The sinking of the Lady Elgin changed the Cook family forever.Both family-wise with the loss of Jane and her daughter, Elizabeth Ann, and financially. The long awaited money from the sale of property in Canada was lost. There are many versions to be found both in print and online of what happened that night. So for this post I am going to let Jacob tell the story in his own words. As the anniversary approached in 1892, the Milwaukee Sentinel interviewed some of the remaining survivors, and sent an artist to capture their likeness to be published along with their memories. The article was published 4 Sep 1892.
Jacob was 51 years old the day he was interviewed on September 2nd, his story titled “An Appleton Man’s Escape. His Mother and Sister Were Both Lost–The Former’s Body Never Recovered.” reads:
“During the summer of 1860, while returning from an Eastern trip, my mother, my sister Libbie and I, together with twelve others, took passage on a propeller from Collingwood, Ont., to Milwaukee. We arrived near Milwaukee in the night, and it was so cloudy and dark that the captain thought it would not be safe to attempt to land so we continued on to Chicago, where we transferred to the first boat leaving for Milwaukee. That was the fated Lady Elgin, just about to return with more than 400 Milwaukee excursionists. Of the fifteen transferred only two reached Milwaukee. There was music and dancing on the boat, and it was about 1 o’clock in the morning when our party exchanged ‘good night’ and prepared to retire. Before I reached my room, the schooner and steamer collided with such force as to throw me off my feet. The schooner was bound for Chicago with a heavy cargo of lumber from further north, and it is the cause for much wonder among those acquainted with the circumstance, why it did not try to save the passengers of the Lady Elgin by at least throwing over some of the lumber. As it was, however, as soon as they could clear away from the wreck, they pushed on, with all possible speed, to Chicago, thinking, as the captain said they themselves had sustained serious injury. Be that as it may, my first impression, when the crash came, and we could see the bright lights and heavy jib-boom of the schooner looming up over us, was that the boat must have been struck by lightening.
We soon heard calls to throw down bedding and mattresses to stop the leak but it was found that they could do no good. The boat filled with water and settled rapidly. Heavy waves stuck us with terrific force, smashing the lamps, leaving us in total darkness. Calls for life-preservers were heard on all sides, and the few wooden ones that were thrown in were seized by many frantic hands. Mother and sister were each provided with one. Furniture tumbled about, people fell over and trampled upon each other, some prayed, some cried; some crazed with agony, called for their friends on shore to help them, while others, in despair, moaned that we were all lost. The creaking and grating of broken timers, the solemn sound of the bell calling for help, the sound of distress from the whistle, which continued as long as there was enough steam to make a noise; all added to the horror of the situation. Above this noise and confusion, was heard the voice of Capt. Wilson, telling us to get the women up on the hurricane deck. The deck was soon crowded. A few moments later a monster wave struck the boat, breaking the iron rods that sustained one of the heavy smoke stacks. A flash of lightning followed, lighting the scene for an instant, and we saw the smoke stack fall across the deck, crushing, and burying several women beneath it.
While mother and sister were sitting on the edge of the hurricane deck, strapped in their wooden preservers and waiting for the end, mother said that probably the boat was so near shore that it might not sink below the surface. Those were the last words I ever heard her speak for at thatinstant the boat went down, taking me with it. When I came up my hands touched something, which proved to be apiece of plank about eighteen inches wide by six feet in length. It was about 2 o’clock in the night when the boat went down and about 5 the next afternoon I drifted in near enough to the shore to reach the end of a pole held out to me by a man suspended by a rope in the hands of several others from the top of that high clay bank south of Racine. The sixth day after the Lady Elgin went down we found, but could not identify by a scar only, the body of my sister, but my mother we never saw again.”
I grew up hearing about the Cook Tragedy. The daythat the Lady Elgin sank, and my 3rd times great-grandmother Jane McGarvy/McGarvey Cook, drowned in Lake Michigan with $12,000 in gold pieces sewn into the hem of her dress. Her daughter perished with her, but her son miraculously survived.
