Orphans

 My great-great grandparents, Oliver Newton Danner and Eva Pearl Haworth from the previous post with the marriage certificate, were both orphans. Oliver was born 27 Aug 1860 in fort Wayne, Indiana, but I find no birth information to prove that (that datum comes from Find-a-Grave, I haven't sourced an Obituary for him yet). The first reference I can find for someone of his name and approximate age is in the 1870 census for St Mary's, Adams County Nebraska. There is an Oliver Danner listed as a "Farm hand" for the Frank Braddock family. He would have been 9 at the time, and would not have been born for the 1860 census. It lists his parents as being from Ohio and that he attended school. 

I have a family-drawn chart made by an aunt from many years ago, and it states that Oliver was a "civil war orphan and bound boy". I have not been able to prove this at all, but it would make sense with his work for the Braddock's. There was a great deal of paper in my files about some other Danners, presumably the potential parents of Oliver, but I don't have a great deal of confidence that they are correct. Clearly my grandfather or grandmother thought it was possible and printed them out. The William Danner in question served in the civil war and by all appearances looks like a possible link, but I believe this person lived to a ripe old age and had four daughters only. (There are many many William Danners to choose from in this time and area, so its possible there is a correct one but I just don't have enough to say!)

hand-drawn chart

Another point against the above was that Oliver's Death Certificate stated that his parents' names were Unknown. I don't know the protocol for filling out death certificates in the 50s in the state of Washington, if they relied on self-reporting or family members reporting, or if they used other data to fill in. 

Do you use GeneaologyBank as a reference? I am tempted, but it is a bit pricy for how sporadically I do research. I have had some success finding references to Oliver, but nothing for his obituary. There is an article in the Spokane Chronicle for June 3, 1933 titled "Fourteen Escape as Bus Plunges" that describes the survivors (and one fatality) of a bus crash on Blewett Pass. One of the survivors was an Oliver Danner of Wenatchee, which matches. Imagine living in the Great Depression and having your daily struggles punctuated by a near-death experience!

Eva Pearl Haworth was born January 21st 1871 in Toledo, Iowa. Her Haworth side hailed from England and her maiden side, the Crow family, came from Pennsylvania. Her family all perished in an Easter blizzard, save herself as a two-year-old child. (My child is currently two. This is a hard tragedy to stomach). I have a taped-together set of photocopies of the St Paul Phonograph-Herald from Weds April 22, 1981. The spread is entitled "Who Survived the 1873 Blizzard" and has photos from the Crow family cemetery where the family is interred. 

The top grave marker is for D.F Haworth, his wife Jane (Crow). He was 25, she 24. The lower image is the marker for Eva's sister Ozella, who was just four years old. A caption reads "The victims of the 1873 blizzard were the first to be buried in the Crow Cemetery. The picturesque little cemetery is located at the top of a hill overlooking Spring Creek and the North Loup river approximately 2 1/2 miles north and one west of Cushing"

Further text details the tragedy: "A visit to the Crow Cemetery near Cushing Friday with Gertrude Fredrickson to discover and photograph the graves of the Haworth family, who died in the April 16, 1873 Easter blizzard was a success. But further research into what happened that day has resulted in more questions left unanswered than answered. 

"All four accounts are different on who died, how old the children were, and even on how many children the Haworths had. But they are do agree the victims were the first to be buried in the Crow Cemetery located 2 1/2 miles north and one mile west of Cushing on the property being homesteaded at the time by Mrs. Haworth's parent, the Matthias Crows. The cemetery is located high on a hill overlooking Spring Creek valley and the North Loup river. 

"After a search of the cemetery the graves were discovered. From the inscriptions on the tombstone marking the graves the victims were D.F. Haworth, 24, his wife Jane E. Haworth, 24, and their four-year-old daughter Ozella R Haworth. The date of death was listed as April 16, 1873 with the following inscription found at the bottom of the marker: 'All perished in the Easter storm of 1873.'

"An article on the blizzard was published in the June 19, 1919 issue of the Phonograph and was a reprint of a story written by Clark Perkins in the Aurora Republican. Perkins had visited the Crow Cemetery on Decoration Day (Memorial Day) in 1919. While at the cemetery he saw the graves and was given an account of what happened by the local residents. 

"According to Perkins the Haworths had two children and their homestead was located approximately two miles up Spring Creek from that of the Matthias Crow homestead. Perkins wrote that a baby girl, cuddled in her mother's arms, was the lone survivor. Perkins wrote that the mother's body was found in a snowdrift, the body of the other child (a boy named Ollie) was found nearby, and the father's body was found on the other side of the creek. He told of their being buried in the cemetery and said one of the graves was that of Ollie, and infant. 

"Perkins wrote of the survivor, 'The little girl, Eva, was raised by her grandparents, married a young man named Oliver Danner and accompanied him to the Pacific Coast. She was a handsome girl and a belle of the neighborhood. It is said her her Grandmother Crow refused to leave the home place from the time of the Haworth tragedy until the family moved away thirty years afterward'. 

"Rose Blazek wrote that the Haworth's had two children, four- and two-year-old daughters. She said that the parents, Mr. and Mrs Dillon Haworth, and the oldest daughter died in the storm, with the two-year-old daughter found alive huddled beneath her mother. 

"The most detailed accounting of the storm appeared in Jessie Braddock's "Our Happy Homestead Days". She wrote that the Haworths had three children, among them a three-year-old girl and a new baby girl who was just a few months old. The Haworths were in the process of building their sold home and were living with her parents. Mrs. Haworth decided to take the children to help her husband with the house, which was partially covered by the roof. According to Mrs. Braddock the day began as a typical warm April morning, but it soon began to rain and and then turned to heavy snow with high winds. She speculated 'They must have have decided to stay in the unfinished house till the rood blew off and there was little or no protection. The little girl was wrapped to the mother's breast with a heavy shawl. The baby was carried by the father. They started for her parents' home about a mile and a half away'. She theorized 'At first they went hand in hand and as they mother tired the father must have decided to go on with the baby and reach home and return with her brothers and bring them all home. But fate decreed otherwise. He became lost in the storm and missed the place and walked on and on'. 

She wrote that Mrs. Haworth's brothers became alarmed the next morning and 'went plunging through the great drifts in search of them when they found the rood off and the house filled with snow'. They found the mother and child first. She related that the child stirred and opened her eyes and said 'The baby is dead and now we have to go'. Mrs. Braddock wrote 'That was all she ever would say about it' That could be interpreted as the child died or that she would never talk about what had happened. 

"Neighbors helped in the search for the father and baby. Braddock wrote 'Days passed and finally on a hillside with the baby still in his arms they found them'. 

"Mr. and Mrs. Clifford Jensen farmed near the Crow Cemetery for many years, and they have no retired to St. Paul. They said that many years after the tragedy the lone survivor, a son, returned to the Cushing area in search of the graves of his parents and sister. Mr. Jensen talked to the man just as he was about the climb the hill to the cemetery. Clifford recalled from the conversation he believed the Haworths had only two children, with the survivor an infant baby boy. 

"How many children did the Haworths have? Was on child left at the home of Mrs. Haworth's parents that day? Was the survivor an infant, or an older child, a boy or girl?"

Sorry for transcribing that in toto, but I found the entire story amazing and emblematic of the difficulties in recreating any historical story. A total gem jumped out at me--the name Jessie Braddock! I had never put that together with the name of the Braddock family above and will certainly delve into that story. So here is Eva, an orphan raised by her grandparents, and Oliver, an orphan raised by an adoptive family. Did their experiences with family tragedy lead them to meet and marry? And did it encourage them to eventually have six children to be surrounded by family?