Jens Christiansen’s Date of Death

Today I’ve been working on a collateral line, mostly trying to establish what happened to the father of an in-law, Emma Christiansen. In 1910, she appears in a family with Jens and Anna Christiansen as parents in Mason City, Iowa. But in 1920, her parents are Joseph and Anna Lytle. Anna remarried and was living with a second husband. Obviously, something happened to Jens between the 1910 and 1920 censuses.

Someone had helpfully uploaded to Ancestry an image of a page of inscriptions from a family Bible or similar. Here’s the inscription for Jens:

Inscription: Jens Marinus Christiansen Born 1873-1916
Jens Marinus Christiansen Born 1873-1916 (credit: Ancestry member odat12x12 )

Yet, I couldn’t find anything that corroborated that date. Looking on Find a Grave, there was a marker for a J.M. Christiansen in the Elmwood St. Joseph Cemetery in Mason City.

Grave marker with inscription: J. M. Christiansen June 16, 1873 July 4, 1914.
Marker for J. M. Christiansen (credit: GeneGraver on Find A Grave)

But I couldn’t find anything to corroborate that date either!

FamilySearch has an index record for a Jens Christiansan who died on 5 Jul 1915. Unfortunately, I can’t access the image from home and I don’t have the keys to sneak into a FamilySearch center (it’s Christmas Eve folks!), so I’ll have to look at that in a few days. However, I suspect that’s the correct date as I’ve found something to corroborate it.

On 6 Jul 1915, the Mason City Globe-Gazette published an obituary for a James M. Christiansen. Despite the misnaming, I know this is the correct person because later in the obituary the writer lists all his children, including Emma.

Newspaper clipping: Long Illness Comes To End. James M. Christianson Passes Away At Home At 322 North Jefferson After Long Suffering
Long Illness Comes To End. James M. Christianson Passes Away At Home At 322 North Jefferson After Long Suffering

Moral of the story, yet again: Do not take the first piece of evidence you find as proof, even if it seems solid as rock.

Identity of Mary Genevieve Parker

I’ve tried to determine the identity of the inaugural head of the independent Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Mother General Mary Genevieve Parker, for several years. She appears in a photograph album assembled by my great grandparents on a trip they took to California from Wisconsin in the 1920s. Genevieve Parker’s death certificate listed her parents as James Parker and Ellen Nagel, my great grandmother’s uncle and aunt.

However, census records for James and Ellen Parker’s family from 1860 to 1880 do not list a Mary Genevieve Parker. The daughters in those censuses are Catherine, Mary, Ella, Frances and Theresa. Mary became Mrs. Thomas H. Lyons and died in 1915. Ella became Mrs. John H. Murphy and died in 1959. Theresa became Mrs. Frederick Donnelly and died in 1899. Frances became Mrs. Max von Beyer, but the last record I’d found for her until recently was in a Los Angeles city directory in 1909. It was possible she joined a convent and advanced rapidly. So while I suspected Mary Genevieve Parker was Catherine Parker, I couldn’t rule out Frances Parker.

However, two records recently came to light which helped me figure this out. One of them I’d had in my possession all along.

The first key was that FamilySearch recently added Los Angeles area death certificates to their “California, County Birth and Death Records” collection, and the index includes parents names. So a search for Ellen Nagel had Frances’ death certificate in the search results. She died in 1915 as Frances Parker Hilton, wife of Lewis Lorenzo Hilton. That allowed me to exclude her from consideration as Genevieve Parker, and also lead to me finding a whole host of other records about her: her 1900 US Census record (as Fannie Beyer), Max von Beyer’s death certificate from 1906, her marriage certificate to Lewis Lorenzo Hilton, and crucially her 1910 US census record.

The 1910 US census record was what put the final nail in the identity of Genevieve Parker as Catherine Parker. In 1910, Frances Beyer was enumerated as a teacher at a convent in San Luis Obispo. Several dozen names above hers as the head of the convent was listed Catherine Parker. I’ve had that record for years! assuming it was Genevieve Parker but without any evidence except a hunch. But somehow I’d never read down the complete list of names to see Frances Beyer near the bottom of the page. Her relationship to Genevieve Parker in that column? “Sister”.

1910 US Census page with Catherine Parker and Frances Beyer in San Luis Obispo, California
1910 US Census page with Catherine Parker and Frances Beyer

If only I’d read the entire page much earlier. In any case, it’s found now and I’ve identified all five daughters of James Parker and Ellen Nagle. Still left on my plate are what happened to 2 of the 4 sons and Ellen herself.