This tragedy almost ruined the Cook family, as Jane was returning to Wisconsin from Canada with the money that they had planned to use to pay for the six farms that they had secured.
For most of my life, this is all that I knew about Jane. Other than what was included in a 1910 newspaper article by Lieut. Col. J. A. Watrous, which states: “…The father was utterly crushed. The great heart, strong intellect, the master mind, the loving, successful planner and leader, the pilot of the interesting family was no more; her going meant final disaster to the father, irreparable loss to nine surviving boys and girls…” [1]
Finally I was able to put a face to the name Jane McGarvy/McGarvey Cook. Jane was born 15 Dec 1810 [2][3]in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. She married William Palmer Cook on 28 Mar 1832 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. [4]They would have twelve children, including two sets of twins. I can only imagine!
This image of Jane is in the family archives of her 2nd great-granddaughter, through Jane’s daughter Loretta. Loretta and her twin, Watson Henry, were the 4th born to William and Jane. Well, to be truthful, the 4th and 5th born. It is believed that at the time that the family moved to Wisconsin in 1856, Loretta was stayed in Canada with her aunt, Jane’s sister, Elizabeth, and her husband, John Elliott.
In conversation with Loretta’s grand-daughter, we believe that this image of Jane was taken in 1860, during her last visit home. Jane and Elizabeth’s mother, Elizabeth Eaken McGarvy was still alive, and I can sympathize with her as a mother of children living miles away, how important it would be to have an image of her daughter. In fact there is also an image of Jane and Elizabeth that appears to have been taken at the same time.
There are many stories published in print, and on the web, about the Lady Elgin disaster, and also the Cook story. In another post I will add my view of what happened to the mix. But it all starts with looking Jane in the face. This woman who is said to have had a great heart, a strong intellect, was the master mind, the loving, successful planner and leader, and the pilot of the Cook family.
NOTES:
“Historical Sketch of the Cook Family,” The Marshfield News, 14 Apr 1910, Thursday, p. 1, col. 6; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 12 Jan 2018).
Frederick Douglas Hamilton Cook and Kathryn Ellen May (Somerville) Cook, Echoes from Andrew and Anna: A Historical/Genealogical Story of Andrew & Anna Christina (Palmer) Cook – The Gentle Cook Embrace, 2 volumes (Tillsonburg, Ontario, Canada: The Andrew Cook Genealogical Society, 1992), II: 958. NOTE: This source lists her birth year as being 1809. See Footnote #3 for further information.
Frederick Douglas Hamilton Cook and Kathryn Ellen May (Somerville) Cook, Echoes from Andrew and Anna: A Historical/Genealogical Story of Andrew & Anna Christina (Palmer) Cook – The Gentle Cook Embrace, 2 volumes (Tillsonburg, Ontario, Canada: The Andrew Cook Genealogical Society, 1992), II: 958. NOTE: This source lists her birth year as being 1809. See Footnote #3 for further information.
Ontario Archives of Ontario, Toronto, marriage certificate reel 2, vol 10, page 67 (1832), William Cook-Jane Mc Garvey; digital image,“District Marriage Registers, 1801-1858,”Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 26 Oct 2010).
I have always loved Frances Hodgson Burnett’s book The Secret Garden. I love the book, I loved the broadway play, (and was lucky enough to have seen the original broadway cast), and I also love the movie that was released in 1993. There is a dream scene in the movie, where a young child is walking through huge fronds of greenery. I have to admit this is not a favorite part of the movie for me, I can just feel the sadness that this child feels as it searches for its mother.
My great-grandfather was a major gardener, the gardens on his property in Wausau, Marathon, Wisconsin were massive. I just wish that there had been color photos back in the early 1900s, so that I could really seen them in all of their splendor. As a side note, he also raised prize winning chickens, had sheep and other animals on his little “farm” in the city. But that is for another post.
