The Tumult and Trauma of Eva's Life

In a dispassionate summary of her final days, an attending physician wrote that Eva "... was admitted [to the hospital] because she was having severe abdominal pain... Her condition worsened. She expired on May 11, 1972."

Eva, my second great-grandmother, succumbed to ovarian cancer at the age of 86, ending a life marked by unrelenting adversity.

Eva Matilda Adaline Lamb Stevens Fagan

A Wayward Childhood

Born in Vermont in December 1885, she was baptized four months later as Eva Matilda Adaline in a Methodist Church across the border in Quebec, Canada. She was the eldest child of Francis and Phoebe (Jarvis) Lamb.

Eva Lamb's April 1886 Baptism - Methodist Church,
Windsor, Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada

When his daughter was born, Francis (Frank) Stephen Lamb was a brakeman for the railroad. The young family lived in Island Pond, Vermont, which was situated on the Grand Trunk Railway midway between Montreal and Portland, Maine.

In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, the Lamb family was enumerated in Denver, Colorado. Curiously, Frank used a modified version of his middle name as his surname (Stephen became Stephens). Family lore said Frank killed a man in Canada and changed his name to evade the law. No evidence has surfaced to corroborate the Canadian murder mystery. However, for the rest of his life, he used this alias.

1900 US Federal Census, excerpt of Frank Stephens family in Denver, Colorado

Frank and Phoebe had a tumultuous marriage. In June 1901, it was punctuated by a violent attack. Frank, suspecting an adulterous relationship, shot a gentleman friend of Phoebe's. The salacious scandal splashed their personal lives across Denver's headlines, left an innocent bystander clinging to life, sent Frank into hiding deep inside a Colorado mine shaft, and shattered the Lamb family (see Till Jealousy and Bullets Do Us Part).

Newspaper accounts included an interview with Eva. She tearfully told a reporter with the Denver Rocky Mountain News that, "Papa and mamma have been quarreling off and on for over two years."

A month after the violent attack, the Denver Post published an article: "Children Gone: Stephens Family Disintegrating at a Rate That Frightens Mother - Stephens Suspected." The article revealed that Eva was now "wayward" and had been sent to the Home for Incorrigible Girls.

Unto My Beloved Wife

Three years after her parents' calamitous quarrel, Eva married William John Stevens.

William, a young gold miner from Idaho Springs, Colorado, had grown up in a mining family. His father, Thomas, was born to a mining family in Cornwall, England, immigrated to Canada and eventually moved to the Rocky Mountains where he was killed in an 1886 mine explosion.

William and Eva (Lamb) Stevens
Photo from the collection of Stevens cousin Amy Goodman

William and Eva settled in Idaho Springs and had two children: Thurlow (born in 1907) and Bernice (born in 1910). But tragedy loomed. Just three months shy of their 12-year wedding anniversary, William died at the age of 36 from mitral insufficiency and Bright's Disease. The contributing causes of death were dropsy and miners disease.

Tragically, William must have known he was dying. In February 1916, one month before his untimely death, he drafted his will. With moving language, he bequeathed his estate and effects "unto my beloved wife, Eva A. Stevens, absolutely; and I appoint her sole executrix of this my will, and guardian of my infant children during their respective minorities."

Excerpt from William Stevens' February 1916 Last Will and Testament

At the age of 30, Eva was a widow with two young children to raise.

Hardships To The End

Eva's medical records indicated that she was afflicted with influenza soon after her husband's passing, perhaps an early victim of the Spanish flu pandemic that swept the world in 1918.

In about 1919, Eva married Thomas Fagan. By the enumeration of the 1920 U.S. Federal Census, the Fagans were living in Denver.

On November 1, 1930, Eva's daughter Bernice married Robert O'Connor. Less than five months later, she gave birth to a daughter named Beverly (my grandmother). Clearly, Bernice was already pregnant when she married Robert. Tragically, one week after the birth, Bernice passed away due to complications. She was only twenty years old.