Ellen Neagle’s family

My third great uncle James B. Parker headed west to California from Wisconsin about 1860. I’ve tracked he and his wife in the census from San Joaquin Township near Sacramento in 1860, to San Buenaventura, Santa Barbara County in 1870, to Compton in 1880. James Parker died in 1895 in Lemon, near Los Angeles.

But at the time he died, his wife was named Harriet. His wife when he left Wisconsin was Ellen. So what happened to her? At this point, I don’t know.

In an effort to find out, today I researched her family. Often times, the obituaries for siblings will mention their family. Or a will will give the status of possible heirs. Or other researchers will have found information that I don’t have.

The Saint Patrick’s parish (Biddulph, Ontario) marriage record for Ellen Neagle gives her date of marriage to James Parker as 8 Jun 1857.

Portion of marriage register for James Parker and Ellen Neagle showing date of marriage as 8 Jun 1857
Saint Patrick’s Marriage register entry for Ellen Neagle

I found an 1851 Canada Census record that matched in nearby Usborne township, Huron County. There Ellen Neagle lived with her father John Neagle, and siblings James, Thomas, Catherine, Mary and John. From that, I was able to quickly find information to establish their marriages, entries in later Canadian censuses, and dates of death. My evidence would in no way be strong enough to satisfy the Genealogical Proof Standard, but I don’t need it to be. I just need clues from their obituaries, wills, other researchers, etc.

This is what I turned up:

Husband: First Names
John
Surname
Neagle
Born: abt 1798 Ireland
Married: unknown
Died: unknown
Wife: First Names
Catherine
Surname
Condon
Born: unknown
Died: unknown

Children:

Name Birth Death Spouse
James Nagle 8 Dec 1826
Ireland
25 Feb 1902
Perth, Ontario, Canada
Thomas Nagle 28 Mar 1828
Cork, Ireland
31 Jan 1905
Perth, Ontario, Canada
Catherine Nagle abt 1832
Ireland
2 Nov 1902
London, Middlesex, Ontario, Canada
Thomas Casey
Mary Nagle abt Sep 1834
Ireland
17 Nov 1918
London, Middlesex, Ontario, Canada
John Hagarty
Ellen Nagle abt 1836
Ireland
James Parker
John Nagle abt 1837
Ireland
12 Nov 1902
Perth, Ontario, Canada

Every single one of them died in Ontario, so I don’t have easy access to obituaries or wills. Additionally, every other public tree on Ancestry (as well as the ones I could find on the web) don’t include Ellen. No one else has a clue either.

The exercise isn’t worthless though. Perhaps someday I will have better access to Canadian records, or other families will post their information, or search for them and stumble cross this post. Over time, I get a fair number of people who contact me about what I post here. So hopefully that will continue with this, and I’ll get some clues as to what happened to Ellen.

The Sisters Solle

One of the things that I want to do with my family history research is tell the stories of my forgotten relatives. One such set of relatives are my first cousins twice removed: Clarabel, Marie, Catherine and Helen Solle.

The Solle sisters are the daughters of my second great uncle Frederick Henry Solle. Fred Solle was an oil and gasoline dealer in Springfield, Illinois and he died young. After his death, his wife Emma Neff Solle took her four daughters and moved to Los Angeles. Clarabel married Fred Adams, who died a few years after their nuptials and they never had children. Marie and Catherine never married and never had children, so far as my research has found. Helen married Floyd Chandler, had one child, and died shortly after that. They also had a brother who died in infancy before their father passed away. Seven people and only one descendant to remember them. For such families, I often wonder what happened to their personal effects, particularly their photos.

While researching this week, I came across photos of Catherine (a.k.a. Kay) and Helen from their time in a Los Angeles area women’s club, the Wilshire Juniors. They appeared four times in the Los Angeles Times in 1½ years. The final one appeared in November of 1937 and is the featured image at the top of this post.

