where we find her, a short while after that, when she died in 1944.

Maud's death certificate shows us some details that provide that extra little bit of support I am always looking for. Remember those three daughters? Apparently, daughter Dorothy—the one who married someone named Smith, not Mr. B.—was the informant signing the death certificate. Of course, the record also mentioned that Maud's husband's name was Burt, confirming that we had the right person yet again. And the certificate provided those two bonus details we always look for in such documents: the names and places of birth of her parents.

As we expected, those names would be Samuel and Annie Tucker—but we learn something additional about them. For one thing, we see that Samuel was listed as born in Alton, Illinois, and that Annie's maiden name was Goodman. Annie, as it turned out, came from Nashville, Tennessee.

The more we delve into this Tucker family, the more these details call to mind a number of research pathways we've already trod. As it turns out, we have already worked on these family lines, only from a different direction. As we'll begin reviewing tomorrow, they are people we've already come to know through other photographs found in that same antique shop in Sonora, California. And there's a reason for that.

Learning More About Maud

In researching families with common surnames, we find ourselves double- and triple-checking details to make sure everything aligns correctly. There likely have been, for example, hundreds of Samuel Tuckers out there, adding to the challenge of determining whether we have selected the right identity for the abandoned family photograph I found in an antique shop in Sonora, California.

At the start, all we knew was that the Tucker family was in Wahoo, Nebraska, at least long enough to sit for their portrait at a photography studio in that location. By the time of the next census record—I was guessing this might have been the 1900 census—there was no Tucker family fitting the right description in the whole of Saunders County, let alone the county seat of Wahoo. That's when the hunt began for where Ralph, Jim, Eva, Maud, Frank, Elmer, and Annie Tucker went.

By the time of the 1900 census, a Tucker family including all those names did show up, but they weren't anywhere in Nebraska. In fact, they were half a continent away in Oregon, along with the patriarch of this family, whose name we learned was Samuel. Whether this was the same Tucker family as the one in the photograph from back in Wahoo, we're still pondering.

The past two days, we examined the possibility of whether a hint about Tucker son Frank—killed in World War I—confirmed we had located the right family. Today, we'll look at the second hint provided on the back of the photo. Whoever was kind enough to label the photo had noted, "Maud is Mom B's mother."

Well, there was a Maud in this Tucker family in Oregon, but that's not yet reason to shout the victory. During the decade in which this Maud Tucker was born—census records indicate she likely arrived in the late 1880s—at least 4,200 other girls were given the same name, putting the name Maud seventy-fourth in the top two hundred names for girls born in that decade, according to the "Popular Baby Names" page on the Social Security website. So there could feasibly be some other Maud Tuckers out there.

Let's see what else we can discover about this Maud. We've already learned that she married a man by the name of Burt Purkey, and that their family lived in Pocatello—just as the front page newspaper report of her brother Frank's death had affirmed. In fact, they were living in Pocatello back at the time of the 1910 census, showing us that Burt and Maud had three daughters. Would one of them turn out to marry a man whose surname begins with "B"?

The three Purkey daughters, according to this 1910 census, were named Evelyn, Dorothy, and Corinne. The oldest, Evelyn, was married in 1925 in Bannock County, Idaho, to a man named William Hillard. We can eliminate this couple from our search for "Mr. B."

The next Purkey daughter, Dorothy, also married in her home county, two years after her older sister's wedding. Like her sister, Dorothy married a man whose name did not qualify him as "Mr. B." either. Dorothy's groom was Sam Smith.

Fortunately, our third try produces a winner. At the end of 1929, and still in their home county of Bannock, youngest Purkey daughter Corinne married a man named Edward Brockman. Corinne, then—as long as we have the right Tucker family to begin with—would be the one who could qualify as "Mom B" in our photograph's label.

As it is, the more details that dovetail between what we can find of this Oregon Tucker family and the family who posed for their portrait back in Nebraska, the more likely we are to have identified the right family. This process may seem tedious, but remember here, we're talking about a surname that is very common in the United States. Introducing the additional restrictions of having to match multiple other requirements helps increase the certainty that we have located the right family.

Now that we have more information on just who Mom B was, next week we can look at a few other details that align nicely with this scenario. And then, we can start examining possibilities for returning this abandoned photograph home to family members.

