I took up the task of finding out more about our family for many reasons. Two are especially relevant. The first was the death of Otis Arthur Hayes. He was Verona's first husband. The second was the loss of the Peper family Bible. Both losses are related. Otis died on the last day of January in 1953 at 4:30 in the afternoon. I had always understood that he had died when he was forty-two. That was not quite right. Since he was born on the eighth of February in 1908, he was just shy of his 45th birthday when he died.
He died of a "coronary thrombosis". He lived just one hour from the onset and spent only 10 minutes in St. Patrick's hospital before expiring. He had been digging out the basement of the house which he had built at 634 Marshall Street, Missoula, Montana.
He must not have been travelling well for a time. His doctor, F.H. Lowe, noted on the death certificate that he had been attending to Otis from Boxing Day of 1952 until the date of his death. This was just over a month. Why was he digging in the basement in the middle of winter in Missoula, Montana when he had been ill? He had been a splicer for Bell Telephone. Was he doing his winter indoor work?
I never met Otis. But, I would not be here today without him.
He was born in Buckley, Michigan. Buckley is just on the border with Traverse County in the northwest corner of Wexford County. A certified copy of record of birth obtain on 10 Jun 1942 states that he was the legitimate son of Clarence Milton Hayes and Lucy Amy Pepper of Buckley. Clarence was listed as a farmer.
The plat map of Hanover Township in 1919 shows that his forty acres was just south of the forty acres owned by Ira Peper. On the north side of the road fronting Ira's property lay the eighty acres owned by his father Martin L. Peper. Otis would have been about eleven when the map was published. He no doubt attended the school somewhat to the west of the Peper properties. The school was shown as being on the road the divided the properties of father and son.
Lucy Peper would have also attended school there. However, she may have actually lived in a house on the property owned by Mrs. E.C. Peper just south of the school. Emmeretta C. Peper, the daughter of Ira W. and Isabella Bates, was the mother of Eda (Edith), Ira and Lucy Peper. Her property was just north of the 186 acres owned by John and Lottie C. Hayes in 1919. These were the parents of Clarence Milton, Harry James and Eva Hayes.
It is the Bible of the Peper family of Buckley that went missing.
With the loss of Otis and the Bible, an important link to my family's past disappeared. For as long as I can remember, I have been trying to reconstruct this link. The task of doing so has been both difficult and rewarding. In the end, it has provided the material for these postings. I suspect that they will continue over the next several months.
Seek only to prove for certain that Lucy was the daughter of Emmeretta, and a window 400 years into the past will open through Lucy's grandson.
ReplyDeleteThrough that window you will see through and beyond the War of 1812 and the Revolutionary War from the point of view of American Patriots all the way back to the Great Plague in England.
Through the same window, in another direction, you can see the horror of the 20th Century's Wars, the Spanish American War, a Union Veteran's view of the Civil War, another view of the War of 1812 and, if a shutter moves but a little more, another view of the Revolutionary war. From there, you may find that your view will expand to take on Celtic and Teutonic hues.