As I was adding a few photos to my Legacy Family Tree database this morning, I came across this image of my grandmother, Anola Josephine Cook, age 15 months. She was photographed in September 1911 walking through massive fronds of greenery in her father’s garden. I couldn’t help but be taken to the scene in The Secret Garden. I can be pretty confident though that she was walking straight towards her father who was holding camera. Knowing he would be right there to pick her up if she fell down.
As I continue to go through files, I continue to be surprised by what I am finding hiding inside of them. Interesting things, printed in the early days of information being uploaded to the internet. My recent find was a printout stating that my great-grandfather had, at the age of 40, enlisted in the newly formed Wisconsin State Guard on August 23, 1917.
After a little bit of internet and newspaper searching, I learned that on July 9, 1917, an announcement was made in Madison, that a state guard would be formed to take the place of the Wisconsin National Guard which would leave the state in August of 1917. This new guard would be comprised of men too old or too young for the WWI Draft. It did not exempt the men from the draft once they became of age, or the draft reached out to men age 31 to 45, which it did with the third draft registration, on September 12, 1918.1 Lewis H. Cook, County Clerk of Marathon County appeared that day at the local draft board in the 1st Ward of the city of Wausau, to register for the draft. He was noted to be of Medium height, Medium build, with blue eyes and light hair.
The new organization was to serve as a Home Guard Unit, and would be called upon in emergencies such as floods, large conflagrations, riots, etc. or whenever the police force of the community needed to keep order, or to meet a situation.2
By this time Wausau had already organized. Following the declaration of war with Germany on April 6, 1917, the men of Wausau came together and organized as the Citizens’ Training camp of Wausau. The purpose was to drill “young men who might be eligible as soldiers of the U.S. army, to foster patriotism and to do police duty if any emergency demanded.” A petition was created and circulated on April 9th, just three days after the declaration of war. It was “quietly signed in two days.” The following Sunday they met, elected a board of governors, and the Citzens’ Training Camp “soon came into being.” “We were a motley array of citizens that met for the first drills, and we knew little about drill work. But all were fired with a zeal to be of service in any small way, that might help our country to bring to a successful issue the mighty tragedy into which we had all been thrown.” “Out of the 293 that have entered the ranks, eighty-one enlisted in the regular army.” Many immediately being “taken from the ranks to become corporals and sergeants as soon as it was learned that they had had military training.” The men of the Citizens’ Training Camp ranged in age from nineteen to fifty-five years of age, and they drilled nights and Sundays.3
Lewis Cook, 1918 Camp Douglas ~ No. 168 in the Cook Photo Book
On August 23, 1917, when Colonel H. M. Seaman, inspector general of the Wisconsin State Guard, arrived in Wausau, enough men from this original training camp enlisted in the new guard to form Company C, 10th Infantry. The Wausau company was the 5th in the state following Milwaukee, Green Bay, Stevens Point and North Milwaukee.4 Fifty-two men signed the role that night,5 and formed a line to respond to roll call. The roll call for forty-six of the fifty-two men were listed in the Wausau Daily Record-Herald published August 24, 1917,6 but unfortunately my great-grandfather’s name was not one of the forty-six. The full roster was published by the coordinator of the Marathon County Rootsweb site, but as of today, Rootsweb is down so I cannot access the information that I printed September 13, 2006. The names included on the webpage were compiled from the actual service records for the 10th Separate Company, Company C, 10th Wisconsin State Guard. These papers (at least at that time) were located at the Marathon County Historical Society. The entry for my great-grandfather states:
Name: Cook, Lewis H. ~ Born: Gravesville, Calumet County, WI, ~ Age at enlistment: 40y 9m ~ Date of Enlistment: 8/23/17 ~ Married ~ Occupation: County Clerk.7
