Monday Is for Mothers: Violet Cora (Porter) Cook, Her Son Calvin & Dallas Baby Camp - 1927

Violet is one of my paternal grandmother's sisters which makes her my great aunt. As far as I can tell she married a man named Roy or Ross Cook sometime between 1925, when she was listed in the Dallas City Directory and 1927 when Calvin was born in Wichita Falls, Texas.

As you can see in Calvin's birth certificate, his father's given name is listed as Roy (or possibly Ray).

[Ancestry.com. Texas, Birth Certificates, 1903-1932 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Texas Department of State Health Services. Texas Birth Certificates, 1903–1932. iArchives, Orem, Utah.]

Although Roy (or Ray) Cook isn't an uncommon name and there are several candidates for Calvin's father, I'm not prepared to claim that any of them are the right man.

Baby Calvin only lived for one month and 1 day before his death in Dallas. According to the death certificate he was born prematurely.

[Ancestry.com. Texas, Death Certificates, 1903-1982 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Texas Department of State Health Services. Texas Death Certificates, 1903–1982. Austin, Texas, USA.]

What caught my eye was the place of death, Dallas Baby Camp. So I decided to do a bit of research which led me to a 1947 newspaper clipping about its history.

[3 Jan 1947, Page 3 - The Courier-Gazette at Newspapers.com]

I also located this article published five years ago by the Dallas Morning News which gives a more comprehensive overview of the Baby Camp.

[Dallas News powered by the Dallas Morning News]

The next public record for Violet is the 1930 U.S. Census where she's a widow living in her mother's house (along with several of her sisters, including my grandmother and my father).

In the next census ten years later, Violet, now single, was still living with her mother and extended family. She died in 1944 and here's her death certificate which states that she died of encephalitis of 15 years duration which would put the onset of the disease back to 1929. Perhaps that's why in both the 1930 and 1940 federal enumerations no occupation is listed for Violet.

[Ancestry.com. Texas, Death Certificates, 1903-1982 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013. Original data: Texas Department of State Health Services. Texas Death Certificates, 1903–1982. Austin, Texas, USA.]

© 2018 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.

Family Friday: Who Is this Kid?

Although my notes say this is a portrait of my great grandfather Lewis Logan Slater (1855-1905) as a baby, I don't think it is. For one thing, Lewis Logan had light eyes and this little guy clearly doesn't. Also the photographer was in Wichita, Kansas, and the Slaters didn't leave Illinois until Lewis Logan was 28. And this photograph doesn't look like it dates from the mid-1850s.

[Courtesy of Olive Slater-Kennedy]

A search for a photographer in Wichita named Rawlins in Langdon's List of 19th & Early 20th Century Photographers brings up only two names, both at the same address in an 1890 city directory.

[Photographers: R. Langdon road.com]

Under the heading of Photograph Galleries in an 1889 Wichita city directory there's a listing for W. J. Rawlins.

[Directory of the City of Wichita, 1889. Source: Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.]

And there's only one Rawlins listed in the general pages of the same city directory.

[Directory of the City of Wichita, 1889. Source: Ancestry.com. U.S. City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.]

So I believe I've disposed of the idea that this photograph can possibly be a picture of my great grandfather and was likely taken around 1890. But I'm no nearer figuring out who he is.


© 2016 Copyright, Christine Manczuk, All Rights Reserved.