November-December 2018:
My third great grandparents are James A. Dobbins & Florentina “Florence” Constantina Fritz. Up until a week ago, I didn’t know too much about them, especially about James — I had no clue who his parents & siblings were. And other than knowing that he and Florence were married on 24 February 1881 in St Louis, St Louis, Missouri, I only had some very uncertain details about his birth & death dates and locations.
I did know that James & Florence had three daughters, Susie Florence Dobbins Graham, Laura E. Dobbins Fitzgerald, & Cora Mary Bell Dobbins Bosch Dolan, all born in St Louis. Susie was the oldest, born 5 December 1881, Laura was two years younger, and Cora was three years younger than Laura. Susie & her husband, John George Graham, are my second great grandparents.
I knew a little more about the girls' mother than I did about their father. Florentina went by Florence. She was the daughter of Ignatius Fritz & Florentina Magdalena Binder who were both born in Germany. According to family records, Ignatius & Florentina had 8 children born between 1847 and 1869: John Fritz, Karl Fritz, Maria Magdalena “Lena” Fritz Hamburg, Florentina Constantina “Florence” Fritz Dobbins, George W. Fritz, Wilhelm Fritz, Karolina Elizabeth “Carrie” Fritz Egner, & Joseph Johannes Fritz. From what we knew about the family, the oldest son John was born in Germany, and all the rest of the children were born in the US (likely all born in St Louis County, Missouri). Most of what I know about James & Florence, and about Florence’s parents & siblings come from handwritten records I found in my grandparents’ house years ago.
Several years ago I found some records about Florentina’s family, specifically the birth record of her father and his siblings, and the marriage record of her father’s parents, in Forbach, Baden, Germany: https://stephsgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/02/birth-records-for-children-of-ignatius.html & https://stephsgenealogy.blogspot.com/2010/02/parents-and-siblings-of-ignatius-fritz.html. So I do have some original sources for the Fritz side of the family before they came to America, but for the time period after they came to America most of what I knew about the Fritzes & Dobbins was from handwritten family notes, some stories passed down through the years, & a few census records.
So as of last week this is what I knew about the Dobbins & Fritz families:
A few years ago I was in contact with Tom Kilwin, a fellow genealogy researcher who’s wife was a descendant of my great great grandmother’s younger sister, Cora Dobbins. Tom shared three photos with me which I love, because two of them are the only photos I’ve ever seen of James Dobbins & Florentina Constantina Fritz Dobbins. And the other photo is the only one I’ve seen of my great great grandmother Susie Dobbins as a girl — in it she is pictured with her two younger sisters. Tom also shared his genealogy information with me about the family. I was also in correspondence with Karen Graham Meng, my grandpa’s cousin who was also another descendant of Susie Dobbins Graham. I also kept copies of Karen’s memories and family stories that she shared with me. From Tom & Karen I learned that Susie, Laura, and Cora were still girls when their mother died, and that their father was absent from the family, so the girls were raised by their mother’s older sister Maria Magdalena Fritz Hamburg, or “Aunt Lena,” who never had children of her own.
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| James A. Dobbins |
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| Florentina Constantina "Florence" Fritz Dobbins |
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| Laura, Susie, & Cora Dobbins, St. Louis, Missouri |
There was some mystery about what happened to James after his wife died, and the stories passed down through the years cast him in a negative light: According to the notes I had from Karen Meng, the story was that “Grandpa Dobbins [James A. Dobbins] left Grandma and married a wealthy widow.”
Also recorded in Karen’s family notes was this memory:
“There was much bitterness about James deserting his wife and family. James left family and remarried a red-headed woman whose family had attained wealth from being in the shoe business. Susie always felt her mother died of a broken heart although the cause of death was supposedly pneumonia. There is a story that Susie did see James with his second wife (probably before his remarriage) and James did try to talk to Susie. He was across the street, could see her and called to her but she would have nothing to do with him. Her remembrance of him is his bing with a red-headed woman. James and his second wife moved East, possibly to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.”
