Wilson L Starkey Marriage

Here is one of the two letters enclosed in the pension packet that indicate that Wilson L Starkey had been married once. The letter is from his ex father-in-law. This was one of the last pages in his mother's pension packet, so would not have been included in a partial packet. Through out the rest of the pension, Wilson is listed as being unmarried and without heirs. Come to find out that only means he was unmarried without any heirs at the time of his death. It did not mean he had never married.

This is one of two such letters. The other one lists the name of his wife and her death date.

Wilson L Starkey Pension Papers

Over the next few posts I am going to be posting various pages from Wilson L Starkey's mother's pension file. There are about 62 pages in the file, so it would be difficult to post all of it at one time.

Here is the official Service Record/ Statement submitted by the Adjutant General's Office

Wilson L. Starkey

Corporal Wilson L. Starkey

Co. "C" Illinois Volunteers

Died at the age of 27 while assigned to Signal Duty

On the Hospital Ship "Red Rover"

Died apparently during the night of July 26th 1862

Service records put his death on the 26th or the 27th.

Official death certificate states 27 July 1862.

He was buried at Spanish Moss Bend on the Mississippi River, Louisiana

Wilson L Starkey was the son of Benjamin Starkey and Mary C. Ridgeway. His brother William Coulton Starkey is my 3great-Grandfather. Wilson was married for a short time to Eleanor R. Stone, who died in March 1860 (She died at her parents house in Rockport Illinios). Wilson was born in Greece, Monroe County, New York.

The information came from his mother's pension records. She had claimed a mother's pension on his service. The mother's statement only stated that he was unmarried and had no living heir. However, in the pension file there are affidavits that state he was married, but his wife had died leaving no heirs.

The year after Dad died

My mother, Elizabeth Joan Bionaz Baker, was half Italian and at times would show the hot Italian temper. My father, James Edward Baker Jr, was the more calming influence in the home. When I was 16 and a Jr in High School my father died. He went to sleep and never woke up, my mother found his cold body when she went to bed later. I was left in the house with 2 hot tempered Italians, my mom and my younger brother. Unfortunately the other brother near by also could be hot tempered at times. I knew shortly after my father died that my younger brother blamed himself for dad's death. now of course my brother did not kill my father, but as a somewhat rebellious teenager he wasn't all that cooperative around the house. My brother felt that had he been more helpful and less rebellious our dad would not have died. then years later I found out that my mom had also blamed herself for my dad's death because she had given him a mild muscle relaxer before he went to bed. he had been complaining of pain in his shoulder and she thought he had just pulled a muscle or something. In 1975 they did not know all that much about heart disease, which was what killed him. During the next year life was not very good as my mom and brother would get into a fight of some sort.There were times my mom would be so scared of my younger brother that she would come and get me and we would leave the house. There were also times I would get so scared that I feared for my own safety. Sometimes she would called and have my older brother come over,, but that didn't always help because now there were 3 hot tempered people in the house. Eventually things quieted down and my mom and younger brother got along again. They say time heals, but sometimes during that time life can be a nightmare or even a living hell.

Research Goal

This week My research goal is to clean up my sources/citations in my data base. Awhile ago I switched from using PAF to using RootsMagic, RootsMagic has better resources/ templates to make better citations. This week I'm going to clean up my Baker line and the other Loyalists that moved to Canada after the Revolutionary War.
RootsMagic offers free webinars and the other day I watched one on Sources and Citations and it explained how to make better citations. It also explained that when you move a GEDCOM from PAF to RootsMagic the citations do not always transfer very well. Some of the Source information can end up being hidden, because the Source templates are different.
This will also give me a chance to reevaluate what I've done and what still needs to be done.

Tony's finger

I have an older brother named Tony who was known as being "accident prone" when he was younger. The first story of his "accidents" was a story told to me about when Tony was about 3 years old. Since I am younger then him I will have to tell you from what I remember hearing.

Tony was outside playing and some how a big got turned over with the wheels up in the air. The wheel was spinning and Tony decided to stop it. Well being a 3 year old and not knowing much about things, he stuck his index finger into the spokes and tried to stop the wheel from turning. Well as the story goes his finger ended up in bad shape, or as it was explained to me, it was hanging by 3 strands. Now you need to realize this was back in the mi 1950's long before doctors learned how to reattach body parts! But the doctor managed to put his finger back together and it even grew as he grew.

Now saying it grew normally would not be right. The finger as it grew so did the scars and so he had a constant reminder of the accident. It also turned out that he did not have full use of the finger either. When Tony got older he learned to play the trumpet and then the sousaphone. One day he complained about how one of the valves on his instrument was bent. All mom said was "Just be glad you have a finger." It turned out that when that finger pressed down on the valve it caused the valve to bend.

Indexing

Today I was doing some indexing for FamilySearch. I've been doing Ontario Death Records. My great grandfather, Henry Austin Baker, is from Cornwall, Ontario. The Bakers were Loyalists and went to Upper Canada after the Revolutionary War and Henry Austin Baker returned to the United States by way of North Dakota.

Well back to my indexing and my thoughts for today. I indexed a record (or transcribed part of the record so people can locate it on the web) for a man that was his own informant. That's right! I doubled checked the information and it had the decease's name listed as the informant and then where it asked for the relationship it said himself, not a son or father or wife, but himself! That goes to show how you need to be careful of the information even on official documents. I always assumed the informant information would be correct, but now I'm not sure.