Mrs. Maurice Miller, Miss Kay Solle, Mmes. Ralph Mather, Henry Graef, Clarence Hausser, Miss Helen Solle and Miss Dorothy Berry (in front)
Mrs. Maurice Miller, Miss Kay Solle, Mmes. Ralph Mather, Henry Graef, Clarence Hausser, Miss Helen Solle and Miss Dorothy Berry (in front), from the 28 Apr 1936 Los Angeles Times
Miss Helen Solle, Mrs. Ralph W. Mather, Miss Kay Solle, and Mrs. Henry A. Graef
Miss Helen Solle, Mrs. Ralph W. Mather, Miss Kay Solle, and Mrs. Henry A. Graef, from the 9 Jun 1936 Los Angeles Times
Mrs. Louis Miller, Misses Kay and Helen Solle
Mrs. Louis Miller, Misses Kay and Helen Solle, from the 26 Sep 1936 Los Angeles Times

Now I’ve gotten to tell a bit of the story of two relatives who didn’t have as much chance to pass on their stories as some.

Wikitree becomes evil / Chris Whitten is a liar

Several years ago I stopped using Geni.com because they decided to make previously private profiles public. I started using Wikitree instead because the founder, Chris Whitten, promised that Wikitree would not do this. He lied. Let me re-iterate. Chris Whitten is a liar. I wish I had saved screencaps where he told me Wikitree would not do the thing it has now done.

Wikitree decided to take private information and make it public.

I have profiles of people that I had set to private that were made not only public, but editable by anyone. Because Chris Whitten thinks he’s a better judge of what should be private about my family than I am.

While there’s nothing about people who died over 100 years ago that I am worried about, I no longer trust Chris Whitten. I would have no problem if he decided this is how privacy levels will work for all new profiles. But to retro-actively remove privacy protections for information tells me he’d be willing to do it again. What’s to say he won’t decide to make public information about living people? Or recently deceased? He’s shown that their privacy policy isn’t worth the electrons it was printed with.

Even worse, Wikitree will not let me delete the information they’ve let me keep private to this point. So I’m stuck with leaving that information with an untrustworthy shitheel.

So I repeat. Chris Whitten is a goddamn fucking liar. Wikitree has become evil.

Edited to add: Employee Eowyn Langholf is also a liar. In her response to my complaint with the Washington Attorney General she stated that: ” no private information has or will be made public “. Which is incorrect. The profile of my great grandfather Joseph Peter Weiss was made public.

Genealogy: do not trust, verify

The last couple of days I’ve been doing some quick research on an in-law, Andrew Fischer of Campbell County, South Dakota. He married Anna Lindemann, a relative of mine. I generally do some research on an in-law’s parents, siblings and anyone else that can be considered “immediate family” in case those people’s lives reveal something about my family.

Andrew Fischer was born in South Russia in 1903 and came to the US in 1910. His parents, Andreas and Magdalena Fischer, had more children after establishing themselves in Campbell County, South Dakota. (However, see my note in the final paragraph of this post regarding Andrew’s parents.) The one I want to highlight is his brother, Arthur Fischer. Arthur Fischer was born about 1918 in South Dakota, and that’s where things go wrong.

Somewhere along the line, someone found an Arthur Fischer who was born in 1918 and died in 1988 and was buried in South Dakota. They assumed this Arthur Fischer was the son of Andreas and Magdalena. After all, what are the odds of more than one Arthur Fischer born in 1918 and connected to South Dakota? Pretty good actually.

Searching the Social Security Death Index for Arthur Fischers born about 1918 with some connection to South Dakota results in seven people:

Name Birth Date Death Date Last Residence (City,County,State)
Arthur Fischer 28 Oct 1918 6 Apr 1988 57754 Lead, Lawrence, South Dakota, USA
Arthur Fischer 17 Mar 1918 7 Aug 1997 32798 Zellwood, Orange, Florida, USA
Arthur Adolph Fischer 4 Jun 1916 22 Sep 2010 57078 Yankton, Yankton, South Dakota, USA
Arthur Fischer 3 Jun 1915 Dec 1961
Arthur M. Fischer 20 Mar 1915 7 Sep 1999 57437 Eureka, Mcpherson, South Dakota, USA
Arthur J. Fischer 6 Sep 1922 4 Dec 1993 57437 Eureka, Mcpherson, South Dakota, USA
Arthur Fischer 22 Feb 1922 Feb 1984 55112 Saint Paul, Ramsey, Minnesota, USA

Two had their last residence in Eureka, just a 21 minute drive from Artas, where the “real” Arthur Fischer grew up. So which one is he?