Another story of the interaction between Susie and her father after her mother’s death was also recorded in Karen Meng’s notes:
“Grandma (Susie Dobbins) Graham's dad took off for Texas. The grandparents lived there and they tried to get her. She was at the grandparents’ house and they said, ‘Here comes your dad.’ (To Grandma, he was dead.) She went down the back stairs and to Great Aunt Georgie. She (Susie Dobbins) would not acknowledge him as a father because she said he killed her mom. She [Florence Fritz Dobbins] died when Grandma [Susie Dobbins] was 14 and they said she died of a broken heart.”
{This is the only time I’ve seen any information about the family having been in Texas, and I don’t know how “Aunt Georgie” was related, so I assumed she may have been a sister of James A. Dobbins}.
And a note in the genealogy file that Tom Kilwin shared with me stated,
“James Dobbins left his wife Florence after the birth of their third daughter. The Dolan family story is that James was a Protestant and Florence was a Catholic and the daughters were secretly baptized in the Catholic Church. When James discovered this he left his family. The Graham family story is that he stayed in the area and lived with a ‘red headed woman.’”
So, that’s what we knew. A lot more questions about James than actual facts and original sources. I was curious about what really happened with James and why he left the family (only because in my past research experience in other family lines, I have found family memories of a father abandoning the family, only to later find sources that prove that the parents actually were divorced or the father actually died and that the family stories were not entirely correct. I wondered what really happened with this little family. I had done a little searching for James Dobbins years and years ago, but without knowing anything about his occupation, his parents & siblings, and knowing very little about when or where his birth & death occurred, I had never had much luck finding out anything about him in the past. And I hadn’t searched for this family in years.
James A. Dobbins & Florentina Contstantina “Florence” Fritz:
Last week I had a persistent feeling to look for them again, so I did. At first I just looked up census records for any possible James Dobbins who could have been born around 1860 in our around either Missouri or Indiana. But with a name as common at James, there were just too many potential possibilities. The two records that I did find that I knew were for “my” James & Florence were their marriage record, which I had seen before. It showed that they were married on 24 February 1881 in the Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church in St Louis. The only other clue that the marriage record gave was that it listed both James and Florence as being “of St. Louis Missouri.” I tried searching for information about/other records from Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church, but didn’t have much luck there. I also found the birth register record of James & Florence’s youngest daughter, Cora. It gave her birth date in 1886, the address 1228 Vernon Ave, and listed her parents as “Jas Dobbins born in MO, Florence born in St. Louis,” which made me wonder if James was born somewhere in Missouri other than St. Louis. (I wasn’t able to find the older two daughters in these birth registers).
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| James Dobbins & Florence Fritz' marriage record |
Next I decided to search for James & Florence in the St Louis City Directories, since I knew that they lived there at least from 1881 when they were married through 1886 when Cora was born. But I came up with the same problem — without knowing either an occupation or an address in St. Louis where the family had lived, it was hard to narrow down which of the several James Dobbins appear on the City Directories throughout the years may have been our James. So I started looking for Florence Dobbins to see if she might show up in the Directories (although less likely — often women only appear in the directories either when they were old enough to be working and were not yet married, or in years when they were listed as widows after their husbands’ deaths). I found only one listing in all the Directory years for Florence Dobbins: in 1891 (ten years after James & Florence were married, and 5 years after their youngest daughter was born, and three years before we know that Florence would later die) the St Louis City Directory lists, “Dobbins Florence wid. James, r. 2403 N. 9th.”
