Black Sheep Sunday: Philanderer, Deadbeat, Kidnapper, and Child Trafficker

James Proctor Clark and Caledonia (Callie) Adeline Hurt were married on 20 June 1910 in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky. They had three sons: James Proctor (Jim) Jr., Joseph Woodrow, and Norwood Francis. The family moved frequently between 1910 and 1918, first to Covington, Kentucky, then back to Louisville, and finally to Dayton, Ohio. While in Dayton, Callie obtained a divorce in April 1918 on the grounds of cruelty, neglect and abandonment and was awarded full custody of the boys. Although the court did not order visitation rights for Proctor, Callie allowed him to see them from time to time.

Finding herself the sole support of the children, Callie went to work at Dayton Wright Airplane Company sewing fabric on the airplanes. There were no daycare centers for children of working mothers in those days. The judge that granted the divorce suggested that the three boys be placed in St. Joseph’s Orphanage while she was at work. They usually resided at the orphanage during the day, but occasionally were there overnight when their mother worked the 12 hour shift.

Female employees of the Dayton-Wright Airplane Company
working on the skeleton of an aircraft wing at Plant 1
February 23, 1918

The nun in charge of the orphanage did not trust Proctor and warned Callie not to allow him access to the children. However, for reasons unknown, Callie continued to allow the father to visit their children at the orphanage. In November 1918, the boys were playing in the orphanage’s yard when Proctor arrived and “induced them to come to the street and enter an automobile.” Jim was seven, Joseph was five, and Francis was two when they were abducted.

Proctor was living with Irene Clarke, who was named in the divorce, and their infant son George (Oscar) at the time of the abduction. Irene and George fled to Iowa with Proctor and his sons where they opened a restaurant. Proctor eventually told the boys that their mother was dead. The restaurant went bankrupt and the family left town owing money. They repeated this pattern in several other towns until they arrived in Monroe, Louisiana where Proctor changed his name to Charles Williams and opened a grocery.

In 1922, Jim’s father sold the eleven year old to a farmer in El Dorado, Arkansas as a laborer. Jim ran away from the farmer and made his way to Natchez, Mississippi where he was apprehended by the sheriff. He told his story, including that he was told his mother was dead. Jim remembered his mother’s and grandmother’s names in Louisville which allowed the Natchez Chief of Police M. P. Ryan to locate them and inform them that Jim was found. Callie, by now remarried to Eddie (Les) Reid and living in Louisville, immediately left for Natchez, a two-day trip by train, to be reunited with her eldest son.

Callie and Jim. Photo from Times-Picayune
newspaper, September 29, 1922, page 1

Chief Ryan of Natchez traced Charles Williams to Monroe. The Monroe chief of police established that Charles Williams was living in Monroe with several children and took temporary custody of them. Callie took Jim with her to Monroe to determine whether those were her other two sons. The younger boys were turned over to her on September 29, 1922 after proof of custody was provided from the Dayton courts.

The Monroe police received another telegram on that same day from Mr. and Mrs. Jean Clarke, parents of Irene and grandparents of 4-year-old Oscar. They were on their way to Monroe from Dayton to "take charge" of their daughter and grandson and were expected to explain the "cryptic message to hold Mrs. Irene Clarke and boy."

The Dayton court set out a warrant for Proctor’s arrest but before the arrest could be made, James Proctor Clark, Irene Clarke, and their son Oscar disappeared leaving behind several hundred dollars worth of groceries and other goods. The expected explanation from Irene's parents was never reported in the tabloids.

Callie and the children returned to Louisville, Kentucky. She lived in Kentucky until her death in 1993 at 100 years of age.

The boys never saw their father again, however there were some reports of him in later years. One was in the summer of 1936 when he introduced himself to a nephew in Bardstown, Kentucky and said he was there to “have a last look around.” Another time was in Chicago where he was reportedly a painter in the 1940s. He may have returned to Dayton, living with a woman that was not Irene, from 1933 to 1948. His son Francis (now named Steve) received a letter from the Social Security Administration stating that Proctor died in January 1962.