Unlike any other state guard, the companies of Wisconsin were trained, and equipped by the state, rather than rely on the War Department for the donation of surplus equipment. The companies were paid an allowance for Armory rent, and an allowance for the upkeep of clothing and for general expense. They were issued uniforms that were different in appearance than those worn by the Wisconsin National Guard and the United States Army. The men were armed with arms issued to the State by the War Department, specifically for this purpose.8
It was determined that all guards attend a week long training camp the summer of 1918. The Wisconsin State Guards met at Camp Douglas, Juneau County, for week long camps during the weeks between July 6 to August 2, 1918. It was a strenuous week of exercises for the infantry field camp. The Wausau guard, part of the Tenth Regiment, with headquarters in Eau Claire, and which included the guards of Wausau, Superior, Menomonie, Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, Ladysmith, Neillsville, Mauston and LaCrosse, attended camp during the week of July 27. The schedule for each day kept the guard busy from 6:00 a.m. with First Call, till Taps at 10:30 p.m. Each regiment was required to do guard duty, and spend one morning on the rifle range.9 The members of Company C, First Battalion, and the Tenth Infantry band arrived home in Wausau on August 2, 1918, riding the 4:45 p.m. Northwestern train. They then marched to their quarters at the Y.M.C.A. where they disbanded. The band went on to their headquarters at the Armory, where they also disbanded.
The Wausau guard was honored with a historic guard mount that reads: “Special orders, No. 6, General King, Wisconsin’s foremost soldier, has been pleased to make the following memorandum in a note to the commanding officer, which is published for the information of all concerned: Company C at guard mounting eight a.m. scored next to perfect. It was the finest performance clear through to the posting of the first relief I have ever seen on these grounds. So far as I can recollect and I can recollect pretty well My yearly book will show. The words of commendation from the general are the highest compliment a company can receive. The splendid exhibition was made possible by the earnest hard work done by Captain Becker and C company at the home station and in this camp. No further comment is necessary. By order of Col. Cousins.” Governor E. L. Phillip had this to say about the men of the Wisconsin State Guard at the conclusion of the camps: “These men are not toy soldiers. They come from the rank of the busy men and come here for military training and have made good use of every minute during their stay. There probably is no better training ground than Camp Douglas, dry and healthful, splendid water, in fact just the place to give men real pep.”10
A second camp was held the following year, again in July. Company C maintained its position as one of the leading companies of the regiment during this second week of hard work, and hard play.
The Wisconsin State Guard as a whole was called out 3 times. The first was September 16-18, 1918 in Clark County to assist in the search for draft dodgers. The second time was August 20-24, 1919 as guards during the Cudahy riots. The final time they were called was September 9-12, 1919 when troops were assembled in the armory at Manitowoc as strike riots at Two Rivers started to escalate, but they were not used.
On July 11, 1919, it was reported that Governor E. L. Philipp had ordered for the reorganization of the Wisconsin National Guard. Included in the order was the offer to “Every officer of Wisconsin state guard who passes the examination required by the national defense act and will take the oath of service prescribed by the act, will, on approval by the war department, be also commissioned in Wisconsin National guard reserve.”11
In March 1920 the order was given for Company C, Wisconsin State Guard to be mustered out of service. The company commanders were directed to issue honorable discharges to all men of their commands. The order stated: “The state military authorities desire to express appreciation of the loyal, patriotic and efficient service rendered by the officers and enlisted men of the Wisconsin State Guard during the period of emergency.”12
On the night of April 19, 1920, the men of the Citizens’ Training Camp, and later the Wisconsin State Guard, gathered for a celebratory dinner, to reminisce, and to honor the work that they had done. Following the suggestion to meet occasionally, it was decided to meet annually as the Company C Club. A. P. Woodson stated that “he had formed many friendships as a member of the unit that he would not have made otherwise.”