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| Florence Dobbins, widow of James, on 1891 St Louis City Directory |
In my research so far, I hadn’t found any indication that there may have been a second couple also living in the area at the same time with similar names to James & Florence Dobbins. I felt that this was likely my James & Florence, but that fact that the Directory listed Florence as James’ widow, indicating that he died before she did, directly conflicted with the family memories that had been passed down about James. So I wanted to find some more information that could possibly confirm that this was indeed our James & Florence. I went back to ancestry.com and did a keyword search for the address “2403 N. 9th” through all years of the St. Louis City Directory, and guess who else I found living at that same address throughout multiple different years? Florence’s family members! For at least 6 years prior to that Florence’s widowed mother was living at that address. And in 1887 Florence’s brother in law, Lewis Hamburg, resided there with his family. Then in 1895 Florence’s older sister, Maria Magdalena “Lena” Fritz Hamburg appears on the Directories at that address for a few years after her husband Lewis passed away. Florence’s younger brother, George W. Fritz also lived at that address between 1887 and 1891. And John Egner, the husband of Florence’s younger sister Karolina “Carrie” Fritz, lived at that address with his family in 1889, and again in from 1899 through at least 1904. (Lena Hamburg also moved to the nearby address, 2401 N. 9th Street, in 1899 and lived there for years, and Florence’s daughters lived there with Lena after Florence’s death). Looking at google maps, it doesn’t appear that the building the family lived in at that address is still standing: these are the buildings that remain on that street today closest to where 2403 would have been:
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| Current day street view near 2403 North 9th Street, St. Louis, Missouri |
My wish was granted: this was ample confirmation that I had found “my” Florence Dobbins living at 2403 N. 9th Street in 1891. Which means that James died before Florence did. I don’t know where the family stories about James came from (maybe these memories were actually about another man in the family, and they got mistakenly attached to James as they were passed down through the generations? Or maybe James was indeed unfaithful to his family before his death?) We may never know the answers to these questions. Since then, I have done further searching for an exact death date for James Dobbins, and have not yet found a death record for him.
Next I decided to search for each of the Fritz & Dobbins family members on the St Louis City Directory and chart out my findings to see what other clues the City Directories might have for us. I was able to find Florence’s parents, and to follow the Hamburgs the the Egners through the years (the families of Florence’s two sisters & their husbands). But I didn’t have much luck finding James Dobbins, or Florence’s brothers who survived t adulthood: John, George, Wilhelm (William), & Joseph Johannes. These names are all rather common, and I was having trouble narrowing down which men in the Directories may have been from this family. So I decided to go to the census records to try to fill in some of the blanks on my City Directory chart, specifically to see if I could find addresses or occupations for some of these men to compare with on the City Directory.
John Fritz & Albertina Seegar:
I started with Florence’s oldest brother John Fritz. It had caught my attention that John was the only child in the family that we knew of who was born in Baden, Germany (the rest were likely all born in St. Louis County, Missouri). And John was 10 years older than the next sibling in the family. And Florence’s father, Ignatz Fritz, was at least 13 years older than her mother, Florentina Magdalena Binder Fritz. This all seemed to indicate the possibility that John was actually the child of Ignatz from a previous marriage, and maybe Ignatz’ marriage to Florentina was actually his second marriage. I found John Fritz on the 1880 Census, age 34 born in Baden, living in St Louis & working as a Confectioner, married to Albertina who was born in Switzerland, with children John, Robert, & Emma Fritz.
So I searched on the 1870 census for John Fritz and found him as a 23 year old Laborer born in Baden, boarding in the household of Michael & Mary Brown in East St Louis, Illinois. (Interestingly, on this census record Michael Brown's occupation is listed as a steam boat deck hand, and another resident of the household, F. Wicke, is listed as a steam boat captain. And on the 1860 census John's father, Ignatz Fritz's occupation was listed as a "River Man." So that may be how John ended up boarding with these families in 1870). Anyway, I searched for John Fritz's wife, Albertina, and the only Albertina I could find in the 1870 census who was born in Switzerland was Albertina Seegar, 17 year old domestic servant living with the Fassett family in Ward 2, St Louis City. (Ward 2 is right across the river from East St Louis, Illinois, where John Fritz was boarding 1870). I also came across a 23 year old Jakob Seeger also living in Ward 2 in St Louis on the census that year, and wondered if he might be Albertina’s brother.
Upon searching for more records about Albertina Seegar, I found the passenger list for 70 year old farmer, Jakob Seeger & 50 year old Anna Seeger, from Switzerland, traveling from Bremen, Germany to New York on the ship ‘Laura’ arriving 10 Jan 1866 with his family including Arnold age 25, Jakob age 18, Bertha age 15, Albertina age 12, and Celestina age 8. I also found an indexed record for Albertina’s birth record in Switzerland: Albertine Seger, born 20 Nov 1852 in Stein, Switzerland, baptized 20 Dec 1852 in the Evangelical Church in Ermatingen, Thurgau, Switzerland, parents Jakob Seger & Anna Peyer, FHL microfilm no. 958745. I also found cemetery records for John, Albertina, and their three children in the Old Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Cemetery in St. Louis. And found death certificates for two of their children on the Missouri State Archives website, www.sos.mo.gov.