Five days after Bernice's death, on April 1, 1931, Thomas and Eva Fagan petitioned to adopt Beverly as their own child. A court determined "that consent in writing by said Robert V. O'Connor, sole surviving parent of said child, has heretofore been given to the petitioners herein for the adoption of said child, Beverly Bernice O'Connor..." and a decree granted the adoption, changing Beverly's surname from O'Connor to Fagan.

In later life, Beverly shared that, during the Great Depression, she spent her early childhood living in a tent city while Thomas Fagan worked on the construction of Hoover Dam. She wrote in her journal that Eva "was very mean to Grandpa [Thomas] and I never knew why. I realized that Grandpa was drinking then the fights would start."

Thomas passed away in August 1950, once again leaving Eva a widow. She was 64 years old.

A decade later, in January 1961, her son Thurlow passed away from a sudden heart attack. Eva had outlived her last surviving child.

A Quiet Repose

In her final years, Eva lived alone in a mobile home in a Denver trailer park.

Eva pictured standing outside her mobile home

She was close with her granddaughter Beverly and her young family. She cooked and had a special knack for baking breads, especially wheat and rye. She busied herself gardening in the small yard in front of her trailer, and sewing clothes for her great-grandchildren who all remember her affectionately.

Eva in a rare film clip, 1957

One could mistake her serene golden years for a life happily lived, but, in reality, that facade belied its true churning turbulence.

Eva's childhood was fraught. She lost her first husband. She outlived her daughter and raised her granddaughter as her own child. She lived in poverty with an alcoholic husband and outlived him. Then, the final injury, she lived through the sudden death of her son - her last living child.

Indeed, Eva lived a life of tumult and trauma.

Perhaps that's why she refused to ever discuss the past with Beverly. Forgetting was a coping mechanism. Forgetting allowed Eva to move beyond the incessant heartaches and survive in a world that had dealt her an exceedingly heavy hand.

My Last Grandparent

Tick. Tick. Tick.

I could hear the pendulum of the grandfather clock methodically counting time.

I had been at her dining room table for an hour when I broke the silence.

“I should probably get going.”

Our conversation had ebbed and flowed and ebbed again as I thought of and then exhausted discussion topics. Grandma was comfortable with silence.

I had taken an Uber to her house after breakfast with a friend in downtown Denver. She answered the door and ushered me directly to a seat at the table just a few steps beyond the front entryway.

My readiness to leave hung in the air. Her eyes were momentarily pleading.

“Do you want to go get some lunch?” she asked.

Recognizing that she didn’t want me to go, I immediately said I did. Only after I agreed did I wonder how we would get there. At 87, could grandma still safely drive? I hadn’t been in a car with her in years, and she often talked of how she drove less. A fleeting moment of worry crossed my mind as I remembered those calls.

Quieting my apprehension, I lifted the locking mechanism on her gate and swung the wide chain link fence open. We climbed into her 2003 blue four-door Kia Rio, pulled out of the drive and accelerated down the street, paying modest attention to full stops at signs that requested them.

I had no idea of our destination. Our mutual company was my lone concern. Her breakneck driving seemed directed by muscle memory. My stomach dropped as we dipped under a low hanging train trestle, then sailed around two tight bends. The first pulled me closer to her in the driver’s seat and the second quickly pushed me back against the passenger door.

She turned into a Wendy’s parking lot, and slid into a handicap space. Opening her door, she slung her portable oxygen machine over her shoulder, and made a beeline for the restaurant with no attempt to lock the car. I followed suit, indulging in her rebel moment.

Before we reached the counter, a cashier and several employees in the kitchen warmly greeted her. “Hi, Beverly. How are you?”

“This is my grandson,” she answered by way of proclamation.

My offer to buy lunch was swiftly refused. Grandma tersely spelled out her order’s requirements: extra butter for the baked potato and a packet of ranch dressing, too.

Employees who knew her passed our table to make sure she had everything she needed. We ate with little conversation.