James Proctor Clark, Sr.: philanderer, deadbeat, kidnapper and child trafficker–my 2nd cousin twice removed and the blackest sheep I hope to find in my family tree. He sounds like a very shady character, indeed. I have to admit that I'm glad I don't share much DNA with him.

Thanks for dropping by.

Black Sheep Sunday is a daily blogging prompt from GeneaBloggers.


Bibliography

1. Louisiana: New Orleans States newspaper, “Mrs. Reed Finds Kidnaped Boys”, September 27, 1922, page 19, column 7 (http://www.genealogybank.com).
2. Louisiana: Times-Picayune newspaper, “Woman Recovers Sons ‘Kidnaped’ Four Years Ago”, September 29, 1922, page 1, column 2 and page 2, column 8 (http://www.genealogybank.com).
3. Clark, Richard Lee. “Down on the Creek”, Louisville, Kentucky (1996), p. 5-6, 26-30.

Growing up in Skokie

My great-grandparents, Peter and Catherine (Lochner) Heinz, purchased a house with an attached tavern sometime between 1930 and 1935. Located in the Chicago suburb of Skokie, the tavern was named the Skokie Inn and later changed to the Skokie Club. Peter allowed his customers to drink on credit and at the time of his death on December 5, 1942 there were more I.O.U.s in the cash drawer than cash.

Peter and Catherine Heinz's house. The Skokie Inn was situated
just behind the house and was joined by a breezeway.

When my grandparents divorced in 1943, Grandma Dorothy and her three daughters (ages six, seven and nine) moved in with the recently widowed Catherine. Catherine helped the small family by providing them a home on the second floor of the house and Dorothy helped Catherine in the tavern.

Dorothy and the girls about 1938.

There really was no good place to play at the house; there was no backyard and the tavern grounds mostly consisted of parking lot. During the winter, the girls would throw snowballs at passing cars. Unfortunately for them, they got caught. They had to face the driver and their mother in the kitchen at home. Dorothy was so embarrassed that she paid the man $15 and the girls had to work to pay her back.

Dorothy in the snow.

Another favorite pastime for the girls was to go into the tavern's kitchen after school to dance with Cobb the cook. The girls would dance on his feet to the music on the radio. It was a sad day for them when Cobb left for another job.

Peter and Cobb taking a break outside the
Skokie Inn about 1940. The girls don't know
if "Cobb" was his first or last name.

In November 1945, Vincent Heinz (their father) petitioned the court for more liberal visitation rights. He and his new wife had purchased a home and were leasing a tavern in Chicago located on the same street as the Skokie Inn. Vince filed a second petition placing some restrictions on the girls–they were to stay out of the tavern part of the premises in Skokie and were to be in bed by 10 p.m. every night. Up until that time the girls (now age 9, 10, and 12) had free run of the house and tavern. They were not appreciative of the restrictions placed upon them by the court. I find it interesting that these restrictions were place on them in relation to their mother's residence by the request of their father who also operated a tavern.

Vincent Heinz wearing what looks like
a long coat, c1933.

Dorothy and her girls lived in the Skokie house for six years. They moved to Galesburg, Illinois in 1949 when Dorothy married again. Although they had an unconventional upbringing for that period of time, they were loved and knew it.

The inspiration for this post came from this week's Sepia Saturday challenge. The image prompt has snow, lamp-posts, long coats, barrels, and buildings, with snow being the most prominent feature. I have to admit that I was a little intimidated by this one. You see, I am a desert rat. I have lived most of my life (at least since the age of 3) in either southern Texas or southern Arizona. It almost never snows in either of those places and that's the way I like it!

But, after some anxious pondering, my mother came to the rescue again. She was born and raised in northern Illinois where they get lots and lots of snow. And I remembered this photo of her and her sisters at the approximate ages of eleven, nine, and eight (Mom is in the middle and is the oldest).

