All I Wanted Was a Clue

It is sometimes frustrating, looking for ancestors in larger cities. It is so easy to run across a name that matches your target name exactly—but turns out to represent someone totally unrelated to your own line.

That’s the problem I’ve been having in trying to trace Julia Creahan Sullivan, daughter of Michael and Bridget Kelly Creahan of Lafayette, Indiana. Sure, it would have helped if Julia had chosen to stay at home, where the population was magnitudes smaller than in her adopted city of Denver, Colorado. But she didn’t.

Granted, we’ve been able to eliminate several Julia Sullivans in this search as non-candidates for this Julia’s identity. But there is still one small matter to address: is the Julia Sullivan I’m trying to trace in Denver the right Julia Sullivan? After all, even this one might be the wrong one.

All I’ve wanted to find was one document identifying this Julia—or whichever other one it might turn out to be—as the correct descendant of Michael and Bridget Creahan. All I’ve gotten so far is a promising lead, with a Julia Sullivan who, though widowed, had a son with the same name as the man our Julia had supposedly married.

Perhaps Colorado is one of those states which chose not to divulge documents identifying their past residents. It certainly has been difficult locating any records to help me find what became of this Julia—especially the date of her death, the key to a death certificate which would answer my questions in one simple page.

At this point, I’m left with the connect-the-dots routine of piecing together information via each year’s city directory and comparing it to census records showing the family members—in hopes that tracing the descendants would one day lead to a document with the coveted mother’s maiden name entry to resolve my dilemma.

As for archived newspapers, while the occasional hit can be immensely revealing, most of the articles I’ve uncovered with the names of Julia, her mystery husband, or their children have turned out to be for others with the same name. In seeking Julia’s husband, Thomas, in Denver newspapers, the many search results I’ve found have named victims of barroom brawls, perpetrators of crimes, and participants in other escapades which may or may not have been those of the man I’ve been seeking—results frustratingly not much different than those I’ve experienced while seeking information on Julia, herself.

In the theory that this Julia Sullivan is the right one to pursue, I’ve tracked her through the census records from 1900 through 1930. In both the 1900 census and that for 1910, the widowed Julia claimed the same four children—sons Thomas F. Sullivan, Jr., and Harry A., plus daughters Florence and Regina. By the time of the 1920 census, the household composition changed slightly to show only one child missing—the eldest son, Thomas, who may have been one of the two married Thomas F. Sullivans showing in the annual city directories. Maybe.

The 1930 census may have been Julia’s last. There, she was listed as the sixty year old head of household, now with only two of her children—Harry and Florence. Regina, missing from the household, may have married or, as often happened back then, died early. By 1940, Julia herself was missing from the Sullivan household, with the two remaining Sullivan descendants, Harry and Florence—both still single professional people—listed with an older woman designated as their maid.

There is no burial information on Julia that I can find. No obituary. No handy Find A Grave listing. The only trace of a possibility might be a line found back in Julia’s hometown, in the index for names mentioned in the Lafayette, Indiana Journal and Courier:

Sullivan, Mrs. Julia  d - 10 July 1930.

How likely is that to be the same Julia Sullivan as the one who left home over forty years earlier to become part of the adventure of life in a booming western town like Denver?

While We’re on Logan Avenue…

As the family of a different Julia Sullivan bid their mother a final goodbye at the Logan Avenue Chapel in Denver, apparently another Julia Sullivan was waiting in the wings to make her appearance in local newspapers. Chalk this one up as yet another genealogical research woe of historical newspapers when it comes to researching ancestors with fairly common names.

Still seeking whatever information I could find on the Julia Creahan Sullivan who had left her childhood home in Lafayette, Indiana, in the 1880s to move—married or unmarried—to Denver, Colorado, the more I searched, the more I seemed to brush up against her doubles in town.

I’m not sure the term doppelgänger had yet attained its in-vogue status.

After discovering the reference to the chapel on Logan Avenue for the grief-stricken Julia, widow of the wrong husband (Stephen J.), perhaps I had been sensitized to the reference to “Logan” in conjunction with “Sullivan.” Besides, after the tell-all obituary for the Sullivan heiress, one could not escape knowing about her “nervous breakdown” and lingering illness.