Back at the house, she let the dog out in the yard to do his business. She wandered into her garden with a line of oxygen tubing trailing her path. At her pre-fabricated pond, she told me that her great-grandson recently said there were fish in it. She dismissed his claim, and kicked the stone pavers that wrapped around the plastic pool. I peered down at the shallow murky water in time to see a flurry of coy scatter among the ripples.

I pulled her close to me and snapped a photo, part of our routine during my visits to Colorado. Now living on the east coast, my trips home were rare and time with family too brief. The few photographs we took over the years punctuated our more regular phone calls.

With Grandma Dyer May 24, 2018

When I finally left, my taxi pulled away and I glanced back to see her on the front porch watching. I had no inkling that would be the last time I would see her - my last living grandparent.

In August, my paternal grandmother Beverly passed away. With her, another generation of my family tree faded to history.

Beverly Dyer

Remembering Beverly Dyer

Born at home on March 21, 1931, Beverly was raised by her maternal grandmother, Eva Fagan, after her mother, Bernice, died when she was only six days old and her father, Robert, was unable to care for an infant. During the Great Depression, Beverly spent her early childhood living in a tent city while Eva’s husband, Thomas Fagan, worked on the construction of Hoover Dam.

She grew up on a farm near Bennett and, later, Westminster, Colorado where the Fagans grew wheat, corn, and raised pigs and cows. During evenings on the farm, Eva sewed Beverly’s clothes and Thomas would play the piano. Beverly learned to knit and crochet, and even made scarves for the servicemen during World War II.

Eva Fagan and granddaughter Beverly

She was a cowgirl who loved the freedom of riding her horse, Dusty, and often participated in rodeos in Westminster. Once, in a rare rebellious moment, she decided to play hooky and brazenly ride her horse in front of the school where she was promptly caught and reprimanded by the principal.

Although not a fan of school, she excelled in math and would play chess with her geometry teacher. At 16, she landed her first job at Denver’s historic The Oriental Theater where she sold and collected tickets earning 35 cents an hour.

She made a life-long career of teaching knitting, including at the May Department Store in downtown Denver, and later at the exclusive Daniels & Fisher Department Store located on 16th Street where the store’s landmark clock tower still stands today.

Beverly enjoyed the outdoors and loved to camp, fish, water-ski, and snowmobile. She had a cabin in Florissant, Colorado where she enjoyed spending time in the mountains knitting apparel for her family while watching the deer and elk herds.

Beverly was an avid gardener growing rose bushes, including one she still had from her grandmother. She also enjoyed the slot machines in Black Hawk, the camaraderie of friends early in the morning at McDonald’s, and quiet afternoons on her porch with the company of her dog, Little Bit.

Ancestors in Motion: Lights, Camera, Action!

I am a bit spoiled very fortunate to have photographs of nearly all 16 of my second great-grandparents. 

I say nearly all because I'm missing one. Just one. That's William B. Upton who lived until February 1904 - well into the age of photography.

But let's not dwell on his inability to sit for a portrait and provide me my sought-after Kodak moment.

Grandma's Casting Call

A couple recent discoveries have distracted me from the disappointment of no snapshot of my 2X Great-Grandpa Upton.

I've recently obtained digitized copies of several grainy film reels depicting various family outings over the past six decades. The silent movies include brief appearances by two of my second great-grandmothers. Yes, not one, but two distant ancestors! 

Minnie Lumpkins Barber - 2nd Great-Grandmother

The first leading lady is Eva (Lamb) Stevens Fagan. She's from my paternal line. She was born December 21, 1885 in Vermont to parents Francis and Phoebe (Jarvis) Lamb. She married my second great-grandfather William Stevens in 1904. He died in 1916 and she remarried several years later to Thomas Fagan.

In the footage, the camera pans to Eva and a baby (my paternal uncle). She reaches for a bottle and takes a dramatic thirst-quenching gulp. Based on the age of my uncle, I believe the film was recorded in about 1957 in Colorado's Rocky Mountains.