According to ELCA baptismal records, the son of Andreas and Magdalena was born 17 Mar 1918:

ELCA baptism record for Arthur Fischer

The second Arthur Fischer listed above appears to be the correct one. Looking for an obituary for him, Genealogy Bank has the following (citing an obituary in the Orlando Sentinel):

79, Greenbluff Road, Zellwood, died Thursday, Aug. 7. Mr. Fischer was a quality assurance inspector for the U.S. government. Born in Artas, S.D., he moved to Central Florida in 1986. He was a member of Zellwood Golf Association. He was also an Army veteran of World War II and a member of Disabled American Veterans. Survivors: wife, Lois H.; sons, Bruce W., Inver Grove Heights, Minn., Bradley C., St. Paul, Minn.; sister, Elvina Huber, Mobridge, S.D.; brothers, John, Corvallis, Ore., Walter, Baxter, Minn. Woodlawn Funeral Home and Memorial Park, Orlando.

The obituary does not list his parents names, but the birthplace matches up. More importantly, Andreas and Magdalena had children named Alvina, John and Walter. Research on Alvina shows she married an Edward Huber. The Arthur Fischer who died in 1997 is the correct Arthur Fischer.

There are currently 10 family trees on Ancestry.com other than mine that include Arthur Fischer. As of today, all of them have his lifespan matching the first Arthur Fischer in the list above. And someone found the Find a Grave entry for the first Arthur Fischer, connected him to Andreas and Magdalena, added a bio, and included a photo.

That Arthur Fischer, however, was born in Napoleon, North Dakota, as his obituary states:

1988 obituary for the other Arthur Fischer

Maybe most of the people on Ancestry treat their trees there as “experimental” as I do, meaning, copy this at your own risk, as I haven’t verified everything. What’s on Find a Grave should be correct, however. People make mistakes. But it’s clear that noone has done much verification on the information for Arthur, they simply copied what someone else had. If you value the accuracy of your tree, do that verification before you copy a tree into your own. Assume that people make mistakes.

I’ve let the maintainer of the Find a Grave entry know, and I expect it’ll be corrected before too long. But those ten Ancestry trees, along with others on services I don’t use, will probably remain incorrect for years to come. A lesson from that is to remember that correctness of genalogical information is not proven by majority vote.

In my case, the easy things to find on Arthur Fischer didn’t reveal anything about Andrew Fischer, husband of Anna Lindemann. He died before Arthur, and I haven’t found any crossover in their records after childhood. In fact, in my better database (not my Ancestry tree), I haven’t included anything about the parents of the Andrew Fischer I’m interested in because I haven’t found a solid connection between Anna Lindemann’s husband and the rest of his family. Those same ten family trees are what suggested he is the son of Andreas and Magdalena. There’s a lot of suggestive evidence that backs that conclusion from those trees, but nothing solid, much less sufficient for a G.P.S. proof argument.

Alt Metten in Bohemia

My second great grand uncle (by marriage), Joseph Zimmerman, died in 1908 in Los Angeles. I had his death certificate and brief death notice from Los Angeles to establish the details around that event, but I knew there were obituaries for him in Iowa, where he’d resided for many years before removing to Los Angeles. I’d seen a transcription for one from the Guttenberg Press on a GenWeb site. Last week I remembered that, like a lot of other Iowa county libraries, the local library probably had a web site hosting digitized versions of their old newspapers. And the Guttenberg Library does have a newspaper site!

In addition to the Guttenberg Press obituary, the site also has one from the Clayton County Journal (only the first portion shown):

Obituary for Joseph Zimmerman from the Clayton County Journal
Obituary for Joseph Zimmerman from the Clayton County Journal, 11 Dec 1908, page 8

Unlike other evidence which listed either Austria or Baden as his place of birth, this obituary gives a fairly precise location: Alt Metten in Bohemia.

Being the curious and detailed person that I am, I want to know where Alt Metten was. I know there are gazetteers for historical Germany, but I didn’t know offhand if any such things cover the Austrian Empire or Bohemia in particular. And I like maps. So I perused the David Rumsey map collection web site to see if it had any for Bohemia. It does, and the approximate date is 1838, which is really close to Joseph Zimmerman’s year of birth.

Unfortunately, Alt Metten was not immediately apparent. So I made a copy of the map and, using GIMP, started crossing off place names that were not Alt Metten. Below you will see my handiwork, which is still not complete. The red marks tick off places that are within the Kingdom of Bohemia according to the map. Then I started with yellow marks for places outside the borders shown but which could conceivably be considered Bohemia. A couple of places I circled in green for further checking in case I can’t find better candidates. I still have some places to check.