I couldn’t help divulging an unkind wry smile upon spotting this headline in the Denver Post:

Mrs. J. Sullivan Gives Details of Suffering

Now Feels That Her Trouble is Entirely Eliminated by Use of New Tonic

See for yourself how well the narrative fit the unfortunate Julia Sullivan’s scenario:

            When seen recently at her home, 18 Logan street, city, Mrs. Julia Sullivan spoke interestingly regarding her experience with the new tonic “Tona Vita,” now being introduced in Denver by specialists sent here for that purpose.

            Mrs. Sullivan said: “I have been sick for a long time, during which I have tried all kinds of doctors. Besides that, I took every medicine that I thought would do me any good. I am one of those that want to enjoy life and be happy, but I know that without good health that is an impossibility. Neither the doctors’ treatments or the medicines that I took gave me any relief and I was beginning to give up hope….

Of course, this article post-dated the 1907 passing of the false Julia Sullivan, appearing in the paper on May 9, 1912. It served only to add yet another Julia to the mix. (See? I warned you.)

Frustration over all these reports of other Julia Sullivans drove me to the Denver city directories. After all, while Denver in the early 1900s was nowhere near the size it is today, it was home to almost 134,000 people at the time of the 1900 census. Granted, the city’s population increased by another twenty five percent by the time of the subsequent census, so there was certainly room for more than one woman by the name of Julia Sullivan. I began to wonder just how many that might be.

Only happy to oblige, Ancestry.com popped up a few results for city directories in Denver containing the name Julia Sullivan. Granted, these were for yet another ten years beyond the 1912 Tona Vita Julia, but they would suffice. After all the newspaper entries I had found for others claiming the same name as our Kelly descendant—oh, and did I mention, “capitalist”?—Julia Sullivan, my curiosity was to see how many Julia Sullivans could be found in Denver.

The 1923 directory told me there were four: beside our Julia, one a resident of Clay Street, one listed as “Mrs.” Julia Sullivan on South Lincoln, and one being the Tona Vita Julia—whom the directory listed as widow of Patrick.

By 1927, all that was listed was the Julia Sullivan on Clay Street—now identified as widow of Michael Sullivan—and our Julia. Apparently, the Tona Vita wasn’t working for the other Julia.

Unfortunately for my research, dates later than this exceed the stretch of time for which Denver newspapers were digitized for the online services I utilize. If I hope to find anything more recent on our Julia Creahan Sullivan—I’m thinking an obituary would be a nice addition to the collection, not to mention an answer to several questions—I will somehow need to take this directly to the source.

Not seeing a trip to the Denver area in my near future, my next best option is to trace what can be found on our Julia’s four children. Perhaps something reported on her descendants could boost our confidence in whether we have, indeed, isolated the right Julia.

Close, But Not Our Bloomington

While we’re struggling to discern which of several Denver capitalists calling themselves Julia Sullivan was our Julia Sullivan—the Kelly descendant whose family lived in Lafayette and Bloomington, Indiana—we add two more newspaper clippings to the mix.

One, from The Daily News on October 3, 1907, told the predictable rest of the story about the Julia Sullivan whom we met yesterday. Sadly, as often happens, not long after she lost her husband, Stephen J. Sullivan, this Julia died as well.

The newspaper acknowledgement of her passing was brief, headlined as “Widow of Pioneer Mining Man Summoned by Death.” Though the short entry will be useful for any descendants researching her line, we’ve already discovered they would not be including any of our Kelly family.

However, the article was also helpful in that it gave a bit of this Julia’s origins. The city name, Bloomington, jumped out of the newsprint and caught my eye right away—but only momentarily. That Bloomington was followed by “Md.” rather than “Ind.” But what a coincidence. After all, our Julia had a sister who had moved from Lafayette to Bloomington—Indiana, that is.

            Julia Sullivan, widow of Stephen J. Sullivan, a prominent mining man, is dead at the family residence, 1673 York street. Deceased was 54 years old, a native of Bloomington, Md.

A Denver Post article the previous day had provided a bit more detail on the woman’s background, as well as that of her quite successful husband, and focused on the deplorable condition of her health in her last months.