Henry C. Smith, made the closing remarks: “The life of Company C draws on to its close. If we have helped in any little way and in a workmanlike manner the duties that have been assigned us, we have been fully recompensed. Let us cherish the memories of these three years we have had together, and resolve to profit by the discipline we have received during these dark days of the world’s most tragic period.”
“At the close of the singing of ‘America’ the party ended and the members of the company departed.”13
SourcesSaveSave
“Wisconsin’s Military History,” database, Wisconsin State Guard (www.b-1-105-us/history/wsg/htm\#tables : accessed 10 Feb 2018).↩︎
“Wisconsin Guard Is Formed Here,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 24 Aug 1917, Friday Evening, p. 1, col. 3, digital images, Newspapers.com(www.newspapers.com : accessed 10 Feb 2018). ↩︎
“Company C Club To Meet Yearly,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 20 Apr 1920, Tuesday, p. 1, col. 7, digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 14 Feb 2018).↩︎
Wisconsin. Adjutant General’s Office, Biennial Report of the Adjutant General, State of Wisconsin (University of Minnesota, 1910, digital images, Google Books (www.books.google.com, digitized 29 Mar 2011 : accessed 13 Feb 2018).↩︎
“Solid Week of Military Life,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 25 Jun 1918, Tuesday Evening, p. 1, col. 5, digital images, Newspapers.com(www.newspapers.com : accessed 12 Feb 2018).↩︎
“Band and Guards Come Home Today.” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 2 Aug 1918, Friday Evening, p. 1, col. 7, digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 13 Feb 2018).↩︎
“Issues Orders for Re-Organization,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 11 Jul 1919, Friday Evening, p. 1, col. 1, digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 13 Feb 2018).↩︎
“Company C to be Mustered Out,” Wausau Daily Record-Herald, 10 Mar 1920, Wednesday, p. 1, col. 6, digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 14 Feb 2018).↩︎
“Beautiful Riverside! Silent city of the dead wrapped in the somber mantel of dreamy autumn, how sweet seems the slumber of those dear to our hearts who now live but in our memories, and rest enshrinek in those boundaries. In straying through its silent pathways, stopping here and there to study the name, date of birth and death of someone, who in years past bustled near us on the busy mart of life, what sermon these slabs preach to us, on the uselessness of much we crave for, or the blindness that hides from our vision so much that we should see in order to reach this final goal where life casts aside the burdens of its toil,” October 8, 1891.[1]
I love newspapers. What I love about newspapers is the stories that I find. Not only as they pertain to my family, but to the communities in which they lived. I am in the process of taking my research paperless. Anything that is easily replaced or available online is being digitally attached to my Legacy Family Tree database. In my purge, I have re-discovered two articles that were editorials aimed at the trustees of Riverside Cemetery. The cemetery is located in Appleton, Outagamie, Wisconsin.
Here is a brief glimpse of the history of Riverside Cemetery. The cemetery was founded in 1870 by Joseph E. Harriman, but it wasn’t until 1872 that the Appleton Cemetery Association was formed to take charge and make it a reality. The need for a new cemetery was great, as the original city cemetery founded in 1850 was located in downtown Appleton, sat on poor soil, and allowed no room for expansion. This cemetery was located on what is now known as the Post-Crescent block. In those days Franklin Street was known as Fisk Street, and Washington Street was known as Edwards, but the block is still recognizable.
Appleton City Cemetery
The land today
On August 24, 1872, the new Cemetery Association took charge of the twenty acres of land on the Fox River that had been set aside for a new cemetery. (see the deed from Volume 30, page 171 at Family Search. https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:33S7-95N6-9VZZ?i=181&wc=M6LQ-SM9%3A43295501%2C44209601&cc=1463639.) On November 25, 1872, Rev. T. W. Orbison, a pioneer and Methodist minister, was the first to be interred. In 1877 a Greenhouse was constructed on cemetery property, and in 1905 was moved into a new building across the street. The location was later known as Riverside Florist, which closed in 2015.
