Genealogical Baggage                                     

                               Eveline Clark Wilcox (1832-1918)

As always, unapologetically unedited...

The other day, while seeking to resolve whether the mother of my ancestor Eveline (Clark) Wilcox's mother was called "Margaret" or Eliza" I came across some unusual "genealogical baggage." As "She" is the mother of one of my direct lines I've wanted to be more than accurate about her (Eveline's mother's) name. I'll admit though, I've been 'floundering about' a bit in search of the truth to it all.

                              

So I decided I'd better get serious. It was time for me to "fan out" and see what words of wisdom the records of "Margaret's" (or "Eliza's") other offspring (outside of my own direct line from Eveline) might have to offer on the subject of their mother's name. 

It was about then that a strange feeling came over me. It was a feeling that I was remembering "things" that weren't my actual memories. Yes, we all know I see dead people... It was one of those "half-heard" stories that sit in the back of your mind. Did somebody tell me that once??? I was beginning to feel that whoever "Margaret" or "Eliza" were, they had more to say.

 It became clear that, Eveline, "they," or their progeny, weren't done with me yet.

                                              *****

For the sake of simplicity, I'll call her "Margaret." (I am convinced that the name "Eliza" is an error) She was "Miss Margaret Fox" and she married Civil War-era music teacher Aaron Merritt Clark.  I descend from their daughter Eveline (Clark) Wilcox through my maternal grandfather Frank White Lee. I have written about some of Margaret and Aaron's other progeny before, and about their "bent" for a talent in music and show business. Their many "show business" related descendants include the wife of famous "negro delineator" Luke Schoolcraft, music man Horace G. "Billy" Wilcox, actress Dani Lynn, and perhaps more notably television actor Larry Wilcox. (Not to mention my Aunt Jerri who can play just about any instrument she puts her mind to.)

Indeed, the extended branches of my Clark family show a constant proclivity to the performing arts. (Many of the clan were also champion rodeo performers - another talent that has completely passed me by) So I guess it should come as no surprise that some of my own genealogical baggage, indeed some of my own unconscious bias, might have come down through the experiences of "Margaret (Fox) Clark's" other progeny, and perhaps even through children of hers that "genealogically" I could have never possibly have "met" in this life or the last. 

Did I mention what a curious feeling all this was?

                                    *****

Growing up, I've often wondered if my grandfather Frank White Lee's admonishment to "Stay out of the basement or the Indians will get you"  was formulated by his own unconscious bias or his own genealogical baggage? What were the childhood stories that he only "half heard?" It seems a curious statement and a near testament to protect his own progeny.  I realize that it was the 1960s and that life wasn't always politically correct, but still, what was the source of his statement? Had he had "Indians in the basement" once before? (LOL) I began to wonder about my own biases (unconscious or otherwise) that I might have inherited from him. How curious they are! How do they relate to my own life? Indeed, how is it that any of us can haul around all of this "extra stuff" - all of which constitutes one heck of a whole lot of "genealogical baggage?"

                           

 Fannie Amelia (Clark) Baker 1838-1918 ("Aunt Fannie")

It was about then that I took another look at one of those "last aunts" who always seemed to get away from me. I decided to "re-check out" the family of "Aaron and "Margaret's" other daughter, Eveline (Clark) Wilcox's sister, Fannie Amelia Clark, my "third great-aunt."

Fannie Clark's (later Mrs. Lewis H. Baker) relationship with her sister, "my grandfather's great-grandmother" Eveline Clark (later Mrs. Hiram L. Wilcox), was easily re-confirmed in the old newspaper articles of the day:

     

Born in New York, Fannie (Clark) Baker was, like most of her siblings, a nomadic nineteenth-century pioneer survivor. Fannie's life with her husband "Big Lew" Baker was a hard one. While Fannie's life was typical for the times -  still it is an interesting one. It also appears to be pretty telling with regard to the source of some of that "genealogical baggage" - if not the exact source of my grandfather's admonishment to "stay out of the basement" lest some innocuous native indigenous harm befall me. Is it a source of unconscious bias? I wonder.