Placing Frank's Family

Abandoned family photographs sometimes seem an impossible challenge for those trying to figure out identities. With only a few facts, though—perhaps the location of the photography studio plus a set of given names—the identity of the subjects featured in the portrait can often be discovered. Such was the case with a photograph in my possession, thankfully labeled with a surname—though a common one—and a few other details.

The photograph, found in an antique store in Sonora, California, named almost everyone seated in that family portrait. Though the family's name was Tucker—admittedly a hard one to pin exactly on a specific family, being such a common surname—the photograph came with some helpful hints, written on labels on the back of the cabinet card. One of those hints concerned one of the sons, whose name was Frank.

We've already started examining what we can find about this Frank Tucker. For one thing, the family must have, at one point, lived near—or at least passed through—a little town in Nebraska called Wahoo. That's where the family portrait was taken. More important than that detail, though, was the note affixed to the back of the photograph, mentioning that Frank, one of the sons, was killed during World War I.

Fortunately, we were able to find a memorial for this Frank posted at Find A Grave, including a transcribed copy of two articles concerning his death, published in the Klamath Falls, Oregon, Evening Herald. The front page headlines on Wednesday, December 11, 1918, reported that, besides his wife, Frank Tucker left four brothers and two sisters. A later article mentioned his father's name was E. W. Tucker.

The only problem with this scenario is that it doesn't match up with the census record we had found for this immigrating Tucker family from Nebraska. If that record—both in 1900 and again in 1910—were correct, Frank's father's name should have been listed as Samuel. And while Frank had four brothers, at least from what we could glean from those census records, he happened to have three sisters.

Wrong Tuckers? Let's hold off on coming to a decision about this dilemma until we examine a few other records. After all, we've seen editorial errors before; perhaps the details provided will still bear us out.

Since that front page war article also mentioned one of Frank's sisters lived in Spokane, Washington, and the other one in Pocatello, Idaho, let's see if any of the three sisters mentioned in the Tucker census records moved from their residence in Oregon to either of those cities.

The youngest of the three Tucker sisters, Clarice, married a man by the name of William David Dowling. The wedding, in fact, was barely over five months before her brother's death. Until the late 1950s, Clarice continued to live in the vicinity of Klamath Falls, Oregon, close to many of her siblings. She, obviously, would not have been one of the two sisters mentioned in Frank's obituary if, indeed, this was the right family constellation.

That was the youngest of the three Tucker sisters. The oldest, Eva, married a man by the name of Robert Rawlin, and by the time of the 1910 census, she was living in Spokane. One point for us on that score; let's see if this is mere coincidence, or whether she had a sister living in Pocatello.

The other sister, Maud, married a man named Burt Purkey, and by the time of the 1910 census, she and her husband were living with her in-laws in—you guessed it—Pocatello, Idaho. And there's two points covered.

Looking at the names in that last census record starts to conjure up a strange déjà vu feeling for me, and perhaps it does for you, too, if you have been reading along here at A Family Tapestry for a while. Besides that, Maud is the same one who was mentioned in the second hint provided on the back of the Tucker family photograph, a detail we'll examine further, tomorrow. 

A Few Things About Frank

So in California, we've found an antique photograph of a Tucker family, taken over one hundred years ago in a tiny town called Wahoo in Nebraska. We're in luck, because on the reverse of the picture, someone has thoughtfully labeled the names of everyone in the photo, other than "Grand Dad." We've got plenty of clues to work on.

Naturally, the first thing to do, in trying to figure out how to return this picture to descendants of the right Tucker family, is to locate the family in Wahoo, back when the portrait was actually taken. We can build the family tree out from there.

Problem: there was no Tucker family of this size, or these given names, in Wahoo, Nebraska, back in 1900. But there was one in Malheur County, Oregon, with almost all the names the same as those in the photograph. How can we be sure we have the right family?

Fortunately, the label on the photograph included a few other details about the family. One of those facts was that the son named Frank had served during the Great War. We can already tell from the 1910 census record of this household—the closest census before the beginning of World War I—that Frank was then nineteen years of age. In other words, at least according to the census, Frank was born around 1891.

Checking to see what could be found about a Frank Tucker, born around 1891, who served in that war, there was a draft registration card that matched his description—almost. This Frank had a middle name of Ephrom, and was born on November 20, 1891. So far, so good.

This Frank also was born in Nebraska, giving the town of his birth as Yutan. A quick check revealed that Yutan was a town of less than three hundred people, back in 1900, and that it just happened to be in the same county as Wahoo—a good sign for us.

