There's always been some questions in our family history. We have a great-grandfather who disappeared, never to return. The story has been that my maternal great-grandmother Briita Frederiika Charlotta Pell (Lottie, as she was known) met him (William Charles Smith) at Oaks Park in Portland (where he was working as a carnie), then they married. When Lottie was 3 months pregnant with my Grandma (Ada Margaret Smith); WCS (as I'll refer to him from now on) took all their money out of the bank and left in the night never to return. It's always been a question what happened to him. This happened in 1914, exactly 100 years ago.
Lottie then returned to her parent's farm in eastern Oregon (she had been living and working in Portland) to give birth to my Grandma and raise her there. Eventually Lottie filed some sort of divorce for desertion and did remarry when my Grandma was about 6 or 7, but the new marriage never resulted in any children, so my Grandma remained an only child.
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| Great Grandma and Grandma |
Because of the time this happened, Lottie always wondered if WCS had gone back to England (where he was from) to fight in WWI. Maybe he was killed in the war. Because she was quite hurt by him leaving, neither she nor my Grandma ever looked into it too deep what may have become of him. But, now that they are both gone, my aunts and Mom have wondered and started looking into it. They did find some possible family members names before Grandma died, but had no way to find out where they lived (they only knew they were in Canada). Grandma thought it was interesting that she might have 2 half brothers, but didn't really want to know much more than that. She was 90+ at the time, and had lived her whole life without them. She passed away at 92 in 2008.
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| Kurtti siblings now- Beth, Ruth Anne, Susie, Hilkka (Jim's new wife), Jim, Becky, Julie Mary, Phebe |
Fast forward to now. My parents live in Alberta, Canada and one day they were having coffee and visiting with their neighbor, an Englishman (or it may have more likely been tea!) The neighbor had been mentioning that he was doing some genealogy on his wife's family, through his hometown of Aldershot, England. My Mom's ears perked up, as that had been where WCS was from (there is an army base there, apparently). She asked if he'd mind checking into what he could find out about our great-grandfather. He said that he'd love to.
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| Great Grandma cooking in the farm cook shack when Grandma was 5 |
He found out this: Yes, WCS had gone back to England serving in the Canadian Expeditionary Force (status: single). But, he had not died. Records show that he remarried and came back to Canada after the war with a new wife and young son. He settled in Vancouver, BC and had another son there. He had raised his family just a few hours away from where my Grandma lived her whole life. My aunts were able to then look up family members through Facebook and make connections with a step-grandson and a granddaughter, both living in Canada (the step-grandson only 45 minutes from my parents in Sylvan Lake, of all things). The granddaughter lives in BC and has been emailing my aunt as well as has pictures of him in the mail as I write, of her grandfather, who is also ours.
The granddaughter (Beverly is her name) said she never knew of us or Grandma, nor does she think her parents or grandmother (WCS's "new" wife) did. She was surprised, to say the least, but also intrigued. When she saw pictures of my Grandma, she said, "Well, we sure can't blame this one on the milkman, lol" She apparently saw some strong family resemblances. They also wondered how WCS kept that secret all those years. We also wonder all the other unknown details of their relationship which we'll never know, because everyone is now dead and gone.
My great-grandma burnt everything they had owned except his Bible and his boxing medal (which he did as a side job/hobby), which my uncle has now. My aunts have found their marriage license online and printed it off too, as the original was destroyed.
-William Charles Smith marries Briita Frederiika Charlotta Pell (m. July 4, 1914)
-Ada Margaret Smith (b. April 1, 1915) (marries Rafael Kurtti)
-James, Susan, Ruth Anne, Stephen, Mary, Rebecca, Elizabeth (Mom), Phebe, Sara, Julie
-WCS remarries Eliza
-Frederick Frances Smith (marries wife with previous children, thus step-children as mentioned above)
-Frederick Frances Smith (marries wife with previous children, thus step-children as mentioned above)
-William James (marries)
-Beverly (married with children)
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| Grandma as a teen |
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| Grandpa and Grandma as I remember them |
WCS and his two sons are all deceased now, so Beverly and her children are the only true other descendants. There were relatives left in England, but they are all deceased now too. Beverly has been to England and met them in the past though. My aunts and parents hope to meet her and visit her when they go through BC next time.
Grandma often said how amazed she was that what started out to be a bad situation eventually led to a very blessed family. They have 100+ descendants now, and the strong Christian faith is such a blessing to have been raised with. Grandpa & Grandma were such an example of a strong Christian marriage, and Grandma's parenting tidbits of wisdom have helped me immensely.
Fascinating stuff, if I do say so myself! (There may be details that I have wrong here, please correct me if I do, as I'm writing this from memory, which is rather distracted these days!)