While the article leaves me with no doubt that our Julia Creahan Sullivan, “capitalist,” was not the same as this Julia Sullivan, it was interesting to see what details were considered to be vital for inclusion in an obituary of that era, and for the now-deceased woman whose life was about to be commemorated at a chapel on Logan Avenue in Denver.

            Just fourteen months after the death of her husband, Stephen J. Sullivan, a well-known mining man, Mrs. Julia A. Sullivan succumbed to a breakdown which resulted from the nervous shock and died at midnight last night. For seven months she has not left her bed, although for over a year she has been failing.

            For two years before the death of Mr. Sullivan the two traveled for the benefit of his health. Mrs. Sullivan chose to do the nursing herself and her constant attendance at his bedside wore her vitality and energy and the shock of his death, Aug. 6, 1906, left her a nervous wreck. She was born in Bloomington, Md., fifty-four years ago and came of an old Southern family. With her husband she went to Leadville in the early mining days and Mr. Sullivan became recognized as a successful man. He managed the Little Jonny for some time and operated for himself the Breese and Penn claims. Later in life he was heavily interested in Mexican properties. He left a fortune of $500,000 when he died last year.

            Mrs. Sullivan is survived by three sons and two daughters. S. J. Jr., Robert and Leo Sullivan, Mrs. Daniel G. Monaghan and Miss Eva Sullivan. The family home is at 1673 York street. The funeral will be held from the Logan Avenue chapel on Friday morning, the music being furnished by the Queen’s Daughters choir. Mrs. Sullivan was an honorary member of that organization and Mrs. Monaghan was at one time president.

Initial Assessments

Having already found a Julia L. Sullivan and a Julia C. Sullivan professing prowess in real estate transactions in early 1900s Denver, Colorado, I take that revelation as a clue to proceed cautiously as I attempt to uncover what became of our Kelly descendant, Julia Creahan Sullivan. Though she—Julia Creahan Sullivan, that is—claimed on her 1900 census entry to be occupied as a capitalist, she apparently had plenty of company among women sharing her name.

Once again, it appears that this will all come down to the matter of a single stroke of the pen: one initial, settled between the “Julia” and the “Sullivan” that each of these women claimed as their own, unique identifier.

The search for the right Julia is not over yet, for there is the instance of yet another Julia Sullivan that has surfaced in archived Denver newspapers from that time period. A Denver Post headline on Monday, August 27, 1906, announced

          Widow of Mining Man Willed One-Half of the $400,000 Property.

Okay, you know me: I had to check current value for that inheritance. According to my favorite online inflation calculator, that $400,000 would be worth a cool $10,526,315.79 now.

Not bad. With a cache of that size, I could see that Julia Sullivan considering herself a capitalist.

But was she our Julia Sullivan? Not really. Again, it all came down to initials—and, of course, to the additional identifier of the husband with whom she was associated. In this case, it turns out Julia was known as Julia A. Sullivan, widow of Denver mining expert, Stephen J. Sullivan—not our Julia’s mystery husband, Thomas F. Sullivan.

To quash all hopes of familial connection, the Denver Post article spelled out the names of the descendants named in the Sullivan will. As you may notice, none of these names match the four children listed in our Julia’s household in the 1900 census.

            The estate of Stephen J. Sullivan, mining expert and capitalist, amounting to upwards of $400,000 will be divided by the terms of his will entirely among the immediate members of his family. Mr. Sullivan died Aug. 6 at his home, Seventeenth and York, and his will was probated today in the county court. All the heirs live in Colorado.

            The first beneficiary named in the will is the widow, Julia A. Sullivan, who is given one-half of the entire estate absolutely. The oldest son, Stephen J. Sullivan, Jr., is named as executor of the will to serve without giving bond, and the remaining half of the estate is disposed of as follows: Mrs. Ellen Joyce, sister of the testator, is given $5,000; J. A. Sullivan, a brother, is given $5,000; Mrs. Bridget Bishop of Leadville, a sister-in-law, is given $1,000. Robert A. Sullivan and Miss Eva Sullivan, son and daughter, are left a special bequest of $5,000, the testator explaining that this is the amount he gave the other children on their attaining their majorities.

            After these bequests have been paid all the remainder of the estate goes share and share alike to the children, Mary T., Stephen J., James L., Robert A., and Miss Eva Sullivan….