The only problem was that this Frank Tucker registered for the draft in Klamath Falls, Oregon, not the spot in Malheur County where we first spotted this Tucker family. True, this Frank registered in January of 1917, almost twenty years after that 1900 census. But even in the 1910 census, the Tucker family we've had our eyes on was still living in Malheur County, half a state away.

This particular Frank, however, did end up giving his life for his country, dying from injuries sustained in France during the war. A newspaper clipping from the Sacramento Bee, shared by an Ancestry.com subscriber, noted that Frank died on November 25. And sure enough, there was a memorial listed on Find A Grave for a man by the same name, dying on that same date.

That's when the comparison begins to unravel a bit further. I'm not sure this is a case of an over-helpful Find A Grave volunteer, or some sloppy editing on the part of the newspapers from which the two posted news reports were drawn. What we learn about this Frank—if the articles are correct—is that he was the son of "E. W. Tucker" and that he had "come from Nebraska four years ago." Well, we're looking for a Frank, son of Samuel—at least, if we have the right Tucker family—and we already can see that our Frank, as well as his dad Samuel and the rest of the family, had been in Oregon in time to be counted for the 1900 census. Certainly longer than that mere four years.

On the flip side, the posted articles also mentioned Frank's having four brothers and two sisters. That, at least according to a combination of both the 1900 and 1910 census, proved to be true for his brothers. For the sisters, though, either the newspapers were missing that one small detail of one additional sister, or we are not talking about the right Frank Tucker.

Turning to the census enumeration directly following the loss of this Frank, though, we discover that the Samuel and Annie Tucker we had spotted in Malheur County in 1900 and 1910 had indeed moved to Klamath County, proving at least one detail in those newspapers almost correct: "His mother and father live in this city."

Is this Frank Tucker the right one? Did the newspapers slip up and include the wrong initials for his father's name or the wrong date for his arrival from Nebraska? After all, the Frank in the photo was noted to have died in World War I. Still, there are surely a lot of Frank Tuckers out there. We can't settle this issue without following up on the other clue our anonymous label-writing benefactor had provided. 

On to Oregon?

Is it possible to locate a specific large family with four sons and two daughters, if the surname is as common as Tucker?

When I first found this abandoned hundred year old photograph in an antique store in northern California, I thought the answer might be yes. There were two solid reasons for this answer. The first was that the photographer for this family portrait was located in a sparsely populated county in Nebraska. Even if the surname was Tucker, how many could there be in a town big enough to hold barely two thousand people?

The second reason I jumped for the chance to rescue this orphan photo was that someone had carefully provided the names of six of the seven people in the portrait: Jim, Ernie—er, Evie, as we've since realized—Maud, Annie, Frank, Elmer, and baby Ralph. The ample supply of given names upped our chances of zeroing in on the right Tucker family, even if they did move away from their home in Wahoo, Nebraska—or wherever they used to live in Saunders County.

As it turned out, there was a Tucker family with many of those same names, but rather than being located in Nebraska, these Tuckers were living in Oregon at the time of the 1900 census. While that meant a trip of nearly twelve hundred miles from the point at which they had posed for their family portrait, the encouraging sign, at least in this census record, was that all but the oldest two Tucker children in this household were born in Nebraska—all the way down to "Baby," who was born in July of 1899.

If this was the right Tucker family, it wasn't exactly a perfect match. There were some discrepancies. For one thing, whoever labeled the photo expressly indicated that it was baby Ralph who was seated on his father's knee. Since Ralph looked old enough to be a toddler, rather than an infant, that would date the photograph some time after 1901, which seems a little on the modern side for the appearance of the picture frame and style of setting.

But there was another problem. If you size up the list of children in the 1900 census for the Oregon Tucker family, there is an extra child mentioned. His name was Karl, and he was born in 1896, yet there was no mention of both Ralph ("Baby" in the 1900 census) and Karl on the picture's label. Could the person labeling the photo—obviously well after the fact, seeing the mention of young daughter Maud identified as "Mom B's mother"—have forgotten about Karl? Or could Karl have died at a young age?

There are a couple problems with assuming Karl was out of the picture due to an early demise. One would be to mess up the obvious stair-step appearance of this family constellation; the age difference between Elmer (whose year of birth was entered incorrectly) and "Baby" would have been six years, if "Baby" in the census was actually the child called Ralph in the photo. More obvious would be to check the fate of the missing Karl—and sure enough, there he was in the 1910 census, still quite part of the family, as he was, also, in 1920.

