Ancestry.com reminded me tomorrow, May 4th, marks the 128th anniversary of the date when John William Phillips married Ida Velleta Reynolds. These are the parents of Elmer Radcliff, my maternal grandmother’s father.
It’s an odd thing to consider. Their marriage was very short lived. The family took the time to report the wedding in the paper, though it was a sort of shotgun wedding, Elmer being born just 6 months after the wedding. DNA shows John is Elmer’s bio dad though. John had blue eyes his draft card says. It takes two blue eyed genes to get blue eyes. I always wondered where in Mom’s DNA blue eyes were carried since she and both my grandparents were brown eyed. Now I know, it was Elmer’s dad.
Dates can give us a clue as to why the marriage didn’t endure. Ida remarried to Lloyd Radcliff in Oct 1899, their son John Lloyd was born just 6 months later in April 1900. Did she get pregnant by Lloyd while still married to John Phillips? Seems likely.
While Ida was remarried with a new baby in 1900, the census lists John as single, back living with his parents, now on Hannah Street in Bloomington.
The address is listed as 611 Hannah Street. This is now a parking lot next to what is currently Keller’s Iron Skillet.
When I was a child it was the Hannah Street Steak and Shake. I remember Mom taking Ken and I there as children. They would take your order at the car window, you turned your lights on to let them know you needed service. The tray attached to the window with hooks. The food was served on real plates, real glasses for the beverages. My grandmother actually had several plates and glasses that her foster children pillaged before I was born. I remember Mom getting very upset because she wanted spaghetti with just sauce, no meat or beans or cheese for Kenny and I and told the waitress she wanted plain spaghetti. She didn’t understand that meant just noodles. They brought plain noodles and she was mad. Her getting upset is probably the only reason I remember the occasion actually. But I digress…
John’s sister, also called Ida, lived at 601 Hannah Street after marrying Adolphe Roggy. This address no longer exists either, but presumably it was at the corner of Hannah and Oakland Avenue.
I never even knew this branch of the family existed until I joined ancestry.com. It’s odd to think about how they were right here my whole life, close family biologically. Elmer was a mean drunk my grandmother always told me. She truly hated him and she was not a hateful person. She blamed him for her mother’s early death, due to complications from giving birth to her 12th child at the age of 38, delivering sons in 1930, 1931, 1933 and dying delivering another in May of 35. I guess I have carried grandma’s resentment towards Elmer as well. Knowing now that he wasn’t a Radcliff by birth, that he was raised by a step father who called him his own, but knowing he wasn’t I have to wonder how that effected him. Was he ashamed of his origins? Was he ridiculed for it by his siblings? Did his step father treat him differently than his half siblings? I’ll never know I suppose.
All I’m left with are these tiny connections, like the fact my mother took my brother and I to eat at the Steak and Shake drive in where my 3x great grandfather’s house once stood and my blue eyes are in part thanks to a great grandfather I never knew existed.