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| Passenger List of Jakob & Anna Seeger family |
I decided to test out my theory that John Fritz was Ignatz’ son from a previous marriage, so I went back and searched through the same batch of extracted church records where I originally learned more about Ignatz Fritz and his relatives in Forbach, Baden, Germany several years ago. These records are just full of Fritzes, so I searched for John Fritz the son of Ignatz Fritz, and found him. Johann Baptist Fritz was born in Forbach on 23 June 1848, the son of Ignaz Fritz & Creszentia Wunsch. There was also a birth record in 1850 for Marianna Friz daughter of Ignatz Friz & Crescenz Wunsch.
All these records about John & Albertina all came in a rush, finding all these records within about 15 minutes — a goldmine of information all just waiting to be found. I believe they really wanted to be found!
I was excited to learn about Florence’s older half brother John, and to find that wealth of records about him and his family. Afterwards I got back on the hunt for James A. Dobbins, still wanting to find out who his parents and siblings were.
James A. Dobbins’ parents & siblings:
James & Florence Dobbins’ family doesn’t appear on any Federal Census records because they were married in 1881 the year after the 1880 census, and the next surviving census record in 1900 was after both James & Florence had died. I wasn’t sure if I’d have any luck finding James on the 1880 census, because there are so many Jameses and I didn’t have many identifying details to help me confirm which one was “my” James. Because James & Florence’s 1881 marriage record said James was “of St Louis Missouri” and their daughter’s birth record said that Florence was born in St. Louis and James was born in Missouri, I hoped that James was living in St. Louis by the time the 1880 census was taken, so I searched for any possibility of a James Dobbins who lived in St. Louis and was born in Missouri.
The only James Dobbins (or any similar spelling) living in St. Louis on the 1880 census was James Dobbins, age 21, working as a molder, boarding with the Herman & Mary Hannibal family at 2222 North Tenth St., born in Missouri, both parents born in Kentucky. Also living in the same household was a Thomas Dobbins, age 18, apprenticed to a machinist, who was also born in Missouri with both parents having been born in Kentucky. So I assumed I had found a brother for James. {This James Dobbins was working as a molder -- I had noticed from the City Directories that Florence’s brother, George Fritz, worked as a molder, and wondered if this could have been a connection too}.
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| Brothers, James & Thomas Dobbins on the 1880 US Census |
My next step was to search for James & Thomas on the 1870 census, but I didn’t have any luck finding these two brothers in the same household anywhere on the 1870 census. So I just searched for James. I found him living with the family of Wm & Mary Dobbins and their 1 year old son Geo. M Dobbins in St. Louis, and William was a Moulder, so that was a good connection to James’ occupation on the 1880 census. But William was born in Missouri and Mary was born in Ohio, so that didn’t match the parents birthplaces of Kentucky from the 1880 census. And 10 year old James was listed after 1 year old George, indicating that he may not have been the child of this couple. (Plus, William was 29 and Mary was 20, so if her age was listed correctly she was too young to be James’ mother anyway). I wondered if James’ parents may have died, and maybe he moved in with his uncle & aunt.
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| James Dobbins living with the William & Mary Dobbins family, 1870 US Census |
My next step was to find out what happened to Thomas. I found two possible matches for Thomas on the 1870 census. One was a family living in a Missouri town about 350 miles from St Louis, with two parents born in Kentucky and all the children in the home born in Missouri, but the Thomas in that family was 12 years old and I was looking for a Thomas who was about 8 at the time. The other possible match that I found was a family in Moreland, Scott County, Missouri (about 130 miles south of St Louis). This family was made up of John Martin, a 32 year old shoemaker who was born in Pennsylvania, and his 21 year old wife Laura who was born in Missouri, and two children: 9 year old Thomas Dobbins and 16 year old Anna Dobbins, both born in Missouri. This one felt like it was the right family to me — like the household where James Dobbins was living in 1870, this family seemed to be made up of children who may have been living with a couple other than their parents. (And once again, the parents were not born in Kentucky). I wondered if Thomas & James (and Anna) may have been sent to live with different aunts & uncles after their parents died?