Eva (Lamb) Stevens Fagan - about 1957

The second starlet is Minnie (Hawks) Lumpkins Barber. She's from my maternal line. She was born April 21, 1881 in Kansas to parents Edmond and Iva (Haworth) Hawks. She married my second great-grandfather John Lumpkins in 1897. He died in 1910 and she remarried in 1914 to Joseph Barber.

In her big scene, Minnie struts across the yard - begrudgingly - towards the camera. The film quickly cuts to her birthday at a lake, perhaps Plainville lake or Webster reservoir in Kansas, where she is seen cutting a two-tiered birthday cake. I'm unsure of the exact year, but probably in the 1950s or 1960s.

Minnie (Hawks) Lumpkins Barber - 1950s or 1960s

A Thousand Words

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. But what's the value of a film? 

These are exceptionally short clips with no audio, yet they still give me an inkling for these women's personalities. Eva comes across as nurturing, graceful and thirsty. Minnie portrays a sense of humor that's never seen in her frowning photographs. 

The worth of these film clips cannot be quantified. They're immeasurably valuable to this family historian.

Do you have old family film reels? What's the most distant ancestor you have recorded in motion?

Till Jealousy And Bullets Do Us Part

Frank and Phoebe's relationship was not good. In fact, that is an understatement. It was wretched and, in the summer of 1901, on display for public fodder.

On Monday, June 3, 1901, Phoebe left her Denver home to do some shopping. She reported that she, "went down town on my bicycle. On Sixteenth street I met Ira Scott, with whom I was slightly acquainted, and he suggested that we take a ride in the direction of Riverside cemetery. I agreed. Our meeting was purely accidental, but I saw no harm in riding with a friend."¹

The following day, my third great-grandparents' dysfunctional marriage exploded onto the headlines of Denver's newspapers amidst a hail of bullets and jealousy.

Phoebe Jarvis (Gervais) was born in Kingsey Falls, Quebec on June 28, 1866. Francis Stephen Lamb was baptized in the town of Richmond, Quebec on April 28, 1859. They married in Sherbrooke, Quebec on April 23, 1885.

Francis Stephen Lamb and Phoebe Jarvis Marriage

They were enumerated in the 1900 US Federal census living in Denver, Colorado with their children. Oddly, Francis (now Frank) used a modified version of his middle name as his surname. Family lore said Frank Stephen Lamb killed a man in Canada, and fled to the United States and changed his surname to Stephens. No evidence has been found to corroborate the Canada murder story. Was the story conflated with the events of June 1901? If so, it still doesn't explain why the surname was different on the 1900 census - a year before the events of 1901.

A Tumultuous Marriage
Witness accounts illustrated a tumultuous marriage that finally came to a breaking point. The neighbors reported that, "domestic storms were a frequent occurrence."² Eva, their eldest child and my second great-grandmother, tearfully told a reporter that, "Papa and mamma have been quarreling off and on for over two years."³ The papers hinted at past violence, noting that, "A year ago, Mrs. Stephens fired at her husband with a shotgun and narrowly missed blowing his head off."⁴ Phoebe said Frank charged at her with a knife in that incident, and she fired in self defense.

Frank suspected his wife was having a relationship with Ira Scott after Frank Jr. told his father that Scott was coming to the family home and going for bike rides with Phoebe. On that fateful Monday, Frank burst into the house to find her preparing to go downtown for a bike ride.

The paper reported that he "flew into a rage and swore at his wife and tore her bicycle skirt in two. He said he was going to leave her and never return."⁵ Phoebe told him, "Well, leave and take everything you own with you."⁶ He did leave, taking his Winchester rifle with him and son Frank Jr.

After traveling a half mile, Frank sent his son back to the house to see what Phoebe was doing. Frank Jr. returned to his father and reported "that his mother was sewing up her skirt."⁷ Shortly thereafter, Phoebe unwittingly rode her bicycle past her husband and son. "There goes mamma," Frank Jr. alerted his father.⁸

The newspapers splashed several photos of Phoebe across the pages, so readers could glimpse the alleged adulteress. One picture even featured Phoebe in her riding skirt posed with her bicycle. None of the articles included photos of Frank.

