Oscar M. Vanness

Oscar M. Vanness was the older brother of my 4x Great Grandfather, Lewis Vanness Sr. He was born 1834 in New Jersey to Euphemia Dey and Aaron Vanness. The Vanness family (including Aaron, Euphemia, Oscar, Lewis, Anna, and boarder Jabez Tucker) settled in Afton, Dekalb, Illinois.

On September 22, 1859 he married Samantha A. Duffey (b.abt 1840, she may have been the daughter of George & Sarah Duffey) in Dekalb County, Illinois. On the 1860 Census he was listed twice; once with his parents and again with Samantha and their son William H. Vanness who was born in May or June of that year. Oscar worked as a carpenter. I couldn’t find any further records on Samantha or William beyond that, but I assume that they died or that Oscar and Samantha divorced by 1870…

Oscar enlisted as a Private in the 42nd Illinois Infantry, Company K on August 10, 1861 in Chicago, Illinois. He was discharged December 20, 1862 in Atlanta, Georgia due to re-enlisting with the 16th United States Infantry, Co. D as a Sergeant and resumed his service on December 24, 1862. He was honorably discharged August 10, 1864 near Atlanta due to his term ending.

Once out of the service, Oscar married a woman by the name of Ann Ellis who was born in Wales. In 1870, they were living in Newton, Jasper, Iowa along with their two daughters; Helen (3), and Mabel (2) and Oscar still worked as a carpenter there. By 1878, Oscar and Ann had divorced and she was remarried to Martin L. Phillips on November 9, 1878 in Pottawattamie County, Iowa. Ann and her new husband, along with Helen Vanness were living in Chicago, Cook, Illinois in 1880. Mabel isn’t listed with them – she may have passed away but I was unable to locate Oscar on the 1880 Census, so I cannot conclude anything.

At 61, on March 20, 1894 Oscar was admitted to the Illinois Soldier and Sailors Home. He listed Lewis Vanness, his brother, of Shabbonna Grove, Dekalb County, Illinois as his nearest living relative. Oscar was 5’8″, had a light complexion, dark hair, and blue eyes. He was a carriage-maker living in Chicago, Illinois before coming to The Solders and Sailors Home. Curiously, he also wrote that he was a widower.

Oscar died at the Illinois Home for Soldiers and Sailors on May 12, 1899. Thirteen days later, his ex-wife Ann Ellis Vanness Phillips filed for a pension, her second husband had died some point previous to 1888 and she had been running a boarding house. In 1900, Ann was using the surname Vanness again and still taking boarders in, she was the mother of 10 children out of which 4 were living in 1900 and 3 in 1910. She died in Chicago in 1912.

Helen Vanness had married at sixteen on January 23, 1883 in Chicago to Charles Dougherty and again at age 20 to Albert E. Connolly on February 4, 1887 also in Chicago. I couldn’t locate her after that.

Oscar M. Vanness is buried in the Sunset Cemetery in Quincy, Adams, Illinois under a military headstone.

52 Ancestors #2: Irene & Elizabeth, Mother and Daughter

Irene Rose Pfiffner was born on January 8, 1897 in Belleville, St. Clair, Illinois. The eldest child of Charles J. Pfiffner, a miner, and Emily Anderson. Irene was a quarter English and a quarter Swiss. She is my 2x great grandmother.

Charles died in 1910, leaving Emily to raise their three children. Emily eventually remarried Charles’ older brother, Louis L. Pfiffner.

Irene married John Douglas Jenkins prior to 1913, they had four children. First Elizabeth, followed by Harry, then Dorothy, and last born was Kenneth around 1921. Irene and John fought often, and eventually were divorced by 1930. Harry lived with his father in Illinois, the girls with their mother, and Kenneth was sent to Belleville to live with his twice widowed maternal grandmother Emily.

Irene and the girls moved from St Louis to Chicago following the divorce. In April 1930 she was married to Joseph (Jesse) Preston Bender, born in Mercer, Ohio in October 1892.

This is where Irene’s story becomes more confusing and difficult to tell. By the time of the census in 1930, seventeen year old Elizabeth was the mother of Jack Bender… Her stepfather’s son. Jack was not listed with the family on the census. It’s unclear how or why this family became such an odd family unit, even to Jack.

On May 9, 1932 a little girl named Irene Bender was born in Chicago. On her birth record her parents are listed as Irene Jenkins born St. Joe, Missouri and Joseph Bender. I know that Irene was born in Illinois… But Elizabeth was born in St. Joe. It’s possible the record was falsified as part of a coverup… Or that Elizabeth’s middle name was Irene. Irene Bender passed away on May 11. Due to family stories I know that Elizabeth did give birth to a daughter during the depression, she never saw her baby and claimed Joseph had sold her or had her taken away. Baby Irene was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in or outside of Chicago.

Irene must have eventually decided enough was enough, she divorced Joseph Bender and married Louis Dominick, moving with him to Wisconsin where they operated a boarding house in 1940 before moving to Hollywood, California. Irene’s youngest daughter Dorothy eventually followed them and was laid to rest in the same cemetery as her mother and second stepfather.

By the time Irene left for Wisconsin, Elizabeth and Joseph had five living children; Jack, Harold Eugene, Charles Michael, Richard, and little Helen.

For more about the family of Elizabeth and Joseph, and to learn about how they tragically lost their only living daughter and youngest son read Richard and Helen’s Story.

Finding Richard and Helen, 70 Years Later

Elizabeth Jenkins, my great grandmother on my dad’s paternal side, grew up with big dreams according to family stories. A devout Catholic, she wanted to be a nun. Instead, she became the mother of 5 children fathered by a man almost twenty years her senior, her mother and sister moved to California, and she lost two of her children in a tragic fire.

“Four year-old Richard Bender and his sister, Helen, 3, died in a fire in their Nankin township cottage last night while their mother was absent and their father was at work on a night shift.” – 7 November 1942, THE DAILY TELEGRAM, ADRIAN MI.

On the morning of November 7th 1942, The Daily Telegram of Adrian, Michigan contained a blurb of the incident above. Adrian is about 55 miles from Nankin Twp., a historic suburb of Detroit. I was even more surprised when I found that the same morning, the Ludington Daily News, 240 miles from Nankin had made mention of the tragic deaths of my young great aunt and uncle.

I had heard talk about the fire from my grandfather’s brother, Jack. But I couldn’t find anything on a fire in Chicago in the early 1940’s, turns out that was because Uncle Jack left out that the family moved from Chicago to Detroit between 1940 and 1942. I actually found the records of death because I neglected to enter the location into my search by accident. I haven’t yet found where these little ones were laid to rest, but that will come after I find the death certificates. What I may never know is why Elizabeth wasn’t home when it happened, or if the other three boys were home at the time.