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| Thomas & Anna Dobbins living with John & Laura Martin, 1870 US census |
So I searched for James, crossing my fingers that he would have been born early enough to show up on the 1860 census (since we knew he was born about 1860, and knowing that Thomas would not yet have been alive in 1860). And I found the record that tied them all together. In 1860 in Benton, Scott, Missouri (Benton happens to fall within the borders of the Township of Moreland, where Thomas and Anna were living in 1870), was the family of John & Sarah T. Dobbins. John was 47 and was born in Kentucky, he was a landlord, and was apparently doing pretty well for himself with $3000 real estate value and $600 personal estate value. The family lived in a hotel (probably that $3000 worth of real estate that John owned). John’s wife Sarah T. Dobbins was 37 years old and was born in Tennessee. And all 8 of their children were born in Missouri. And according to the census, all of the children other than the youngest, 8 month old James A. Dobbins, attended school within the year (even the oldest sons who were young adults at the time). The children included David A. age 22, William age 19, Mary S. age 15, Nancy E. age 13, Laura J. age 10, Albion H. age 8, Sarah A. age 6, and James A. age 8 months. Looking back at the two different 1870 census records, I could see that the children had not been sent to live with aunts & uncles, but with their elder siblings: James lived with 29 year old William in 1870 (who was 19 on this 1860 census), and Thomas & Anna lived with their older sister 21 year old Laura in 1870 (who was 10 in 1860 census). And Anna, who was 16 on the 1870 census, matches up with Sarah A. who was 6 on the 1860 census. At all fit together so neatly.
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| John & Sarah Dobbins family, 1860 US census |
I also found the family on the 1850 census living in Scott County, Missouri. John Dobbins was a farmer with $250 value in real estate, born in Kentucky, and his wife Sarah was listed as born in Illinois. The five children, David A., John W., Mary S., Nancy E., & Laura J. Dobbins, were all born in Missouri. (Although this record lists the oldest son, David age 14, at the bottom of the list of children — which could possibly indicate that he wasn’t the child of this couple but may have been a nephew or step son, or it could also just be that they forgot to list him at the beginning and added him at the end of the list).
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| John & Sarah Dobbins family, 1850 US census |
I did a little searching for each of the siblings, finding some of them in different census records throughout the years, finding some marriage & death certificates for some of them, and finding cemetery records for some. The most interesting of these is the death certificate of James’ older brother, William Dobbins, which lists his mother’s maiden name: Sarah Howell!
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| William Dobbin's death certificate |
Florence Fritz’ siblings:
After these great discoveries with the Dobbins family, I returned my attention to the Fritz siblings. I revisited the Missouri State Archives website and found death certificates for Lena Hamburg, Caroline E. Egner, John Egner, George Fritz, Catherine A. Fritz, and birth records for several of Florence’s nieces and nephews on that site. And I found two death records for Carl Fritz, so we now have accurate birth & death dates for Ignatz & Florentina’s oldest baby boy who died at age 1. (Unfortunately, I still haven’t had any luck finding a death record for James A. Dobbins).
I also came across the cemetery records of George W. Fritz and several of his family members, which revealed that his wife Catherine’s maiden name was Mooney. With this information, I was able to find Catherine and her family on the 1880 & 1870 censuses in St. Louis. In 1870 Katie was 7 years old, living with her mother Ann Mooney & her 10 yr old sister Mary, her 4 yr old brother Hugh, & her 3 yr old sister Ann. And I also found Catherine Mooney Fritz' death certificate, which listed her parents as James Mooney & Ann Burgess.
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| Ann Mooney and her four children on the 1870 US Census |
I also found death records for William Fritz, Florence’s younger brother, and learned that he died on 29 September 1882 in St. Louis when he was 15. He was working as a laborer, and died of internal injuries from an accident. And I learned that Florence’s youngest brother, Joseph Johannes Fritz, also died young, at the age of 2.
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| Death record of 15 year old William Fritz |
After using census records to fill in some of the blanks on my City Directory chart, I was able to find John Fritz and his brother George, and James Dobbins on the St. Louis City Directories. James A. Dobbins lived at 2222 N. 10th Street and worked as a laborer in 1881. And in between 1883 and 1887 he worked as a molder & lived at various addresses (moving at least 4 different times within those 5 years).
