Last week I featured this photograph of an unidentified couple in Brookport, Massac County, Illinois.
I compared it to this photograph (below) in which Charlie was identified with his wife. I also included a link to the 2014 obituary online of the woman seen as Charles Newton LILLIE’s wife on his death record in 1984.
What my readers thought…
Several of my readers noticed differences in the women. Amy thought Fannie May Sides Lillie’s smaller nose and more delicate features in the obituary photo did not match the women above. Vera also said the nose looked totally wrong as noses get bigger with age, not smaller.
Is it an old wives’ tale that a person’s nose and ears continue to grow? I checked around and learned it’s a misconception that cartilage continues to grow as you age. The skin of the nose and ears starts to sag making them more prominent while cheeks cave in a bit. It’s more of an optical illusion we can blame on gravity.
More help came from Joe…
My cousin Joe Rooney sent a genealogy source that couldn’t be ignored. His Mom’s address book. He didn’t send me the actual book but took the time to type up all the addresses for me. Charles & Evelyn Lillie had a P.O. box number in Dallas, North Carolina. This is the town Charlie was living in when he died in 1984. To keep this in perspective, Joe’s mother Ruby died in 1981 so the address is pre-1981.
Who was Evelyn?
We know Fannie May SIDES was the name of Charles Newton LILLIE’s wife from his 1984 death transcript from FamilySearch’s collection North Carolina Deaths, 1931-1994.
Who was Evelyn seen in Ruby’s address book?
On Ancestry I found a marriage in the Kentucky, Marriage Index, 1973-1999 collection. Evelyn P. HILL married Charles N. LILLIE on 26 October 1974 in McCracken County, Kentucky. The bride was 60 and the groom 65. Both had been previously married and the marriages had ended with the death of a spouse. The number of previous marriages was not included.
I searched North Carolina Deaths, 1931-1994 for a death record for Evelyn and found she died on 8 June 1980. Her home address was the same as Charles’ in the 1984 death record at right. Her maiden name was PIERCE.
Evelyn and Charles were married from 1974 until her death in 1980. Charles married again, before his own death in 1984, to Fannie May SIDES.
The featured photo at top must be Charles Newton LILLIE (1908-1984) and Evelyn Loraine PIERCE (1914-1980).
How many times was Charles actually married?
I’m figuring at least four times as I found an early marriage for him in 1933 in Sikeston, Scott County, Missouri. I am confident this is Charles as he was living in Sikeston with his mother Geneva and his sisters Emma Roxie and Alberta Editha at the time of the 1930 census. Charles married Muriel Hurt on 1 July 1933. Although both were from Scott County, they obtained the license in Mississippi County and were married the same day by a Baptist minister in Sikeston.
I couldn’t find either of them in the 1940 census. Charles’ mother Geneva was in Detroit with her oldest married daughter.
On Missouri Digital Heritage I found a single young girl named Muriel Hurt born in 1915 and died in 1937. Was this the same girl who married Charles? Did the marriage not last? The marriage license was signed and returned but the names of their parents were not included.
Who was Mrs. Charles Lillie in 1966?
This leaves me with a void between 1933 and 1974 filled only by Mrs. Charles LILLIE seen in the photo from 1966. Was she the only unknown Mrs. Lillie? I’m beginning to think a newspaper subscription might be helpful.
Until next week, when I’ll be sharing a series of brick wall photographs.
More about this collection, how it came to be in my possession,
and links to previous posts in the series can be found here.
© 2017, copyright Cathy Meder-Dempsey. All rights reserved.
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Great work! And so Vera and I were right that it’s not the same woman. Usually I am terrible at these photo comparisons so I am glad I was right! 🙂
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Yep! Three different women. I think you and I are both getting better at this. Practice makes perfect, or almost. Thank you, Amy.
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Wow, they still look like the same woman to me! Duh.
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Maybe Charlie was attracted to women who looked alike.
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Or cloned them in his basement lab ;).
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LOL.
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Hope you can fill that void on Mrs. Charles Lillie.
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Thanks, Andy.
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Oh, I talked to the gentleman at the Williams Research Center in NOLA this week. I guess I was wrong about translating those journals and letters for the Saint Geme Plantation. They do not do translations. He said he would send me the first four pages of the first folder. I can go to NOLA this summer and take a flash drive to copy the entire collection for free. So I plan to do that. I received not just the first four pages today, but he sent me the first twelve. Yay! I have already put feelers out for someone around here to translate. I’ll let you know. I appreciate you!
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That’s great news that you can download the entire collection for free on a flash drive. Yay! for his sending you more than he promised. Is the handwriting legible?
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I’m not real sure it legible enough? It’s a little smeared and in French, lol. I will know better when I find someone who will translate. Thanks!
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Time to get my eyes tested…..
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LOL, Ann Marie. Thanks for reading.
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