Ancestry Magazine

I get plenty of submissions from folks hoping I’ll rescue this or that orphan heirloom (just how do so many of our family treasures wind up in the possession of strangers?), but some requests stand out a little more than others.

Mary Lou Hopkins of Oklahoma wrote to me about a beau she had had shortly after WWII:

In 1946, Robert Leroy White came to our little town with his USN buddy. This was Wardville, Oklahoma. I was 16 and dated Robert during the summer. When he left, he left (forgot) his family photos. I have kept them all these years. I am now 77 years old.

As the years passed, I often wondered about his whereabouts. In 1958, I learned from his friend’s mom that he was killed in an ambulance accident.

In 1990, I had major surgery and started looking for Robert. I wrote queries, made calls, etc. Found out he is buried along with an infant daughter in Fort Sam Houston Cemetery, Texas. I just recently learned his mom passed in 1998.

Mary Lou went on to explain that she had photos of his high school in Bakersfield; his mother, Eleanor (Barr) White; his father in a Navy uniform; and his siblings, Elaine, Jim, and Larry.

White Knight
There was a certain wistfulness to Mary Lou’s submission that tugged at me. It seemed that Robert was a “white knight” of sorts who rode into town, made an impression, and then left—only to pass away far too young. The fact that he had lost an infant daughter only heightened the pathos. I had to see if I could find Robert’s family for Mary Lou.

A name like Robert or Bob White can be a problem, but I had plenty of clues to go on—starting with the reference to Bakersfield, where I suspected he might be from. And all those family details would undoubtedly be helpful.

Retracing Mary Lou’s Trail
Since Mary Lou had mentioned Robert was buried in a military cemetery, I began by looking for “Robert Leroy White” in the U.S. Veterans Gravesites database on Ancestry.com. He and his baby daughter, Marie Susan White, immediately appeared. She had been born and died on the same day in 1953, and he was born on 23 January 1925. So he had lost a child when he was only 28 and then passed away at the age of 33.

Though Mary Lou had already told me, I still winced as I took in the new details. Isn’t it odd how the lives of strangers can affect you?

I tried to look for a happier ending of sorts, searching several databases for evidence of Robert’s wife or maybe some other children, but as best as I could tell, little Marie had been an only child. And oddly, Robert’s wife more or less vanished from the scene. So I turned to his birth family.

California Bound
Equipped with Robert’s name, year of birth, mother’s name, and likely state of origin, it didn’t take long to find him with his family in the 1930 census: five-year-old Robert L. White with his parents, James R. and Eleanor E., and siblings Elaine M., James A., and Lawrence E. in Mariposa County, California.
So now what? How could I find any living family members? Mary Lou had mentioned that Robert’s mother had passed away in 1998. Maybe I could find her Social Security Death Index (SSDI) entry and then an obituary that mentioned survivors. I thought it would be a quick search, but for whatever reason, she didn’t surface in the SSDI.

Figuring that she had probably stayed in California, I had a go at the California Death Index. I didn’t stop to register that the index only went up to 1997, which turned out to be a good thing because there she was—in 1993. And good for her: she had lived to the age of 96.

Eleanor and Elaine
Next, I decided to try GenealogyBank to see if I could find an obituary for Eleanor. Sure enough, I found one in the Fresno Bee from 11 May 1993. But there was no mention of survivors. I cringed. So close, yet so far.

Noodling around for a Plan B, I signed on to PrivateEye, a subscription-based people-finding site. Although Eleanor had passed away about 15 years ago, there was the slightest chance she would still be listed, and if so, I might find details that could lead me to other relatives associated with the same address.

She was still there. I eyed the names of possible roommates and associates and spotted an Elaine. Robert’s sister? Fortunately, if it was that Elaine, she had married into an unusual surname.

I popped back to Ancestry.com and did a quick search for Elaine—and groaned out loud when I spotted her SSDI entry for January of this year. Oh, no. No, no, NO!

But then I noticed something. She had died in Oklahoma. I was perplexed. How did this West Coast gal wind up in Oklahoma? I thought an obituary might provide the answer, but her obituaries in both the Bakersfield Californian and Tulsa World were curt, with just the most basic information.

A Desperation Google
Elaine had an unusual married name, so with no other ideas, I simply googled it. The first hit was for tributes at a funeral home. The site was somewhat clunky and hard to navigate, but I persisted because I was running out of angles.

And there it was. A detailed obituary/tribute that explained that Elaine had also served in WWII, married, and later lost her only child, a policeman, when he was killed in the line of duty. I couldn’t believe what this family had weathered. A charming WWII-era photo of Elaine was an unexpected bonus.
And happier news was coming. Elaine had several grandchildren in California, and her brother Jim was living in New Mexico. As for the move to Oklahoma? She had done that to be close to her other brother, Larry. A quick search on MapQuest revealed that Larry lived all of 116 miles from Mary Lou.

Larry Gets a Call
Thank goodness for this online tribute; otherwise, I would probably still be sifting through lists of Jim and Larry Whites. Instead, I shot off an e-mail to Mary Lou, explaining what I had learned and suggesting that she call Larry. Imagine being Larry and getting a call from a woman who had dated your brother more than 60 years ago, saying she wanted to return some family photographs. And then learning that she lived less than a two-hour drive away in Oklahoma. Coincidence? Or maybe the result of a happy conspiracy by Robert and Elaine.

People often ask why I do these orphan heirloom rescues. When Mary Lou called Larry, she e-mailed me right afterward, saying, “I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful I feel. Just got off the phone with Larry and his wife. I will be sending the pictures to them soon. We had a good visit and exchanged e-mails for future connections.” That’s why I do it.

If you have a stray orphan in need of rescue, go to Honoring Our Ancestors, click on the Submissions menu, select Orphan Heirlooms, and fill out the form. With a bit of luck, you’ll get an e-mail from me when you least expect it, just like Mary Lou.