High Finance in the Mile High City

What can be found about a Julia Sullivan who claimed to be a capitalist in Denver at the turn of the last century? Too much, it turns out.

I turned to the local newspapers to see what reports might have been published about our Kelly descendant, Julia Creahan, who claimed such a lofty occupation for herself.

For some reason, Julia had left her hometown of Lafayette, Indiana, to live in Denver, Colorado. Somewhere along the line—although where is not yet entirely apparent—she met and married a man by the frustratingly common name of Thomas Sullivan, who then stepped out of the picture after the couple’s arrival in the Centennial State.

If the 1900 census declared Julia Sullivan to be a capitalist, then surely some report in a local newspaper would reflect that feminine financial prowess, I figured. I was rewarded for that hunch when I found a small announcement buried on page eleven of The Daily News in the business section of the March 25, 1898, edition.

Julia L. Sullivan yesterday transferred to the Julia L. Real Estate, Loan and Investment company several lots in West Elyria, Harman’s subdivision and a tract of farming land. The consideration named was $50,000. The company has recently been incorporated and Mrs. Sullivan turned her properties into it.

Lest you find $50,000 to be a trivial amount, let me remind you—by way of my favorite online inflation calculator—that that amount would be the equivalent of $1,388,888.89 in today’s dollars. Not bad for a widowed mother of four living in a rented home in Denver.

Oh, I get it—the home must have been owned by Julia’s trust fund. Silly me.

With a one-time transaction such as this, surely Julia’s financial dealings would be mentioned more than once in the Denver newspapers.

They were. Highlighted within a two-page diatribe about the “victims” of a local real estate mogul by name of Sullivan was this entry in the July 13, 1902 Denver Post:

Of late years nearly all Sullivan’s transactions have been in the name of “Julia Investment company,” named for his wife, Julia Clise Sullivan. She is practically the company, and as trustee he does all the business. It is not generally known among his creditors that the “Julia” is not incorporated in this state.

Oh. Apparently, the “C” in this Julia’s name did not stand for “Creahan.”

Come to find out, this Julia’s husband was known about town as A. B. Sullivan—the “A” standing for Augustus, according to a sidebar to the 1902 diatribe—not Thomas. If “Julia Investment Company” were one and the same as “Julia L. Real Estate, Loan and Investment Company,” we might safely have assumed that this capitalist was not our Julia Sullivan.

However, Julia C. and Julia L. may not necessarily have been the same woman. Come to find out, there was yet another Julia Sullivan in town—another one with considerable holdings of her own.

Above: Photograph of Denver, Colorado, looking northwest from the steps of the state capitol in 1898—the same year as Julia L. Sullivan's $50,000 Denver real estate transaction was recorded; courtesy United States Library of Congress via Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Widow With Attitude

From the obituaries of her father and step-mother, it is obvious that Kelly descendant Julia Creahan Sullivan was at one time married, and at a later time, not. Whether that later time indicated her loss through widowhood is not yet apparent, and in the end—as I’ve since observed while trawling through census entries in the “wild west” flavor of her adopted hometown of Denver—may not reveal anything.

While Internet-powered genealogical research may be a wonder to behold, the only search results I had previously been garnering were those of a Thomas and Julia Sullivan of Colorado Springs. While the names sounded right, as we discovered, the maiden name for that Julia turned out to be no match for our subject.

It took that tedious route of cranking through several options on umpteen pages of results on both FamilySearch.org and Ancestry.com before I narrowed the search down to one possibility: a widowed Julia Sullivan in Denver’s 1900 census. Could this be our Julia? Without the name of a husband included in the entry, it was hard to tell. I couldn’t find any corresponding records—marriage, death, newspaper reports—to connect what I knew about our Julia with what could be discovered about this Julia.

There was one other hint, though: an oldest son named Thomas. I don’t want to make the mistake of assumption here, but I’d say that could qualify this census entry as a possible candidate, so I took the liberty of further examination. Here’s what I noticed.

First off, this Julia reported to the census enumerator that she was born in Indiana. That was a good sign. She also told the enumerator she was born in January, 1867. That was not a good sign; the 1870 census showed our Julia in her father’s household at the age of nine, not three.

