In the 1800s, when a women died due to complications of childbirth, it wasn’t uncommon for the baby to die as well. That is what we thought happened to Baby Alice. Until, we found out she had actually survived.
Marriage and Pregnancy
William Thomas McCracken was a brother to my great-grandfather Andrew Johnson McCracken. Family called him “Uncle Bill.” He was born in 1862 in Lee County, Iowa. He was still a boy when the family moved to Crawford County, Kansas. And, he moved with them again to Bates County, Missouri when his mother was ill.
Sometime after his mother died, William T., who everyone in our family called “Uncle Bill,” moved back to Crawford County. On July 15, 1886, he married a lovely young lady named Louretta F. “Ettie” Johnston. On May 9th of the following year, Louretta gave birth.
Wondering
A week later (May 16), Louretta died. She was a well-liked young lady of the community. A church at Garfield (Does anyone know where this neighborhood was?) cancelled Sunday School that week because so many people from the area were going to her funeral in Farlington.
Her obituary said that she left a daughter who was seven days old. But, what happened to the baby?
Family didn’t mention the little baby girl. The newspaper articles about the family didn’t mention the baby. Additionally, she didn’t show up with her father in census or other records. Cousin Mitzi, who is a direct descendant of Uncle Bill and his second wife Mary “Mollie” Belle Jaynes, and I speculated about what had happened to that little baby.
We wondered if she had also died. But, thought it was odd that there was no gravestone for her. We thought maybe she died soon after her mother and she was buried in the same grave. However, it seemed odd that her mother’s grave stone didn’t at least say “& Baby.”
Another option was that she had been adopted or simply taken by another family to raise. However, we didn’t even have a name to search. If she was with another family, we had no idea if she would use the name McCracken or the other family’s name. All we knew was that the baby was a girl born on May 9, 1887.
So, we kept digging around. I am not sure exactly how we figured out the mystery. However, we found out that the baby girl had lived!
Alive & Well
Apparently, Louretta’s parents, James Madison and Elizabeth Ann (Sutton) Johnston, had taken the baby, who we found out was named Alice May, to raise. It was possible that Alice was named after Louretta’s brother Solomon’s wife or more likely after the daughter Solomon and his wife lost a few years earlier.
In 1900 (don’t you hate that the 1890 census was lost), she was living with her maternal grandparents in northeast Missouri – Marion County near Quincy, Illinois. It is unknown what had taken them to that location as they had been living in Kansas around that time that Alice was born. Prior to that they had lived in Indiana, where Louretta had been born.
Louretta and her parents had come to Crawford County, Kansas between 1882 and 1887. The reason was likely because James’ parents Herndon and Mary Ann (Jones) Johnston had lived there since 1870.
Unlike his parents, who apparently stayed in Crawford County until their deaths in 1904 and 1917, James moved on again.
Alice’s Marriage & Child
June 11, 1904, Alice married R. L. “Bob” Ator in Pawnee, Oklahoma. At the time, Bob, at least, was living in Yale, Oklahoma. He had been there at least since the founding of the current townsite and is believed to have been involved in building the first house in Yale.
However, when Alice and Bob’s daughter, Mary Francis, was born on Halloween in 1907, they were living near Coffeyville, Kansas likely in the Round Prairie neighborhood.
By 1910, Alice, Bob, and Mary were all living in Payne County, Oklahoma, which contains the town of Yale. Her Grandfather Johnston and one of her uncle’s families were living nearby. It is unclear why they had moved to Kansas for a period of time.
Life in Oklahoma
In 1910, Yale had grown to 685 people, which was quite substantial given that the town, although started in 1895, hadn’t moved to the current townsite until 1902. At that time, Alice’s husband appeared to be the primary contact at Grimes Market, which regularly advertised that they had ice available.
He seemed to move easily from job to job and knew a vast majority of the people in town. In 1912, he was painting and hanging wallpaper, which was likely in high demand due to the growth of the town. However, the next year oil was discovered in the area and he secured a job working there for $75 per month. The next year, he was working in plumbing and gas fitting. It seems he may have also still been working in the oil fields or with the search for more oil.
During this time, Alice had multiple instances where she was ill. Her illness has not been discovered. However, in May 1915, she returned from the hospital in Oklahoma City and was reportedly in much better health.
Alice’s Death
In early September 1915, Alice was in seemingly good health when she left for Dewey, Washington, Oklahoma for a visit. She had made the trip before as her aunt and uncle lived in Dewey, about 80-90 miles from Yale.
The trip went fine until September 7 when Alice developed a terrible pain in her side. A doctor was called and he did everything he could. However, she died the following day. The doctor concluded she had a “broken artery.”
The newspaper headline stated, “Old Citizen Succumbs.” She was 28.
Did She Ever See Her Father?
The question that remained open was “Did she ever know her real father?” A newspaper article from four years after her death answers that in part. Bob and daughter Mary stopped in Farlington to see Alice’s father. They were returning from Sheridan, Montana where they had moved after Alice’s death. It is also documented that when Alice was living near Coffeyville that she went to Farlington. The assumption would be that she went to see her father.
Afterward
Bob and Mary then moved to Richmond, Virginia. In 1926, at age 44, Bob committed suicide.
Mary lived to be 90 years of age, marrying twice. She divorced her first husband on the basis of adultery. She had no children.
Prompt: Unexpected
#52ancestors52weeks