Back in April I wrote about Sylvia Elizabeth (Freeman) Hollopeter, my great-grandmother. Because Sylvia died in 1943, seven years before my dad was born, he never knew her and, in his childhood, he thought of Edith, Bert’s second wife, as his grandma. Both widowed in the 1940s, Albert E. and Edith were married in 1951 in Ohio. I have no idea how they met, and I have a query in to my dad to ask, but I suspect they met in Florida. After Albert and Sylvia’s son Frank was killed in the Philippines during World War II, as compensation Albert was offered a small parcel of land in Dunedin, Florida, where he then spent twenty-three winters. Albert was living in Florida when the census was taken in 1950, about a year before he married Edith.
Edith G. Dellinger was born in 1885 in Ohio. In 1900, she was living with her parents, farmers in York Township, Sandusky County, Ohio, and her three siblings, Charles, Earl and Elva. At the age of twenty in 1905, she married Leon Hartzell, also an Ohio native. In 1910 they were living in Reed Township, Seneca County, Ohio, where Leon was farming. They had one child, a daughter, Mildred, who was living with them, still in Reed Township, in 1920. The 1930 census located Leon, Edith and Mildred still living in Reed Township, still farming. Leon and Edith lived in Reed Township in 1940, where Leon reported he was a “retired farmer”. Leon died in 1940. I am just now realizing that this could be where my dad’s middle name came from, in a family with no other Leons in it anywhere. At the same time Albert E. was living in Dunedin, Florida when the census was taken in 1950, Edith was living in Reed Township, Seneca County, Ohio, keeping house.
When Edith died in 1963, her obituary in the Norwalk Reflector reported, “She had been in failing health for the past year. …She was a member of the West Lodi Ladies Aid, the Zion Lutheran Church, and the Ladies Aid Society of the church.” While the obituary also states, “She married Albert Hollopeter in 1951,” it does not technically list him as a survivor or tell where he lived. I don’t know if there is a sinister meaning to this, or whether her daughter simply didn’t wish to emphasize the relationship because Albert was not her father. Dad remembers visiting Edith’s farm in Ohio with his family. He was thirteen years old when she died.
Earlier this month, I also wrote about Cora Annis (Byers) Glander, my great-grandmother. Because Cora died in 1951, just two months before my mom was born, she never knew her and, in her childhood, she thought of Irene, Bert’s second wife, as her grandma. (And yes, again, I had two great-grandfathers who went by “Bert” – Albert Eugene and John Albertus.) Both widowed early in the 1950s, Bert and Irene were married in 1954 in Michigan. In this case I do know how they met. Bert, devastated, depressed and sometimes suicidal over the death of his wife Cora, was taken by his daughters to Grand Rapids, Michigan to stay with his sister Della Miller. Della took him to a church revival, and there he met Irene.
Myrtle Irene Bassett was born in 1894 in Oakland County, Michigan. In 1900, she was living with her parents, Dr. Merritt and Mrs. Nancy Bassett and her siblings Nancy, Kitty and Blanche in Elba, Gratiot County, Michigan, where Irene was attending school. In 1910 they were living in Grand Rapids, Kent County, Michigan (with new little brother Leroy), and Irene was still in school. I haven’t yet been able to find the family in records of the 1920 census. The Grand Rapids City Directory listed Irene was a saleslady for E. J. Smitter & Sons in 1926. When the Bassett family were enumerated in 1930, they (and another little brother, Paul) were living in Paris Township, Kent County, Michigan, and Irene, aged 35 years, was working as an “office girl” in her father’s medical practice. During the 1930s, Irene continued working for E. J. Smitter & Sons, variously as a saleswoman, bookkeeper or clerk. Irene has not yet been found in the 1940 census, but in 1940 and through the rest of the 1940s she was still employed as a clerk with E. J. Smitter & Sons. She was fifty-one years old when she married William Travis in 1946 Michigan, and fifty-eight years old when William died in 1953. Even after her marriage to my great-grandfather, she continued working at least until 1960, when she was listed as the widow of John Glander and a saleswoman at E. J. Smitter & Sons. John Albertus Glander died in 1959, when Irene was sixty-five years old. Nothing daunted, she was married a third time in 1963 to Carroll John Spring, and thus my mom and her siblings called their step grandmother “Grandma Spring,” and continued to make trips to visit her until her death in 1974, at the age of eighty years. My mom, her siblings and cousins were recognized as Irene’s “nine step-grandchildren” in her obituary.
Mom still remembers coming to Grand Rapids to visit her grandma, how she always coiled her long white hair into two little buns at the back of her head, and how she had lots of flowers in the garden around her house on Francis Street. One time she and her sisters even flew in an airplane from Fort Wayne to Grand Rapids. Sometimes I make the short trip to Garfield Park Cemetery to leave flowers on Irene’s grave, even though I never met her myself. We did share time on planet Earth together, though, I was almost two years old when she died.
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