Frank secretly followed after his wife leaving his son behind. Phoebe and Mr. Scott dismounted their bikes at Riverside Cemetery, passed a fisherman on the banks of the Platte River, and walked about the grounds. Phoebe relayed to police what happened next:

"We then walked on a dozen paces, when we saw a man crouched in the grass at some distance. Mr. Scott remarked that the man acted suspiciously, and just as he said this I recognized him as my husband. I was badly frightened and shrieked, 'My God, there comes my husband with a gun!' and then both Mr. Scott and I ran in opposite directions. My husband then aimed his gun at me, exclaiming, 'Yes, you ------: I've got you now!' and fired twice. When I turned to run I passed close by the fisherman, and one of the shots intended for me struck him somewhere and he fell over groaning, 'My God: they've killed me!' I stayed at the cemetery until the officers came, and rode to town with them."⁹

The fisherman was Matthew Brown who took a bullet to his lung. Initial reports predicted his wound was fatal, however, he survived the attack.

In Hiding
Frank fled the scene and went into hiding. His whereabouts were a mystery. In February 1906, nearly five years after that fateful day, the Denver Post published an obituary of Richard "Old Dick" Hoskins, a friend of Frank's who was a colorful character and early Colorado pioneer. The obituary finally shed light on what happened to Frank following the shooting.

"Stephens, under the impression that he would have to stand trial on the charge of murder, made his escape. For at least a month the Denver police were under the impression that he had committed suicide, so complete had been his disappearance.

But Stephens was at Idaho Springs, carefully concealed by "Old Dick" Hoskins. Realizing the danger his friend was in, Hoskins secreted him in a tunnel in one of his mines. For forty-five days Stephens never saw daylight. Faithfully every six hours "Old Dick" carried him sufficient food to keep him alive, and when the injured Brown finally recovered Hoskins turned Stephens loose."¹⁰

There's no account of Frank being charged or standing trial for the shooting. His seclusion apparently helped him evade justice. Sadly, the family's drama continued to make occasional headlines.

On July 22, 1901, the Denver Post published an article "Children Gone: Stephens Family Disintegrating at a Rate That Frightens Mother - Stephens Suspected." The article revealed that Eva - the eldest daughter and my direct ancestor - was now "wayward" and had been sent to the Home for Incorrigible Girls. Phoebe's son Ray was in a county hospital due to "spinal trouble." Daughter Myrtle reportedly took her four other siblings to visit their ailing brother and never returned. Phoebe believed that the children went to be with their father whose whereabouts were still unknown thanks to "Old Dick" Hoskins.

Divorce
In March 1904, Phoebe sued Frank for divorce. Her petition, again deemed newspaper-worthy and published in the Denver Post, told the salacious details of her violent relationship. She charged that, "he shot at her on two occasions, attacked her with an ax on another, drew a razor on her at still a later date, and has repeatedly abused, villified (sic.) and threatened her."¹¹ The petition seems to have failed because the final divorce decree was not granted until 1915.

The 1915 divorce complaint said Frank and Phoebe moved to Denver in 1888, had been separated since April 1901, and that her only means of income was from work as a waitress. Frank worked in a mine in Tolland, Colorado. In her complaint, Phoebe relayed another traumatic encounter.

"...in the month of about February, 1902, this plaintiff at the special instance and request of the defendant went to the town of Idaho Springs, Clear Creek County, to get the children of the parties hereto, and upon her arrival in said town of Idaho Springs, the defendant then stated and declared to this plaintiff that he sent for her solely to get her to come there and that he was then going to cut her throat and then and there exhibited a razor with which he declared that he would then kill and murder her and whereupon this plaintiff, fearing for the safety of her life, hastily departed from the house of the defendant and went to a nearby neighbor's..."