Could it be that the label on the photo incorrectly identified that toddler as Ralph, when he actually was Karl? That would place the date of the family portrait as late in 1897 or possibly in early 1898, rather than 1901 or 1902. Still, it seems rather late for that style of photograph, making me wonder about the possibility that a photographer setting up his studio in a town of only two thousand people might not have been able to turn his stock over quite as quickly as if he were located in a more thriving location.

Before we grasp as straws like that business conjecture, let's look at some other ways this Tucker family might well have been the right one.

Above: The Samuel Tucker family, as listed in the 1900 U.S. Census for Malheur County, Oregon; image courtesy FamilySearch.org.

Try Evie, Not Ernie

I'm not much of a numbers geek, but it seems reasonable to think that, knowing a set of six given names belonging to the same Tucker family, we'd be able to narrow the field and perhaps even target the right bunch. But that's me—not a numbers geek, remember?

It didn't take too much number-crunching insight to realize that, for the 1900 census, the sole Tucker family in the whole of Saunders County—the place in Nebraska where our Tucker family had posed for their portrait over one hundred years ago—was not a family with five children. Even considering that one important missing piece to this puzzle—the patriarch of this Tucker family is simply called "Grand Dad"—I'm fairly certain the household of Albert C. Tucker does not fit the description from the label on the back of the photograph I found.

An Iowa native, now a settler in Oak Creek Township, halfway across the county from Wahoo, Albert Tucker lived with his wife Mary and only living child, their twenty-two year old daughter Nettie. No Jim, no Ernie, no Maud, no Annie—in fact, not a one of those names from our abandoned photograph matched up with this Tucker family in Saunders County.

That's when I thought trying to locate a household with a matching set of those names would overcome the impossibility of finding the right Tucker family. Tucker, after all, is a rather common surname. But that search approach wasn't yielding any satisfactory results, either, so it was back to the drawing board: take a second look at those names on the photo's label.

That's when I spotted my first mistake. Did you notice it? Despite the baby on the lap of "Grand Dad" looking more like a daughter than a son—at least, in today's way of looking at such things—there was one more boy's name than sons in the photograph. It turns out that what I thought was "Ernie" was actually written as Evie.

Still, looking for a Tucker family with a Ralph and an Evie didn't yield me much—until I spotted another Tucker family with almost all the right names. If we switch Jim for James, Evie for Eva, and allow that "Baby" might have been Ralph (if he was born in July, 1899), we might have found the right Tucker family. All but the two oldest children were born in Nebraska.

Only problem was...this family was living about twelve hundred miles away from Wahoo, Nebraska. And this Tucker family included another son—named Karl—who wasn't even mentioned in the photograph. Maybe this choice isn't working out so well, after all.

Above: Map of Saunders County, Nebraska, from a railway map of Nebraska, issued by the State Board of Transportation in 1889; courtesy United States Library of Congress Geography and Map Division; in the public domain.

Meet the Tuckers

It wouldn't do us any good to discuss how we are going to rescue the Tucker family of Wahoo, Nebraska, without first being properly introduced. While I already mentioned the names included on a label on the reverse of this photograph I found abandoned in an antique store in northern California, I haven't really given you a chance to see the family.

Let's take a moment to do that right now. That way, you'll see the type of frame the photo was displayed on, allowing the chance to determine the age of the picture. Then, too, you'll notice the missing portion of the bottom right corner of the card stock—the unfortunate break that obliterated the name of the state where Wahoo was located.

For the most part, you'll see a large family with the children displayed in stair-step fashion, with papa and mama serving as bookends to the portrait, with toddler Ralph on his dad's lap, and the girls in their twin dresses.

Our next task will be to locate a family constellation including those names conveniently included on the back of the photograph. Our next obstacle in this process: realizing that, at least in 1900 and 1910, there was no family matching the names of our Tucker family resident in Wahoo, the town where the portrait was taken. Either our Tuckers lived in a community even smaller than Wahoo—at that point, having a population of 2,100—or, like many families of that era, they were still heading west by the time that census was taken.

It would help, of course, if "Grand Dad" had been given a name by the person who was so careful to label the photograph. Although we don't have that useful piece of information, we still have seven other names to guide us. Next stop on this journey, in seeking to reunite this orphaned photograph with descendants of the Tucker family, will be to see where we can find this handsome family at the time of the 1900 census.

