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Help PLEASE re Darwin Chase Emery & Sarah Elizabeth Brown in Claresholm, Argyle, Macleod 1916/1917

Replies: 4

Help PLEASE re Darwin Chase Emery & Sarah Elizabeth Brown in Claresholm, Argyle, Macleod 1916/1917

Posted: 26 Apr 2015 4:37AM GMT
Classification: Query
Edited: 26 Apr 2015 12:56PM GMT
Surnames: Brown, Emery
I must try to condense a 10 year search trying to solve a 100 year old family mystery into a few paragraphs and I have therefore made 5 attachments to explain the story.

My great aunt Sarah Elizabeth Brown, born 4th April 1887, left her Derbyshire farming home aged 22 and set off to join her aunt and uncle in Alberta, arriving in Quebec on the Corsican on the 28th May 1909. She sent many letters home which told of a life of extreme hardship over the next 8 years before she died tragically young on the 4th October 1917 at just 30 years of age.

Sarah (known as Sally) gave birth to an illegitimate son who she named Victor Gordon Brown on the 20th April 1914 and then an illegitimate daughter who she named Sarah on the 14th November 1916. When Sarah died these infants were 'adopted' by two local families, Gordon by Reverend W Hinchey and his wife Phoebe and Sarah by a nurse Jessie McPhail and her husband Malcolm.

The Hinchey's moved to BC. and Gordon, who maintained his birth name, eventually settled in New Westminster where he lived out his life and died on the 14th August 1975. The McPhail's moved to San Francisco in 1921 and gave Sarah the name Donalda Belle McPhail. She too lived out her life in San Francisco and died on the 5th November 1998.

That is a brief background summary and my seemingly unsolvable PROBLEM is this.

On the 1916 census Sarah and baby Gordon are shown as living with Darwin Emery from the USA and her relationship is given as 'servant'. This census was taken on the 1st June meaning that Sarah must already have been pregnant because baby Sarah was born five and a half months later. I have been unable to find any record of the birth, nor of a marriage between Sarah and Darwin in the ensuing 16 months after the census before Sarah's death.

The headstone in Claresholm Cemetery bears the inscription "Sarah E wife of D C Emery died Oct 4 1917 aged 30 years" and the obituary in the Nanton News is headed "Mrs Emery beloved wife of Darwin Emery". A letter home also describes Darwin as being "beset with grief" at the funeral service. Is there any way (from the UK) that I can track down this marriage ?

More intriguing for me was the shock that the 1921census produced when it was released in November 2013 (see attached). Three and a half years after her death Darwin Emery still lists Sarah and children Gordon and Sarah as living with him !!

The only explanation can be that he was suffering from sort sort of mental breakdown but I wonder if anybody has seen something like this before and can offer a different theory ?

The postscript to the story is that after 1921 Darwin Emery seems to have formed another relationship before returning home to the USA and settling in Kalispell, Montana. In 1925 a lady named Lillian Elizabeth Denning and her daughter Leone Marguerite Denning departed from Lethbridge to join Darwin and on the 1930 USA census they both bear the Emery surname as wife and daughter. Did they get married ? I don't know this either !

I am desperate to close the book on this family story and if there is anybody out there who can help me to do so with help or advice, however small or seemingly insignificant, I would be very grateful indeed.

Thank you.

Brian Tucker
Birmingham, UK

brian.tucker@blueyonder.co.uk

Attachments:
SubjectAuthorDate Posted
danjake1953 26 Apr 2015 10:37AM GMT 
sstanger1 26 Apr 2015 7:41PM GMT 
danjake1953 26 Apr 2015 10:26PM GMT 
KathleenLouis... 27 Apr 2015 1:06AM GMT 
danjake1953 27 Apr 2015 8:19PM GMT 
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