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| Charts of Dobbins & Fritz family findings in St. Louis City Directories & US Census records |
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| (I had to cut the chart into three sections to make it easier to view online -- I know it's difficult to read, but hopefully it'll work well enough). |
I’m really happy that I acted on the impression to search for these families, since they clearly wanted to be found. I haven’t found such a wealth of records and “new” information while researching my ancestors in the United States in years and years. Now the information we have about this family is so much more complete. And we definitely have some more leads — maybe these sources will lead to more information further back on the Dobbins line in the future.
It's fun to compare what I knew about these two families a couple months ago with what I know about them now:
It's fun to compare what I knew about these two families a couple months ago with what I know about them now:
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| Now we have almost all of the dates/locations filled in for the Fritz family. And lots more details about some of the siblings' spouses & children too. |
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| And I found that John Fritz was actually Ignatius' son from his first marriage. And John had a sister, Mariana, too. |
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| And the most exciting find of all: James A. Dobbins' parents & his 8 siblings! |
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***Update, 15 January 2019:
After I finished typing up & saving all the sources I had found about the Dobbins & Fritz family back in November & December, I went to add the new information I had found to familysearch.org. But that lead me to a new discovery: On FamilySearch, I found the family of John Milton Dobbins & Mary Taylor Howell, and 8 of the 9 Dobbins children that I had already found, including James Albert Dobbins. All the names & details match up, there’s no question that it’s definitely the same Dobbins family. But the thing I wasn’t expecting to find is that James A Dobbins was listed with a wife & 3 children who I’d never heard of before. I wondered if there was some mistake, but the more that I looked into the details and the sources, the more it all pointed to the fact that James A. Dobbins had a 2nd family after his marriage to Florentina Constantina Fritz & the births of their three daughters, Susie, Laura, & Cora.
In my previous research, when I found the 1891 St. Louis Missouri City Directory that listed “Dobbins Florence wid. James, r. 2403 N. 9th,” and then confirmed that this was indeed our James & Florence Dobbins, I took that as evidence that James had passed away sometime before that Directory was published, and I disregarded the family stories that had been passed down that James had abandoned his family for another woman. I wondered if those stories had been based in fact — maybe James had been unfaithful to his wife before his death? — or maybe it was somehow passed down about the wrong ancestor as the story came down through the generations, since the City Directory said that Florence was a widow by 1891??? I searched for records of James’ death, but didn’t find any. But because of the record listing his wife as a widow, I didn’t continue to search for him after that date. It looks like I should have exhausted all the different possibilities, though.
From the family stories that were passed down, James was described as an unfaithful husband who left his wife and 3 daughters for another woman. And there was a reference to James’ relatives having lived in Texas after he left the family. These details do seem to match up with the new information I found about James and his 2nd family on FamilySearch.org. I also took a look at ancestry.com, and found some more details about him and his 2nd wife there too. Here’s what I’ve found so far:
First I found James & Lottie Dobbins on a couple of census records in 1900 & 1910. In both records James was listed as a Moulder, so that was a definite clue that this was likely “our” James. The 1910 census states that both James & Lottie were in their second marriages. Although the two census records don’t agree on what year James & Lottie married each other: according to the 1900 census they would have been married in 1883, but according to the 1910 census it would have been in 1888. And according to these census records Lottie was about 8 or 9 years younger than James, she was born in Wisconsin, and she was the mother of 3 children: Charles born Nov 1884, Blanch born May 1886, and Annie born Aug 1888. All three children were born in Texas.
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| James & Lottie Dobbins with Charles, Blanch, & Annie on 1900 US Census |
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| James, Lottie, & Annie Dobbins on 1910 US Census |
I also found the cemetery record & a photo of the headstone of James & Lottie Dobbins in Fort Worth, Texas. The cemetery record said that James was born 24 Sep 1859 in Benton, Missouri (we knew that he was born about October 1859), so that matched up. And it said he died 10 Mar 1914 in Cleburne, Texas. And it said that Lottie’s name was Lottie J. Norton Dobbins, and that she died in 1924 in Fort Worth, Texas. I haven’t yet found James’ death certificate (apparently the death certificates for the county where he passed away aren’t currently available online, so I would have to send for a copy via mail). But I did find a death index record that lists him, and goes along with the details from the cemetery record.