Above: Photograph of the Tucker Family of Wahoo, Nebraska, including "Grand Dad" Tucker, Ralph, Jim, Ernie, Maud, Annie, Frank, and Elmer.  Photograph in possession of author until claimed by a direct descendant of this family.

Rescuing the Tucker Family

Do you have any Tuckers in your family? If your trees—and your DNA test results—are anything like mine, you likely have a surname like that tucked in your file. Thus, last time I visited the antique stores in the Gold Country of northern California, I nearly walked away from the chance to rescue a hundred-year-old family photograph, despite seeing that it had been carefully labeled. Problem was, the label told me the name was Tucker. What are the chances?

This Tucker family, at some point over a century ago, walked into the Anderson photography studio in a little town called Wahoo. Only problem—for me, at least—was that the bottom right corner of the card stock was broken off, so that all I could see about the state where Wahoo was located was that it started with an "N." Of course, immediately you'll think of Nevada, but don't think too quickly. It could have signified New York. Or Nebraska. Also, remember that we've discussed photos from that same shop in Sonora which I subsequently sent all the way back to Canada. That "N" might represent Nova Scotia.

Fortunately for us, a quick check of towns by the name Wahoo revealed that, other than a fish taco restaurant chain by that name in both New York and Nevada, there is only one location which fits this "N" state category: the city of 4,500 people in Saunders County, Nebraska. And that's a good thing; I can't handle ambiguity.

The great thing about this photo from Wahoo, Nebraska, is that someone took great care to label it. Though it starts out with a less-than-helpful "Grand Dad Tucker," the label includes the names of the rest of the family members in the portrait. We learn from the tiny but tidy script that the Tucker family includes a toddler by the name of Ralph, along with names such as Jim, Ernie, Maud, Annie, Frank, and Elmer. Sadly, we also learn the detail that Frank was killed in World War I, showing us the perspective of the person who wrote the label. The label concludes with the note that "Maud is Mom B's mother," giving us another puzzle piece to manipulate as we search through this Tucker tree.

Despite a surname as common as Tucker, the fact that the photograph was taken in a town of such limited size—at the turn of the last century, the city of Wahoo had a population of just over two thousand, less than half the size it is today—gives us hope that we won't get mired in the dilemma of choosing between several families of the same name. That, alone, would be encouraging—until, that is, we realize that there really wasn't any family by the name Tucker to choose from. At least, there wasn't, at the time of the 1900 census.

There was, however, another possibility for this Tucker family constellation—but we'd have to move all the way to Oregon if it turned out to be the right bunch.

Above: Label from the reverse of an old family photograph, naming the Tucker Family: "Grand Dad Tucker - holding Ralph, Jim - Ernie - Maud - Annie - Frank - Killed in WWI + Elmer, Maud is Mom B's mother." Photograph in possession of author until claimed by a direct descendant.

Time to Search for Family

Sometimes, the to-do list piles up so much, the mess can be paralyzing. I now am searching for descendants of the subjects in several family photographs. If I don't intensify this effort, I'm afraid I'll get lost in the pile-up of surnames.

So far, I'm looking for descendants of Samuel Tucker and his wife, Annie Goodman—and especially anyone who can solve the mystery of just who "Dollie" Goodman, sister of Annie, might have been. I'm also looking for another Goodman child, daughter Eva, whose first husband Leslie Earl Purkey was the subject of another photo I found.

In fact, if I could find anyone related to the Purkey family, that would be grand. I have photographs of Erastus and Rebecca Lewis Purkey and their children which I would love to send home, too. Not to mention, there are the photographs of Fuller family descendants of two generations, starting with Pleasant Purkey Fuller and her firstborn son Tarance, to Pleasant's daughter Tressa and her babe, as well.

I do not have the patience to just post a photograph online and hope someone finds this "cousin bait" and comes calling. Instead, I go searching through family trees online and go knocking on the electronic doors of fellow researchers who have included such names in their family trees. I send them a message and then wait, holding my breath. (At least, that's what it feels like.)

And then...wait some more.

Hopefully, later this week, we'll hear from someone with a tip on where I can mail the photographs. I know some of the researchers online have well-researched trees, but most of the trees I've found belong to people who are, at best, more distant relatives. Perhaps I can enlist them in the search to send these photographs home. Or maybe it will suffice to send the photos to people who appreciate the rich heritage of their family associations.

In the meantime, there is more to explore in the photograph collection I stumbled upon in that antique shop in Sonora, California. On to more Purkey family relatives.