When I began researching my family history many years ago, several family stories were passed down to me. For example, I didn’t know anything about the wife of my great, great, great grandfather, Samuel Theodore Reese. The family story was that she ran away with another man when their three sons were very young. No one living even knew her name, because the family had never talked about her.
Census records showed that Samuel Reese, wife Virginia, and son Harry B. were living with J.R. Burgoyne in Brooke County, West Virginia in 1880.
The Register of Marriages for Brooke County, West Virginia revealed that Samuel Reese and Virginia Burgoyne were married on November 18, 1875 in Brooke County. Now, I had her name!
To my surprise, Samuel and Virginia were still married (and living together) twenty years later in the 1900 census for Jefferson County, Ohio. Living with them were two sons, Joshua (age 15) and Franklin (age 4). Harry B. (age 22) had already moved out and was living on his own. My parents have a photo of Samuel, Virginia and all three boys from about 1901.
After the 1900 census, Virginia, Joshua, and Franklin disappear from the records. Samuel is living in Canton, Stark County, Ohio in 1910 and 1920 and is listed as a widower in both of those census records. Samuel died in Summit County, Ohio in 1929. His obituary mention two sons, Joshua and Frank, living in Wheeling, WV.
This is where I ran into a brick wall. Between 1900 and 1910, Virginia either left Samuel or died. I was unable to find her in any records. I looked for her periodically for several years. Eventually, on one of these searches, I was tracing each of her siblings to see if Virginia was living with or near any family members after 1900. While looking for records for her sister, I found a newspaper article which mentioned her sister, Virginia Roberts.
With this new clue, I broke through the brick wall!
Mrs. V.E. Roberts, a widow, was living with her sons Joshua (25) and Franklin (12) in Wheeling City, West Virginia in 1910.
I have not found a second marriage record for Virginia, so I am not sure if she remarried, or just presented herself as a widow. She is listed in the Wheeling City Directories as Mrs. Virginia Roberts (wid. of Samuel) from 1904-1913. Joshua also appears in the city directories between 1907-1913. Frank appears in 1913.
Virginia died March 25, 1915 in Wheeling, Ohio County, WV. After her death, Joshua became an inmate of the Wheeling….. where he lived for the next 35 years until his death in ____ Franklin ….
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