On the other hand, this Julia—as well as ours—reported her parents were both born in Ireland. I’m willing to make some concessions here, while I await further corroboration from, well, who knows where at this point. There really isn’t much out there that I can access online so far.

The Sullivan household on Grant Avenue contained five residents in 1900: in addition to the widow, there was oldest son Thomas, aged eleven, followed closely by his brother Harry, then a four year gap in the birth sequence before the arrival of daughters Regina and Florence. Two year old Florence likely provides the delineating point for possible dates of death for her father Thomas—if, indeed, “widow” wasn’t the era’s euphemism for deadbeat dad.

What can be gleaned about the missing father was that he was born in “New Hamshire”—an entry serving double duty by not only reporting the senior Thomas’ origin, but heralding the warning that we are working with a dyslexic enumerator.

Why would I say dyslexic? Taking a look around the very page upon which the Sullivan household was listed, I noticed, for instance, that a neighbor worked as a “Sitchman” for the railroad. And, in a very careful hand, the enumerator made note that Julia’s own occupation was “Captialist.”

Captialist?

Okay, U. S. Census enumerator Frances A. Sigler may now posthumously entertain the claim that he (or she) made me actually look up the term. After all, maybe there was an occupation known as captialist (although my spell-checker doesn’t seem to think so).

So what woman at the dawn of a new century would display the pluck of not only choosing aught but demure “homemaker” as her occupation, but go so far as to claim she was a high rolling capitalist?

Apparently, more than one.

And more than one known as Julia Sullivan.

Life in early 1900s Denver, Colorado, must have indeed been gloriously colorful.

One More Line

In tracing the descendants from a recently-discovered additional branch of our Kelly line in Lafayette, Indiana, I still have one more child of Bridget Kelly Creahan to follow up on.

That is no small task.

First comes determining the name of this Creahan daughter’s husband, so that in their era of invisible women, I can still assure myself I’m tracing the right person.

We uncovered our first clue as to this daughter’s married name and whereabouts when I located her step-mother’s 1917 obituary. If you remember when I received the Monroe County Public Library’s email with the newspaper clipping regarding Anna Creahan, I discovered this missing daughter was referred to as “Mrs. Julia Sullivan” and that her residence was far removed from her native Lafayette, Indiana.

She is survived by the following step children: John Creahan, of this city; Mrs. Ella Fulk, of Bloomington; Mrs. Julia Sullivan, of Denver, and Mrs. John P. Quinlisk, of this city.

Trying to find a Julia Sullivan in Denver, Colorado, was not working for me—perhaps now you realize why I didn’t write about these Creahan children in birth order, eh? I did locate a Julia Sullivan, but she lived in Colorado Springs, not Denver. While the trip between the two cities today is an easy drive on the interstate—we’ve done that for years, flying in to visit Stevens relatives in the Springs—it would have been an arduous journey back in the time when Anna’s obituary was written. I doubted that was our Julia Sullivan.

Thankfully, while searching through all the material I could find on the other Creahan children, a simple line in Anna’s husband’s obituary made all the difference. Written at Michael Creahan’s passing nearly two years prior, it bridged just the right span of time to present Julia’s “proper” married name. Still listed as a resident of Denver, Julia was this time noted to be “Mrs. Thomas Sullivan.”

While a surname like Sullivan does not present an easy task when it comes to family history research, at least the ability to match the husband’s given name with that of his wife allows us a bit of an edge. But—I warn you—it still isn’t much.

From the front page of The Bloomington Evening World on Monday, May 17, 1915:

The death of Michael Creahan occurred at Lafayette Saturday caused by paralysis and a complication of diseases. The deceased was 88 years old and came to this country 68 years ago from Limerick, Ireland at the age of 20. He engaged in the contracting business most of his active life. All of his life in this country was spent in Lafayette with the exception of ten years during which he resided at New Orleans. His fatal illness was about of a month’s duration although he had been failing for some time. The children are Mrs. Ella Fulk of this city who was at his bedside at the time of his last moments, Mrs. Thomas Sullivan of Denver, Col., and Mrs. John Quinlish, of Lafayette. Lyman Fulk of this city, a grandson of the deceased is in Lafayette to attend the funeral which will be held at the St. Ann’s church tomorrow morning at nine o’clock, of which Mr. Creahan was a devoted member.