Map of Kingdom of Bohemia  from Allgemeiner Hand Atlas der Ganzen Erde
Map of Kingdom of Bohemia from Allgemeiner Hand Atlas der Ganzen Erde

So far, nothing that is clearly Alt Metten.

Post-glacial Rebound near Håkansön

I attended a genealogy seminar on 25 September 2016 at the Swedish Club in Seattle, put on by SwedGen. The final portion was on the historical maps available from Landmäteriet. I’ve used that web site for the current maps, mostly as a gazetteer. I didn’t know the historical maps were available.

So I poked around looking for maps of Håkansön, the village where both my great grandparents are from. Some of the old church records identify the farm numbers where my family lived. Unfortunately, I haven’t found any land reform maps for the village, which would show the individual farms.

But there were some general maps for the area, and I noticed something interesting. The first image is from Google Maps of the peninsula today. The marker on it shows where Håkansön was according to the old maps (I thought it was slightly south of there).

Map of Klubbviken 2016
Klubbviken 2016

The second image is of the same area on a map identified as being from 1858-78. The peninsula is shorter, with an island just off the tip.

Map of Klubbviken from 1859-78
Klubbviken 1859-78

What was an island in the 1800s is now part of the mainland. I’m betting the change in sea level is due to post-glacial rebound. The entire area was under thousands of feet of ice 20,000 years ago. and it is now rising because the weight no longer presses down.

Kind of neat to see a long term geological process actually reflected in the maps.

Mary Evelyn Frederick’s SS-5

An update on Mary Evelyn Sorenson, the daughter of Alfred and Mae Sorenson. Between Ancestry’s Social Security Applications and Claims Index database and the death certificate of the person who had that Social Security Number, I had an idea that I’d found what had happened to my first cousin twice removed. However, her death certificate did not list parents, so I wasn’t certain that I had records for the right person.

In July I requested the Social Security SS-5 for the person with Mary’s Social Security Number. That’s the original application for a social security number. It has date of birth and parents on it usually. Here’s what I got:

SS-5 - Mary Evelyn Fredericks
SS-5 – Mary Evelyn Fredericks

Many of the items in this application match what I know about Mary Sorenson:

  • Father’s full name.
  • Mother’s first name.
  • Approximate year of birth.
  • Place of birth.
  • Name matches the name of Mae Sorenson’s daughter in the daughter’s announced marriage to George Grantzow.

That’s a lot of matching points. And unless someone took over her identity it’s the same woman who died in 1990, the S.S.N. and date of birth match the death certicate. I’m considering it pretty safe to assert these are all the same person.


Armed with that information, I was able to find a marriage record for Mary Evelyn Sorenson and Herbert George Fredericks in Los Angeles from 1935.

Marriage certificate for Herbert Fredericks and Mary Sorenson
Marriage certificate for Herbert Fredericks and Mary Sorenson

For some reason, Mary Sorenson thought her mother’s maiden name was Radtke. The other indication I have for Mae’s maiden name comes from Mae’s marriage record, which gave her name as Gibbons. She was raised in an orphanage, so I don’t know how accurate either name is.

I can start to put together a timeline for Mary Sorenson now:

Date Event Place Source
9 Mar 1914 Birth Madison, Wisconsin Death certificate
SS-5
1 Jan 1920 Census, recorded living with parents Madison, Wisconsin 1920 US Census
8 Sep 1935 Marriage to Herbert George Fredericks Los Angeles, California Marriage certificate
24 Feb 1937 Residence Redondo Beach, California SS-5
1 Apr 1940 Census, living with Herbert Fredericks Inglewood, California 1940 US Census
23 Nov 1943 Marriage to George William Grantzow Unknown, but announced in Madison, Wisconsin Two announcements in the Wisconsin State Journal
23 Jan 1948 Divorce from George Grantzow Madison, Wisconsin News in Wisconsin State Journal
7 Jun 1948 Marriage to James “Shorty” Reigle Dubuque, Iowa Announcement in Wisconsin State Journal
1 Nov 1949 Marriage license with James “Shorty” Reigle Madison, Wisconsin Announcement in Wisconsin State Journal
18 May 1951 Divorce from James Reigle Madison, Wisconsin News in Wisconsin State Journal
7 Jun 1951 Divorce from James Reigle vacated Madison, Wisconsin News in Wisconsin State Journal
26 Mar 1952 Divorce from James Reigle Madison, Wisconsin News in Wisconsin State Journal
May 1956 Name under Frances Marie Sorenson U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007
Oct 1956 Name under Frances Marie Newton U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007
Nov 1957 Name under Frances Marie Vonhauzer U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007
16 Nov 1958 Residence, name under Evelyn Tanner California Mother’s obituary in Capital Times
13 Oct 1990 Death, name as Frances Marie Newton Lynwood, California Death certificate

There’s still a lot of gaps in her life that I could research and document, in addition to better documenting the known events.

