ROOTS: My personal search for family continues...
As most of you may or may not know, for twenty years I've been steadily researching both lines of my family tree. During that time, I've uncovered quite a bit of information on my paternal line. This week, I made another discovery which left me swimming with emotions ranging from joy to sadness to horror and back to sadness.
My father (Robert) McFadden, never knew his father (Harold McFadden) because as the story goes - he went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. The truth was, he was a musician who moonlighted a marijuana trafficker, running drugs from New York to Boston - where he was caught, arrested and thrown in Federal prison.
I'm sure it was a very shameful thing, something my grandmother never shared with my father and his brother - ever.
In any case, I knew from Harold's birth certificate that there had been another child born to his mother (Chappo) but that child was deceased. For a long time, I didn't know if the child was male or female.
But then, my friend and angel genealogist, Valerie, found a listing in a DC city directory listing Harold's parents (Isaac and Chappo McFadden) as well as an Isaac Jr.
And that's how I learned the name and sex of the deceased child.
The discovery opened up more questions: How, when and where did he die?
That information would remained hidden for a few more years.
A week or so ago, I was on Ancestry.com and stumbled upon an death entry for: Isaac jr. Mcfaddin in New Albany Indiana in 1917. The entry listed the child as seven years old.
I thought; could this be MY Isaac Jr????
I sent the info to Valerie -- she said it might possibly be the Isaac I've been searching for because New Albany, Indiana is right across the river from Louisville, KY where my grandfather (Harold) would eventually be born
Excited, I ordered the death certificate on Wednesday, while I was at JFK airport, waiting for my delayed flight.
THEN...Valerie found another clue -- an item in the PUBLIC PRESS about the death of a seven year old colored child on June 26th, 1917.
Luckily, the New Albany Library had the paper in their archives. I called the library the next day, ...and within 30 minutes, this appeared in my inbox:
I read it and stopped breathing. And then I reread it.
I thought about my great uncle, Isaac Jr....what a horrible way to die. I thought about his parents (my great-grandparents) who would welcome their second child (my grandfather, Harold) less than two months after burying their first child and I cried.
And then it struck me...Isaac McFadden Sr. died just two months after Harold was born...
Poor Chappo....to lose a child and her husband all in a five month period.....I can't even imagine the heartbreak....
I cried some more.
Isaac's death certificate arrived yesterday:
(Chappo's name is spelled wrong and she was born in Georgia. Isaac sr. was born in Texas...)
Bernice L. McFadden
My father (Robert) McFadden, never knew his father (Harold McFadden) because as the story goes - he went out for a pack of cigarettes and never came back. The truth was, he was a musician who moonlighted a marijuana trafficker, running drugs from New York to Boston - where he was caught, arrested and thrown in Federal prison.
I'm sure it was a very shameful thing, something my grandmother never shared with my father and his brother - ever.
In any case, I knew from Harold's birth certificate that there had been another child born to his mother (Chappo) but that child was deceased. For a long time, I didn't know if the child was male or female.
But then, my friend and angel genealogist, Valerie, found a listing in a DC city directory listing Harold's parents (Isaac and Chappo McFadden) as well as an Isaac Jr.
And that's how I learned the name and sex of the deceased child.
The discovery opened up more questions: How, when and where did he die?
That information would remained hidden for a few more years.
A week or so ago, I was on Ancestry.com and stumbled upon an death entry for: Isaac jr. Mcfaddin in New Albany Indiana in 1917. The entry listed the child as seven years old.
I thought; could this be MY Isaac Jr????
I sent the info to Valerie -- she said it might possibly be the Isaac I've been searching for because New Albany, Indiana is right across the river from Louisville, KY where my grandfather (Harold) would eventually be born
Excited, I ordered the death certificate on Wednesday, while I was at JFK airport, waiting for my delayed flight.
THEN...Valerie found another clue -- an item in the PUBLIC PRESS about the death of a seven year old colored child on June 26th, 1917.
Luckily, the New Albany Library had the paper in their archives. I called the library the next day, ...and within 30 minutes, this appeared in my inbox:
I read it and stopped breathing. And then I reread it.
I thought about my great uncle, Isaac Jr....what a horrible way to die. I thought about his parents (my great-grandparents) who would welcome their second child (my grandfather, Harold) less than two months after burying their first child and I cried.
And then it struck me...Isaac McFadden Sr. died just two months after Harold was born...
Poor Chappo....to lose a child and her husband all in a five month period.....I can't even imagine the heartbreak....
I cried some more.
Isaac's death certificate arrived yesterday:
(Chappo's name is spelled wrong and she was born in Georgia. Isaac sr. was born in Texas...)
Bernice L. McFadden
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Tragic. I hope the explosion caused an instantaneous death without suffering. I have a relative that was outside burning trash with other kids when someone threw in a can of WD 40, which exploded and burned him horribly. Fortunately, it spared his face, but his chest and arms were scarred for life. Discovering a tragedy like this one gives context to the survivors in your family. Glad you were able to answer your own questions. It must be hard.
I hope your research continues to flourish.