In October 1891, there was more on the mind of the Appleton Weekly Post’s editor, E. P. Humphrey, than the beautiful grounds of the cemetery. While he had been ‘rambling through our beautiful city of the dead,” “admiring its sylvan beauty,” it “occurred” to him that there was an important piece that was missing from the cemetery, “a vault capable of offering accommodation for the temporary keeping of the dead.” He felt that this was much needed as a “place to hold the dead while it was impossible to excavate a grave in the middle of winter, or if the family wished to wait till family living far away could return home.” Or in “instances when doubt is entertained as to whether life is really extinct in persons we regard as dead. What a boon to place such in a vault until the living are absolutely positive that their loved ones are not interred alive.” He goes on to tell this story, which I feel is what touched his heart, and was the reason for writing this editorial: “But a short time ago it happened that a child in this city died of diphtheria at 11 o’clock in the morning and at 2 o’clock the same day that child was buried. No matter how contagious a disease may be, there is not a mother on the face of the earth but would object to such heartless, inhuman proceedings. It is against human nature, and could have been avoided if there had been a vault to receive the body of that mother’s darling and the funeral taken place, as is the custom, three days after death.” While he implored, “have the trustees of the Riverside Cemetery Association ever thought of this matter? Is it not about time some thing in this line was undertaken?” it was not until 1910 that the large stone entrance to the cemetery was constructed. The entrance includes a chapel, office space and winter storage for bodies, from the time when it was impossible to excavate a gravesite in winter.[2]
A year later, on September 10, 1892, one of the Ryan brothers, James or Samuel, editors and proprietors of The Crescent, was enjoying a walk through the cemetery, and felt compelled to write an editorial about what he had experienced. He reported that “the walks and drives are free from every thing that would be unpleasant, the grass is clean shaven and the trees and shrubs neatly trimmed, the mounds of flowers look beautiful, and the graves kept in good condition.” In the north part of the cemetery “tile under-draining” had been installed, thus allowing for “many new and cheaper lots” to be sold at prices ranging from $25 to $35. The greenhouse that had been erected in 1877 was yielding a “handsome income.” His one complaint, and the reason for the editorial, was to ask the common council to “contract with the Riverside board of trustees to remove all the remains from the old cemetery, and get rid of that blot upon the fair fame of this city.”He concluded his editorial with this statement, “All the people will rejoice over its accomplishment.”[3] According to the History page of the cemetery, www.riversidecemeteryappleton.com, all of the bodies from the original city cemetery were to have been moved by 1884, but unfortunately bones were still being discovered as late as the 1930s.
Riverside Cemetery has grown to nearly ninety acres of beautiful landscape overlooking the Fox River. It not only shelters our city’s dead, but has always been a welcome place for a Sunday stroll. The large trees have been labeled, and on any given day, you can find students wandering the paths, looking for leaves to finish a school or scout project.
When we visit, we start at the large stone entrance, and make our way east along the river, strolling past a Cook cousin, Leslie Lloyd and his wife, Winnefred Cook. Then we follow the path north to the main lane and into St. Joseph Cemetery, where many family members are buried. St. Joseph Cemetery was founded in 1878, and has 25 acres of developed land, and 12 acres of undeveloped land. With over 127 acres of shaded paths overlooking the river to meander through, it is the perfect place to spend an afternoon. Among “those dear to our hearts who now live but in our memories, and rest enshrinek in those boundaries.”
Sources:
“Beautiful Riverside,” (Appleton) Appleton Weekly Post, 8 Oct 1891, Thursday, p. 1, col. 4.
ibid.
“Riverside Cemetery,” (Appleton) The Crescent, 10 Sep 1892, p. 2, col. 3.
I can’t seem to get Martha Wheeler Paine Cook Johnston and her children out of my mind.