Mom and her sisters about 1944 or 1945.

Although it is not visible in the photo, the girls are standing in front of the house that was attached to the Skokie Inn.  There is a Schlitz sign behind the girls advertising that the tavern served Schlitz on tap. There is another partial sign behind them. If you examine the photo below, a little closer shot of that sign, you can see "Atla..." above the word "Tave...". This must be a sign for Tavern Pale Beer which was brewed by Atlantic Brewing Co. (I found an interesting history for this brewery on Bob Kay Beer Labels). Tavern Pale Beer was produced in kegs for the tavern trade. This sign was advertising that the Skokie Inn served Tavern Pale Beer. The signs are not lamp-posts, but Alan gives us license to interpret his prompts any way we wish so I have decided to let them stand in for lamp-posts. I found no photos of barrels in my collection of family photos, but we can all imagine the kegs of beer in the tavern that would look like barrels.

Catherine (Lochner) Heinz standing in front of the house
in the 1940s.  Note the partial sign behind her.

I think I hit on all the elements of this week's Sepia Saturday prompt, even if I had to stretch it a little. And I hope you were entertained by the story. Just to show you that it does sometimes snow here in southern Arizona, here is a photo of the one and only White Christmas I have ever had.

Tucson, Arizona, Christmas Day 1987.

Visit the Sepia Saturday blog for other stories and vintage photos with the theme of the week.

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Is it Tech Tuesday or Thankful Thursday?

If you are here, you know that I just moved my blog. This whole process started because I noticed that other blogs I visited had white borders around their uploaded images and mine did not.  I emailed  Wendy of Jollett etc. (one of my first followers) asking her how she did it on hers. Through a few back-and-forth emails, we figured out that some Blogger templates allowed you to configure borders around images and some did not. The one she was using (Simple) allowed them and the one I was using (Picture Window) did not. Since I really, really love borders around my images, I decided that I would have to change my template. And since I was changing my template, I decided to take the plunge and redesign/refocus my blog–something I had been thinking about doing for some time but was too scared to try.

For the Tech Tuesday portion of this post, I will share with you what Wendy and I learned from this exercise:

I didn't want to change my blog title without changing its URL because people expect the blog URL to reflect the blog title, for example my old blog "My Mother's Family" URL was mymothersfamily.blogspot.com. However, I was afraid that if I changed the URL, I would lose my followers. It turns out that settings in the Blogger Dashboard let you change both the blog title and the blog URL without losing a thing! My Google Followers came along for the ride, but the Networked Blog followers did not. I will have to hope that they realize I moved and follow me to the new site. The downside of retaining the Google Followers is that everyone that is set up to receive email notifications when there is a new post got a notification for every single one of my posts as if they were new. Lesson learned: this is not something you would want to do if you have hundreds of posts.

Another consideration is that if there are any links to your old blog URL anywhere on the web, they will be broken. I knew of a couple of them and emailed the site owners letting them know to change their links. To accommodate the links I could not change, for example the Sepia Saturday Linky List, I had to get a little more creative. I ended up creating a new blog with my old URL (mymothersfamily.blogspot.com) with one post saying I moved. And for those links to specific pages in my old blog, I created a Custom Page Not Found in Settings directing folks to my new blog address. It works perfectly!

Now for the Thankful Thursday portion of this post. Although she didn't really know much, if any, more than I did about the tech side of blogging, Wendy took time to help me figure it out. Between the two of us we brain-stormed ideas and came up with solutions and we both learned a few new things. Thank you, Wendy!

This experience taught me something else:

Tech Tuesday + Thankful Thursday = Winning Wednesday!

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Tech Tuesday and Thankful Thursday are daily blogging prompts from GeneaBloggers. Winning Wednesday is my own invention.

Expanding My World (well, the Blog part of it anyway)

I've been blogging for a year and a half now. It's been sporadic, but I still manage to publish a story now and then.