  • how and when did her marriage to Herbert Fredericks end
  • what was the deal with incongruent marriage records for Mary and James Reigle
  • how did Mary get the name Evelyn Tanner, and did she marry to get that name
  • when and where did she change her name to Frances Marie
  • did she marry to acquire the surname Newton
  • did she marry to acquire the surname Vonhauzer

Ysola Chaves Ryan’s Sensational Will Contest

It’s no secret that I love a scandal in my family tree. These situations make for the best stories. I found this one involving my second great uncle Elgie Jerome Ryan earlier this week.

My second great grandfather’s first wife (my ancestor), Mary Parker, died in 1875. William Dennis Ryan re-married a year later to Mary Powers, and they had three children: Elgie Jerome, Glenn Alexis and Arch. William already had six children with Mary Parker: Alice, Frances, Mary, Julia, Laura, and Leo. Glenn and Arch died before age 30. Over the years, Elgie lived with his siblings in Merrill and Colorado before moving west to Tulare, California and establishing a very successful drug store.

Elgie’s first wife was Barta Holford, who was from Bloomington, Wisconsin, just a few miles away from the Ryan farm. Elgie married Barta on 22 Aug 1905 at the Eastern Star Lodge in Bloomington. Shortly after that Elgie and Barta were established in Tulare.

The following are photos of Barta and Elgie taken from a family photo album.

Barta Holford Ryan (left) with Allie Ryan (right)
Barta Holford Ryan (left) with Allie Ryan (right)
Ryans in Tulare (Elgie in back right)
Ryans in Tulare (Elgie in back right)

Elgie died on 28 Jun 1926 in Tulare. The following obituary appeared in the Bloomington Record on 7 Jul 1926. I suspect the obituary is in the public domain, but out of caution I have included only the parts necessary to my story. Notice anything about the obituary? There is no information about who his second wife was.


Until this week, that’s all the information I had. It wouldn’t be too difficult to get Elgie’s death certificate to find that out, but I hadn’t yet gotten around to it. Last time I spent much time researching Elgie, I didn’t have access to too many California newspapers. But I recently upgraded to the “Publisher Extra” service at Ancestry’s Newspapers.com web site, which includes the Los Angeles Times. On a whim, I’d searched for “E. J. Ryan” and the following article from the 2 Mar 1927 edition of the Times showed up:

Headline from article on suit over Elgie Ryan will
Los Angeles Times, 2 Mar 1927, section 2 page 11 col 6, Sensational Will Contest

Now that’s juicy! I’ve included only the headline under fair use. Additional information that the article gave me included his second wife’s name (Ysola Chaves Ryan) and that an autopsy found poison in Elgie’s body! The death was ruled a suicide.

That was enough information for me to track down their marriage record on FamilySearch. I’ve no idea why I wasn’t able to find it earlier. They got married on 22 Mar 1925 in Los Angeles. Other articles in the Times say that Ysola was a teacher in the Tulare schools at the time of her marriage, but she appears to have resided in Los Angeles most of the time. Her sister was Mignon Le Brun, wife of silent film actor Cullen Landis.

Even stranger, at the time of Elgie’s death, Ysola may have left him and returned to Los Angeles. She maintained that Elgie didn’t commit suicide, but instead consumed strychnine accidentally. Now, it seems odd to me that a druggist, even a despondent one in ill health, would commit suicide in one of the most painful ways possible (strychnine) rather than a relatively painless one such as an overdose of morphine.

Eventually though, the courts ruled for Ysola Ryan that she was entitled to the entirety of the $118,000 estate ($1.6 million in 2016), and Elgie’s death remained a suicide officially, denying Ysola the benefits of Elgie’s life insurance. From the 5 Mar 1927 edition of the Santa Ana Register:

Santa Ana Register headline on resolution of suit of Elgie Ryan's will
Santa Ana Register, 5 Mar 1927, page 12, column 4, Wife of Suicide Awarded Estate

Ysola doesn’t appear to have remarried, dying in 1964 under the name Ysola Chaves Ryan.