Making his own case to the public, Frank explained to the Denver Post in April 1915 that, "Hamilton Armstrong, who was chief of police at the time he shot the man [Brown], whose name, he says, is unknown to him, refused to hold him under arrest when he learned of the circumstances under which the shooting took place."¹² The insinuation was that the shooting was merited given the speculation that Phoebe was having an extramarital relationship. If true, one cannot help but wonder how Mr. Brown felt about that decision.

In October 1915, the divorce decree was finally approved. The domestic violence came to an end; miraculously, without anyone losing their life.

Aftermath
Phoebe moved to California where she remarried in May 1920 and lived - without ever discussing the violent tabloid past - until her passing in November 1945.

Three years after Phoebe remarried, Frank's life came to a violent end. While driving a truck near Mesa, Arizona on his way back to Colorado, Frank lost control of the vehicle. His son Albert was in a car ahead of him. After losing sight of his father, Albert turned around and retraced the roadway. Eventually, he found the wreck and, discovered "his father, with skull badly crushed, lying in a gulch where he had been thrown from the machine as it slid from the road..."¹³

How did the violence impact the family? How did the children reconcile their parents' quarrels that led the family to disintegrate? Perhaps the scandals are why Eva always sharply told my own grandmother that they were not to discuss the past. That is a heavy legacy that forcibly removed family history from its descendants.

Strangely, if it were not for the reporting of intrusive newspapers, this story would be an unknown and unimaginable piece of my own history. Human stories have both good and bad, and as a family historian I choose to embrace both.

Footnotes
¹ Jealousy Aimed Gun. (1901, June 04). Denver Rocky Mountain News, p. 2.
² Ibid., p 2.
³ Ibid., p 2.
⁴ His Aim Was Bad (1901, June 04). Denver Post, p. 5.
⁵ Ibid., p. 5.
⁶ Ibid., p. 5.
⁷ Ibid., p. 5.
⁸ Ibid., p. 5.
⁹ Jealousy Aimed Gun. (1901, June 04). Denver Rocky Mountain News, p. 2.
¹⁰ True Pioneer and Fighter Passes Away (1906, February 18). Denver Post, p. 24.
¹¹ Two Woeful Wives Want To Be Divorced. (1904, March 11). Denver Post, p. 13.
¹² Man Says Wife Tried to Kill Him in Answer to Divorce Suit. (1915, April 08). Denver Post, p. 8.
¹³ Colorado Man Dies in Accident. (1923, October 11). Mesa Tribune, p. 4.

52 Ancestors: #5 Robert O'Connor

Robert Vincent O'Connor was my great-grandfather; father of my paternal grandmother. He married Bernice Stevens in November 1930 when he was just 19 years old. At the wedding, Bernice was already pregnant with my grandmother. Sadly, she passed away a week after giving birth.

Robert was removed from my grandmother's life when Bernice's parents, Eva and Thomas Fagan, adopted my grandmother as their own daughter. Presumably they did this because he was still a kid and in no position to take care of a newborn.

In chatting with my grandmother, she had little interaction with him throughout her life. This made uncovering his past more challenging since so little was known about him.

As an amateur genealogist, Robert represents for me my first successful foray into tracking down descendants with letters out of the blue, Facebook, and online white pages.

I knew he remarried and had other children. Using a variety of means I was able to locate addresses for the children. I sent the same letter to each one, apologizing for writing them out of the blue. I asked what they could tell me about Robert. And then I waited.

An email came first, then phone calls, and from further correspondence I was able to learn stories that shed more light on his life. I even received the first photographs I'd ever seen of him.

I learned that he was born in Colorado, and that his parents, John Francis O'Connor and Jelina Williams, had divorced when he was 12 years old. He was married several times. He passed away in 1981 in California, and was buried in Riverside Cemetery with a plaque commemorating his military enlistment.

While my research on his life and his ancestry continues, Robert is my lesson in the value and power of reaching out beyond the internet and talking with people. The stories, the images, the pieces are out there waiting to be discovered and brought together.