                                      

To debate the origins of unconscious bias requires a lot more knowledge and or acumen on the subject than what I have or can provide. When I started out on this quest I was, after all, only trying to figure out if I was looking for a "Margaret" or an "Elizabeth." However, in discovering her daughter Fannie (Clark) Baker and learning that she (Fannie) and her family were "twice burned out by the Indians" I learned about someone else. I learned about Fannie's son, [Lewis, Jr.] "Johnny" Baker. "Johnny" Baker may have had good reason for his own unconscious bias, but again, that's better left to a better judge of history or psychology than what I can provide.

Fannie Clark and Lew Baker had a large family. One of their sons, Lew, Jr., has an interesting tale to tell and appears to have become an integral part of that very baggage genealogical or otherwise. 

The long story short of it is that subsequent to having his family burned out of their home several times over little Lew Baker Jr., (subsequently known as"Johnny" Baker) was "fostered out" although never given up for adoption by "Aunt Fannie" and "Big Lew." After the multiple devastations of their farm, Fannie and Lew fell into difficult financial troubles. They could ill afford to raise their children, and like many families of that time frame were forced to welcome any financial "placement" for their kids.

 It was about then that some guy named William Frederick Cody otherwise known of as "Buffalo Bill" came to town. 

At that time, "Buffalo Bill" was arguably one of the most famous people on the planet. He'd recently lost his own son too, and while out on tour in Nebraska happened to meet "Aunt Fannie and Uncle Lew's" boy, "Johnny." Johnny was star-struck with Buffalo Bill, and, apparently, Buffalo Bill took an immediate "shine" to the boy who was nearly the same age as his deceased son. "Johnny" Baker also happened to be a very good shot. It was decided that "Johnny Baker" just might have a career with Buffalo's Bill's Wild West Show, and the rest, as they say, is history. "Johnny" Baker went on to have a great career as a part of the show and also became the quasi "adopted" son of Buffalo Bill. 

Say what!?

"Cousin Johnny" - who would be my great-great grandfather's first cousin (and cousin to all that first generation of the Wyoming Wilcox men) had an amazing life touring with Buffalo Bill. He traveled with the Wild West Show all throughout America and Europe. Johnny was a friend and contemporary of Annie Oakley, and if newspaper accounts are correct, Annie taught him some of her "sharpshooter" techniques. There are statements made by his widow that "Cousin Johnny" entertained the King and Queen of England, and that "Cousin Johnny" presented one of his favorite rifles to Archduke Ferdinand whose assassination is what triggered World War I. (Shame on you Johnny!)

                                              

           

Johnny Baker remained devoted to William Frederick "Buffalo Bill" Cody through the end of Cody's days and well on.

I don't know about you, but I'm starting to see a pattern here. (Duh.) 

                                           

I guess the curious part of this tale is how it got so lost in the annals of my family's history. Did it provide some foundation for my grandfather's unwittingly unconscious bias against native Americans or perhaps even the performing arts? (Say what?) 

How is it that my grandfather never said that his grandfather's first cousin was Buffalo Bill's foster son and toured the world with The Wild West Show? 

Indeed, how do you forget something like that?

In truth, you don't. It just gets buried in all the genealogical baggage. I found it in a note from Diana Kelly - a sweet lady who married a Clark/Wilcox descendant. Her information (as it was handed down to her) looks like this:

                                        Above: Family notes from Diana Kelly

                                

So the "Buffalo Bill" and The Wild West Show story of one "Johnny Baker," whose mother's sister was "Aunt Eveline" Wilcox - was true. 

We just didn't know it anymore.

Like most "genealogical baggage it just gets put up in the attic and shuffled around between generations until it starts to become some sort of an 'unconscious bias' that nobody can explain. I guess my grandfather never did have "Indians in the basement." However, as a little kid, he must have "half-heard" the tales from his grandfather and cousins, and yes, from his Great-Grandmother Wilcox about family farms being burned out by "the savages." 

