Last week I wrote about Annie Clark Collins, who lived to be 99
years old. I closed that blog with information obtained from her
obituary that she "
was survived
by her two daughters, Velma Redmer and Rachel Starr."
I determined that I wanted to know more about these daughters, so
using the Oregon Death Index, found that Velma had lived until 2011
and Rachel had died in 1983. A friend at our Society collects
obituaries from some of our local papers and was able to supply me
with these two obits.
Velma's obituary was similar to what I expected: she had lived to
age 98, had 6 surviving children, 9 grandchildren and 19
great-grandchildren. Her parents were named as well as her husband
who had preceded her in death in 1993. Her sister Rachel was not
mentioned since she had died over twenty years before Velma.
But Rachel's obituary really surprised me. Her birth, death and
marriage information seemed fine. But her survivors were really not
what I expected. The husband, two sons and four grandchildren were
OK. However, it listed five brothers and five sisters, none of which
were Velma. The brothers listed were: Charlie Walter, Frank Walter,
Elden Walter, Clifton Walter, and Howard Hance. The sisters were:
Lyrl Pryor, Myrna Anderson, Adele Jones, Vi Van Tassel and Dottie
Vaughn. If Rachel was the daughter of William and Annie (Clark)
Collins, why would her brothers be named Walter or Hance? Did I have
the wrong person? She was born about the right year, 1922. She was
born in the right place, Seal Rock. She was raised in Cottage Grove.
Was she adopted or something? I needed to try to resolve this
question.
I tried a number of searches in various databases to see if I
could solve the problem. I checked Ancestry, Find A Grave, Roots Web,
Family Search, and Oregon State Archives. I tried many of the names
listed as brothers and sisters of Rachel. Finally on Find A Grave I
found a clue. I found that both Rachel and her husband Lloyd Starr
were on that site buried in Blachly Cemetery. I clicked on the side
bar for all the Starrs in that cemetery, including maiden names. One
of the entries was Viola B. (Starr) Walter. One of Lloyd's sisters
had married a Walter, so Viola's husband would have been a
brother-in-law. Now I checked further on the family trees on Ancestry
and found that she had been married to two men named Walter: first to
Charles where she is listed on the 1940 census living with her
parents and then about 1943 to Frank. Finally I found the 1930 census
for the correct Walter family living in Swantown, Washington. This
family included the following Walter children: Lyrl, Myrna, Opal A,
Charley, Frank, Violia, Elden and Clifton. This includes the four
Walter brothers named in the obituary and at least three of the
sisters, probably four. There are still a couple of names in the obit
I have not identified, but it is clear that most of those listed were
not siblings of Rachel, but those who were siblings of her
sister-in-law's husband.
This shows that obituaries cannot always be trusted to give
correct relationships.
