When Family History Sounds More Like a Daytime Drama

I have previously  posted about my 3x great-grandfather, James Fredrick Trumble and his wives Mary Scriver and Ellen
Lockhart Fletcher once before. But, since I began digging more and reading through historical newspaper articles I have uncovered the story of James and Ellen’s tumultuous marriage. After James’ first wife Mary died of Typhoid Fever on September 12, 1910, he and his unmarried children (including my 2x great grandmother, Alice Agnes Trumble Okolow) moved to Flint, Michigan where he operated a boarding house. On December 8, 1911 he married Ellen Fletcher.

Reporters in Flint began running the family’s dramatic story not even six months after the marriage on May 3, 1912. Mrs. Trumbe had brought James to court because she planned on leaving him on the grounds of non-support. She stated that she had left because his children from his previous wife interfered and that the oldest wrote letters to try and separate them (James’ eldest daughter was Edna Isabelle Trumble was around 19 at that time and living at home). The article states that on recommendation of the prosecutor and the couple had decided to work out their differences.

The next time the Trumble family is was the headlines was later that same month when Mrs. Trumble left her five week old daughter Hazel and another child under 2 years of age with a neighbor so that she could go to the court at 8am and withdraw a statement from the previous day in which she accused James of assault and battery. Afterward she did not return to the neighbor’s home for her baby, instead at 1pm she called the sheriff from a drug store and stated that someone had stolen her children. At the time of the call, the baby had already been brought to the Sheriff’s Office because she would not stop crying with hunger. Little Hazel Trumble died in August 1912 of Enteritis.

After Hazel’s death in August 1912, the papers didn’t mention Mr. and Mrs. Trumble much. In 1913, they had their second child together, a son they named Howard Trumble. It seemed that things were finally going right for Mr. and Mrs. Trumble. But in July of 1914, a headline reading “Half of Family Lives in Tent; Half in Small Shack” added to the Trumble’s unhappy marriage. By this point, Edna Isabelle was married and had left her father’s residence. Of James Tumble’s children; Harley Wesley, Mary Catherine, Alice Agnes, and Manley Herbert were all still living at his home – or tent. The baby, Howard lived in his mother’s ice cream shack. It is said in the article by an unnamed source that when the families were both living under one roof it was too crowded and living conditions were poor. The article states that James was given until August 24 to “make good” on his monetary support.

In July 1916, little Howard Trumble died. And in November of 1916, James Trumble passed away as well from pneumonia. Ellen would go on to remarry three more times, dying in 1952.

Luther Taylor and his Girls

My 5x great grandfather Luther Taylor was born about 1805 in Connecticut according to US Census records. He married Desire Norton/Newton prior to 1831. Desire died prior to 1860 (probably even before 1850). Sometime before 1860, Luther had relocated along with his three youngest daughters to Kalamazoo, Michigan. He died September 11, 1895 in Watson, Allegan, Michigan.

The Taylors had five known children, all daughters:

• Cynthia Marie Taylor (my 4x great-grandmother) was born May 6, 1831 in New York. She married Levi Decker, the son of Wilhelmus and Mary Decker of Wayne Co, NY in 1850. Cynthia and Levi moved to Michigan in about 1858, settling in Allegan County. She died on the Decker family farm on Big Lake in Watson, Allegan, Michigan of Jaundice coupled with Senility on March 4, 1907. She rests in Hicks Cemetery in Watson.
• Melissa Surviah Taylor was born May 3, 1833 in Fowler, St. Lawrence, New York. She married Eli Charles Spencer in Kalamazoo County, Michigan on June 24, 1855. Together they had three known children and she helped raise his older children from his previous marriage. They moved to Kansas where he passed away around 1877. She eventually moved with her son Allison to Delta County, Colorado where she passed away on April 27, 1919.
• Caroline E. Taylor was born in 1836, also in New York. In 1850, a sixteen year old Caroline was living with her newlywed sister Cynthia in Ontario, Wayne, New York. She married a soldier with the Michigan 1st Regiment of Mechanics and Engineers named William Bates May 1, 1861 in Kalamazoo County, Michigan. They had one daughter; Edith Bates. William died in 1863 in Tennessee. Caroline married James M. Flanagan of the same company and regiment as Bates on December 4, 1865 in Kalamazoo County. James and Caroline moved from Michigan to Kansas where she died sometime before 1902.
• Emaline Louisa Taylor was born February 21, 1842 in NY. She married Irish immigrant John Shaw in Kalamazoo on April 1, 1862. They settled in Texas Township, Kalamazoo, Michigan and had many children. She passed away there on June 1, 1921 of Dropsy and is buried in the Hope Cemetery in Texas Corners.
• Mary Taylor was born November 3, 1845 in NY. She married Charles Campbell in Kalamazoo on May 9, 1863. They lived in Cooper, Kalamazoo, MI with her father Luther in 1870, at that time their family also included their 10 month old son, Charles Jr. and Adeline Fuller and her husband farmhand Jonathan Fuller. Mary died of dropsy of the heart August 30, 1873 and was buried in the West Cooper Cemetery. Campbell then went on to marry Adeline Fuller, who was by then 21 and had been divorced from Jonathan prior to 1872. In 1880, Luther Taylor was still living with the Campbell family, his grandson was by then 11 years old.