52 Ancestors: #4 Bernice Myrtle Stevens O'Connor

My grandmother never knew her birth mother Bernice. Grandma told me befuddling stories about how her one-time uncle became her brother and grandparents became parents. The concept sounded to me like a twisted Shakespeare plot.

As I researched Bernice's life, I was struck by its brevity and, throughout, the youthfulness at the core of each hardship.

Bernice Myrtle Stevens, my great-grandmother, was the second child of William John Stevens and his wife Eva. She was born in July 1910 in Idaho Springs, Colorado.

In March 1916, her father passed away at the age of 36. Bernice was only five years old. Sometime before the 1920 Federal Census, her mother Eva remarried to Thomas Augustus Fagan. In that census, Bernice is listed as the 9 year-old step-child of Thomas along with her brother Thurlow. The family had moved from the mountains of Clear Creek County to Denver.

1920 Federal Census - Denver, Colorado

As early as 1927, when she was only 17, Bernice appears as a working girl in Denver city directories. Her occupation is given as phone operator. She appears again in the 1929 directory with the same position. I can imagine her connecting calls on a towering switchboard - a teenager mastering the new technology of the day.

City of Denver 1927 Directory

In the 1930 census, she's still living at home with her parents and brother. However, we learn that she's landed a new job. She's working as a sales lady at a candy store.

1930 Federal Census - Denver, Colorado

On November 1, 1930, Bernice married Robert V. O'Connor. Less than five months later, she gave birth to a daughter. Clearly, she was already pregnant when she married Robert. Tragically, one week after the birth, Bernice passed away due to complications. She was only twenty years old.

Shortly afterwards, Bernice's daughter, my grandmother, was adopted by Eva and Thomas Fagan. The once grandparents became parents, and Uncle Thurlow became a brother. I speculate that a formal adoption was initiated so Eva and Thomas Fagan could legally keep and raise their daughter's child.

After her passing, Thomas Fagan made a gravestone for Bernice. For years, Eva would visit the burial with my grandmother and hold emotional vigil. Once, after Eva had passed away, my grandmother returned to visit the grave. The original handmade marker was gone. When she inquired with the cemetery management, she was told that it didn't meet new restrictions on grave stones and was subsequently removed. The cemetery did not have up-to-date contact information for next of kin, so no family was notified. My grandmother promptly commissioned a new marker, which rests on Bernice's grave today and serves as commemoration of her short life.

52 Ancestors: #3 William John Stevens

William John Stevens, my second great-grandfather, was the fourth of five children born to Thomas K. Stevens and Susan Elizabeth Day.

According to his death certificate and the 1900 US Federal Census, William was born March 29, 1879 in New Foundland, Canada. I haven't had success in locating a birth record. FamilySearch boasts an extensive collection of vital records from the time period. Unfortunately, they're not indexed and I don't know in which parish or district he was born. I'm hopeful a birth record will soon surface from my time-intensive document trawling.

William John Stevens - February 1916 Will and Testament

William passed away quite young; he was only 36 years old. Tragically, it appears he knew he was dying. In February 1916, one month before his death, William drafted his will. It's moving to read how he bequeaths his estate and effects "unto my beloved wife, Eva A. Stevens, absolutely; and I appoint her sole executrix of this my will, and guardian of my infant children during their respective minorities."

The cause of death was a frightening (yet archaic) combination of mitral insufficiency and Bright's disease, both complicated by protracted "Dropsy miner's disease." William was buried in Idaho Springs in the cemetery where his father and older brother were already interred. His mother, Susan, outlived both her husband, William and two other children.

From his will and death certificate, I've learned that William operated a plumbing and drainage business (which he also left to his wife Eva). But the cause of death "Dropsy miner's disease" suggests that, like his father before him, he was also a miner for some time. I wonder if symptoms from miner's disease began to appear and prompted him to change his profession, but too late?

I can only speculate. Regardless of the cause, his untimely passing was tragic - leaving his widow to raise two young children, including my great-grandmother Bernice Stevens.

Sadly, the family's tragedy would continue. We'll pick that story up next week.