He must have heard the tales of a Clark/Wilcox cousin who entertained Kings and Queens. How could he believe any of it?

Maybe it just 'lies' in wait. I guess the truth often does that. 

Baggage check, please?

END 

 

Cold Karma

  

                                          

                                         Christopher F. DePasquale

Image courtesy of Santa Clara, California Police Department / Cold Case Number 81-5582

(PostScript: I have to tell you that after posting this about ten days ago I have started to realize that very few actually give a flying f@uck about Chris's murder. The police department provides no access to the 42 year old evidence or even a summary of what they might have. Requests to local media to look at an old cold case go acknowledged but are largely ignored. Even the university we once attended can't be bothered to acknowledge Chris's death or the need for for an updated "In memoriam." Sadly, Chris's death and his unsolved murder are being relegated to history's forgotten pages. We tried Chris. Rest in peace, brother.)

We genealogical types tend to have a lot of bad habits. I say "genealogical types" only about myself because I have no degree or certification in the subject. (I barely qualify to fetch an actual genealogist’s coffee on a bad day.) However, like anyone with a true interest in the subject, I may have developed some "genealogical bad habits" or made a mistake or two along the way. I’m not talking about screwing up on my “double-dating” or misremembering a generation when trying to recall my connections in the Baldwin genealogy. Heck, I’m not even talking about that insidious disease of “copy and paste” that (whether we like to admit it or not) infects us all at one time or another. No, I’m talking about the bad habit of perhaps looking too far and finding the unexpected.

That’s the thing with genealogy though. It is about finding the unexpected. Even the proverbial “brick wall” has to be discovered for being what it is - unexpectedly thick. Indeed, we genealogical types are curious by nature to a fault and may on occasion let our superpower of innate digging and curiosity get away from us as we look for that next unexpected thing. Hence, the bad habit. Further, I’m going to go out on a limb here and venture to say that there aren’t many of us here who haven’t “taken a look” back to where and when maybe we shouldn’t have - or afterward regretted having done so.

Truly though, who hasn’t been curious about, say, that lost high school sweetheart? Wouldn’t it be interesting to see those vital records that prove they’d found true love for the last fifty years, or conversely, that they’d never gotten over you by evidence of their subsequent seven marriages? (LOL) It’s curious and perhaps a bit of a bad habit to look back to see just where their life might have led. Do their family lines connect to one’s own? Or how about that horrible boss from the 1990s or that nosy neighbor way back in ’72? Is there some form of closure in finding out that even they have passed on? Talk about genealogical bad habits. Who among us hasn’t used our "genealogical superpowers" to piece together the story of someone’s life with whom we’ve gently (or not so gently) crossed paths? What are those "tales of the unexpected" in all our lives?

So if you'll indulge me for a moment, I'd like to tell you a tale about one of my adventures with my own genealogical “bad habits” and one of those “look-backs,” involving an unexpected story and what I did not expect to find. I’d like to tell you about Chris, a young man I went to college with nearly a half-century ago.

                            

We were students at Santa Clara University in California in the early 1970s. His full name was Christopher DePasquale, and no, he was not my friend. I certainly would have never wished ill will upon him, but suffice it to say that back in the day he and I ran in very different social crowds. He liked to play in the rich kids' sandbox, and I was lucky to play anywhere at all. He made no secret that he found me to be as strange a fellow as I found him to be one full of himself. Nevertheless, at the time I knew very little about him - and that was okay. I knew he had some connection to Hawaii, but more than this we never spent enough time around each other to learn or say. We simply didn’t know each other very well. Heck, we didn’t even know “of” each other all that well. For the most part, I haven’t thought or considered those days of “not knowing “ Mr. Christopher DePasquale for many years.