When I started "My Mother's Family" I didn't really know how I was going to use this venue and decided to restrict it to posts about my mother's side of the family hence the name. But I found myself posting about my father's side sometimes and I want to post about my husband's family, too. So...since I have changed the purpose of the blog I have given it an entirely new look and a new name. It is now "All My Family Trees".

I hope I didn't mess up any links or followers. Thank you to all that read my blog. I hope that I will continue to entertain and maybe even educate you a little.

Something from the Hessig/Hessick family tree to
get things rolling.

Thanks for dropping by.

Caps and Bikes

I missed last week's fruit stand Sepia Saturday challenge, and hope I'm not too late for this one. As usual, there is lots from which to choose...I chose photos with people wearing caps.

Mom in a cap and funny pants, c1935.

I've been looking for an opportunity to show off this photo of my mom dressed funny. Look at those pants! But she is wearing a hat that I can loosely call a cap which qualifies this for the challenge.

Grandma about 1930.

This is her mom, my grandma, wearing a real cap. Nothing was written on the back of this photo and nobody seems to remember the dog which might help identify the time and place. I'm hoping that this blog post will prompt family members to search their memories and help me out. I think she's about 17 in this photo, which would put it in about 1930.

Great-Grandma about 1950

This last one is her mom, my great-grandma, whom you have seen many times before. She is wearing a hat (which I count as a cap) and she is riding a bicycle. A two-fer if I ever saw one! Shep, the family dog, is walking beside her. She wrote on the back "I won the race".

Hop on over to the Sepia Saturday blog to see how creatively others have incorporated this theme.

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Watch Your Back

This week's Sepia Saturday prompt is a tough one. There is so much going on in the prompt photo that it was really hard to choose what theme, and consequently which old photo, to use. I finally chose the "interesting happenings in the background" theme.

This is an old postcard that has been in our family for nearly a century. The center man staring at the camera is my great-grandfather Harry Jackson. He was a Railroad Fireman and Locomotive Engineer for the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad from before 1908 to 1941. Nothing was ever written on the postcard and it is undated, but I would hazard a guess that it was taken in the 1920s. Everyone in the family has always been so fascinated that one of our relatives was pictured on a postcard that we never even noticed that they were standing in front of a train wreck!

We just focused so hard on Harry and vaguely registered the fact that there was a train in the background. We assumed he was at the train yard where he worked and the photographer came by to sell picture postcards. None of us ever took a close look at the background until recently.  I am astonished at how unobservant my family is!

Check out the Sepia Saturday blog to see how others interpreted the theme. I promise you will be entertained!

Thanks for dropping by.

 



  

Bathing Beauties of Yesteryear

My, it's been such a long time since my last blog post! I am thoroughly ashamed of myself! But this is a new year and I have resolved to post on a regular basis, at least once a month if not more often.

I found myself surfing over to the Sepia Saturday website this evening and saw that yesterday's prompt was what looks like a 1950s photo of a woman sitting at the beach. That reminded me of several family photos I have of bathing beauties in the early 1920s.

The darling girl standing with the pointed toe in the picture below is my grandmother Dorothy with her sisters Signa and Lillian and her mother, my great-grandmother, Frances. This was probably Nantasket Beach, Massachusetts taken about 1921.

This photo must have been taken around the same time...it is of my great-grandmother Frances and she is wearing the same bathing suit as the one above. It was also probably at Nantasket Beach in Massachusetts since that was a favorite bathing spot for the family in the early 20th century.

This next photo is Frances' sister Jennie around the late 1910s/early 1920s. This must be in cooler weather because nobody is wearing a bathing suit.

If you want to see more bathing beauties, and a few bathing hunks, from days gone by, visit my blog post Swimsuit Edition (uh, Sports Center Saturday?) from October 2011.

Sepia Saturday is a weekly meme which encourages bloggers to publish and share old images and photographs. Visit their blog for other stories and vintage photos with the theme of the week.

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