I made the comment in my post,A Child Lost, that “I have not been able to find a newspaper article that states the details for [8 year old Henry Hosford Cook’s] funeral. It could have been large and public, or small and private. We may never know, but if I were to bet, I would bet it was small and private.” This past week I was able to find a funeral notice for him, and feelings of sadness rushed back in.
Martha and Hosford had been wintering in Miami, Florida, with Martha’s sister, Lucy, and her family. After the drowning death of her son, Martha, accompanied by her sister and the body of Hosford, began the journey by train up to Oshkosh, Winnebago Co., Wisconsin. The newspaper states that Edward W. Paine met his daughters and grandson in Chicago, and they traveled together on to Oshkosh. In Chicago they were joined by Edward’s sister, Mrs. Edward Wickwire, and her daughter, Martha. I can only imagine the moment when Martha, needing to stay calm, collected, and sane, saw her father at the train station. The relief of being able, in a sense, to hand it all over to him, and no longer have to be so strong, must have been great. She was 32 years old when her son passed away that February in 1927.
The train arrived in Oshkosh, Saturday, February 20, 1927, and a private funeral was held the next day at the Paine family home on Algoma Blvd. Henry Hosford Cook is buried in the Paine Mausoleum at Riverside Cemetery, Oshkosh, Wisconsin. [1]
Martha married Drew Johnston in 1930, and on August 1, 1935, Martha gave birth to a little girl they named Ardra Paine Johnston. Ardra passed away on January 18, 1936 in Olmsted Co., Minnesota. As I stated in my post She Was Hopeful Till the End, Part 2, I had ordered her death certificate from Minnesota. It arrived Monday. Looking at the certificate, I realized that t,his beautiful little girl had been sick a long time. As a three month old baby she had developed an “abscess of right forearm.” This then was added to by an “abscess of the brain.” Martha and Drew took her to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester just before Christmas, and she was first seen by her doctor on December 17, 1935. She most likely spent her first, and only, Christmas in St. Mary’s Hospital, her parents by her side. What should have been a joyous Christmas, was instead filled with fear for the life of their baby girl. Sadly, she passed away at 7:10 p.m., January 18, 1936. How hard it must have been for her father to give the needed information for the Certificate of Death. How awful for Martha, as she must have had moments of remembering a death nine years before. They made the decision to have the baby cremated, and the certificate states that she was “Removed to Minneapolis, Minn.” Another puzzle to work through. Was she buried there? Or was she sent home to be buried in the Johnston plot in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania?
UPDATE: Ardra was laid to rest in the Paine Mausoleum in Riverside Cemetery, Oshkosh. She is resting next to her mother, and brother, Henry Hosford.
Included with the certificate of death was a statement from one of her doctors. He states: “We do not know the cause of this abscess of the right forearm; possibly it was an ordinary skin infection. No particular trauma apparently was involved. The organism concerned was the streptococcus hemolyticus.” [2]
As a mother, my heart breaks for Martha. But her strength shines through again, as she moved forward with her life. She appears to have taken great delight in her step-children, and grandchildren, as there are records of many visits to Florida, and vacations to Europe. And I am sure that there was much delight in the news that a much awaited grandchild was a girl, and that her parents named her Ardra.
SOURCES:
“To Be In Private,” The Daily Northwestern, 19 Feb 1927, p. 14, col. 1-2; digital images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : accessed 7 Jul 2016).
Olmsted County, Minnesota, death certificate no. 10711, Registration book: 32 (1936), Ardra Paine Johnston; Minnesota Historical Society, St. Paul.
The sinking of the Lady Elgin changed the Cook family forever. Both family-wise with the loss of Jane and her daughter, Elizabeth Ann, and financially. The long awaited money from the sale of property in Canada was lost. There are many versions to be found both in print and online of what happened that night. So for this post I am going to let Jacob tell the story in his own words. As the anniversary approached in 1892, the Milwaukee Sentinel interviewed some of the remaining survivors, and sent an artist to capture their likeness to be published along with their memories. The article was published 4 Sep 1892.