However, this past week, and realizing that like all of us here I see dead people (or at the very least hear them) I indulged myself in my genealogical “bad habits.” For some reason I remembered Chris, and, much like that horrible boss from the 1990s or that nosy neighbor from back in ‘72, I wondered what had become of him. Perhaps he’d been married seven or eight times too, or I’d discover him to be the illegitimate son of some 1930s movie star. What fun! What I did not expect to quickly uncover was a California death record for him. 1 However, the date on the death index didn’t look right. It said 1981. Did I have the right guy?  Waxing nostalgic and somewhat saddened by the death of a classmate I wanted to know more. It was then that the old newspaper articles began to surface and I could see in print that yes, unexpectedly, I had found the correct Christopher DePasquale.

Now I know what you must be thinking. After all, we “genealogical types” deal with one heck of a lot of “death.” And maybe it’s callous to say, but the discovery of the death of someone we might have known briefly years ago really shouldn’t be unexpected. I am an old man now, so these “passing away events” really shouldn’t come as all that much of a surprise. The trouble with the discovery of this death record for one Christopher DePasquale was that it turns out that he died at the tender age of twenty-five. You see he was murdered.

Okay, while an utterly heinous event, to the dispassionate genealogist or the objective family historian the unexpected discovery of a murder of a young person (even one as recent as forty-two years ago) is often met with an “Oh, how sad,” or “Gee, that’s too bad.” Then, and probably at best, a notation is made for a future reference elsewhere and then politely moved on from. After all, we all die, right? And in most circumstances, I would generally agree that this is all we can do - that is to move on. This might be okay save for those "genealogical bad habits" that force us to look past the expected outcomes for the unexpected. You see, my bad habits wanted to know more.

The facts surrounding the murder of Christopher DePasquale, a fellow university alumnus, at age twenty-five are spelled out (albeit briefly) in the newspapers of the day. The “unexpected” trouble for me occurs not in those newspapers from the early 1980s, or even in Chris's very tragic and unexpected murder. No, the trouble with Chris’ murder is that it is still with us today. The murder of Christopher DePasquale appears to be unsolved.

What am I missing here?

Okay, that doesn’t work for me. Yes, I know that I didn’t even particularly like the guy, but in terms of relevance the fact that Chris’s case remains a “cold case” now forty-two years later doesn’t work for any part of the “genealogical type” in me, or as I suspect, for any of us here. It’s not okay at all.

                          

So you’re probably asking yourself why I am posting this to the blog. I mean, you didn't even like the guy, right Jeff? Is a cold case murder always a genealogical problem? I guess it’s because I don’t want the fact of Chris’s unsolved murder to be forgotten. Remember, we see dead people, right? I’m throwing Chris’s story out to my genealogical brethren with hopes that someone out there might guide me in the right direction to at least try and help solve this. I don’t know anything about “investigating” a cold case. What knowledge can I obtain? What forensic evidence did they collect in 1981 and what of it remains gathering dust in some police department basement? What might be available to us “genealogical bad habit types” that I might lend another set of eyes to? I realize that all of this sounds like utter folly, but what else can I do but try and to give it over to the Wisdom of the Crowd?

I’m not expecting any "DNA help" phone call from CeCe Moore or legal advice from "The Legal Genealogist" Judy G. Russell anytime soon, but I would like to know where to start. Hello, Skip Gates, of Finding your roots, are you out there? However, there’s a murdered guy somewhere out in the ether that needs help. I mean, why the heck would anyone care? What does it matter that some dumb post-college grad probably got himself into trouble over sex, drugs, or rock and roll? The thing of it is, I do care. Even after nearly fifty years, he deserves better. More than this though, I just don’t want Chris to be forgotten. Everybody deserves to be remembered. Every cold case deserves to be solved.

I hear you Chris and I'm listening.

Notes:

1. California, U.S. Death Index, 1940-1997, Ancestry.com, for Christopher F. DePasquale, April 1, 1981

2. The Silicon Valley Voice, at svvoice.com, and as taken from the Santa Clara Police Department, December 27, 2019

3. Santa Clara Police Department, Santa Clara, California, as taken from santaclara.ca.gov, and as posted December 19, 2019