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| Greenwood Memorial Park and Mausoleum, Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas |
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| Death index of James A. Dobbins, 1914 |
So I did a thorough search of the city directories to see if I could trace James through the years. The first year that I find James in a city directory in Texas is in 1889. He was living in Dallas, Texas, and working as a moulder at Mosher Manufacturing Company. I found James on city directories living in Dallas between 1889 and 1902. Then, starting in 1902 through 1912 he is also listed in the Fort Worth, Texas city directory. In 1913 he appears in the Cleburne, Texas city directory, and we know from his cemetery record that he died in Cleburne in 1914. Two of the children from the 1900 census, Charles & Annie Dobbins, are also listed on the city directories in Fort Worth, both before and after James’ death, and after James died Lottie was listed on the Fort Worth directories as James' widow in three different publications.
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| James Dobbins in 1889 Dallas, Texas City Directory |
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| George & Lydia Norton family (including Lottie) in Eaton, Wisconsin on the 1870 US census |
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| Lottie Norton living with her siblings in Sherman, Texas, 1880 US Census |
There was so much information building, that it seemed too much to possibly be a coincidence. By this time, I was pretty much convinced that this was our James. But I wasn’t sure what the actual facts were about his first and second marriages — did he abandon Florence and their girls? Or maybe they got divorced, but we just haven’t found a record of the divorce yet? And when did he move to Texas and marry Lottie Norton?
Next I started searching for James & Lottie’s marriage records, and I found even more than I was hoping to find. First I found a marriage record for James Dobbins & Mrs. Lottie McCown in 1888 in Grayson County, Texas. Then I found another marriage record for Mr. James A. Dobbins & Mrs. L J McCown in 1894 in Tarrant County, Texas. (Grayson County includes the town of Sherman, where Lottie Norton was living with her siblings back in 1880 before she was married. And Tarrant County includes Fort Worth, where Lottie & James were living later on). At first I assumed that one of these records was a marriage license, and the other was a marriage certificate, but both the 1888 and the 1894 records each include both a license & certificate of marriage. Apparently the couple was married twice, first on 23 Oct 1888, and again on 7 July 1894. Interestingly, James’ first wife, Florence, died in St. Louis Missouri on 21 June 1894, just 16 days before James & Lottie’s second marriage to each other. I can’t rule out the possibility that James & Lottie may have been married in 1888 and could have separated or divorced for a time, and then reconciled and then gotten married for a second time. But I haven’t seen any clues that indicate that the couple was separated. And the fact that their second marriage date happened so quickly after his first wife’s death makes me really wonder if they (or at least he) knew that their original marriage wasn’t really binding since he was technically still married to his first wife, so once they learned that the first wife had died they went back and got married again just to make it official. It does seem that Lottie may have at least been aware that James had a first wife, even if she never knew the circumstances of whether he abandoned his first family or not, since that 1910 census said that it was a 2nd marriage for both James & Lottie (and it seems like if someone was hiding a secret past, they wouldn’t be too keen to divulge their secrets to a census enumerator who happened to show up on their doorstep), but who knows?
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| James Dobbins & Lottie McCown's 2nd marriage certificate, 1894 |
The other thing that I was really wondering about was who the father of Lottie’s children was? By 1900 the three children, ages 15, 14, & 11, were all listed on the census with the surname Dobbins. (And I haven’t found any records that list any of these children with a surname other than Dobbins). I even found the death certificate of the middle child, Blanchard May Dobbins, in which the informant (Blanch’s son in law) stated that Blanch’s father was James Albert Dobbins. But just because the children went by Dobbins, doesn’t mean James was their biological father. They may have been the children of Lottie & her first husband, but considered James Dobbins their father because James raised them for most of their lives, or it’s possible that he may have adopted them. Or they may have believed that James was their biological father. But the children’s birth dates & locations make it pretty hard for all three of them to have been the biological children of James Dobbins.
From his first marriage, James was the father of Susie Florence who was born 5 Dec 1881, Laura E. was born 30 Dec 1883, & Cora Mary Bell was born 12 Mar 1886. All three of these girls were born in St. Louis, Missouri. And Lottie’s children were all born in Texas: Charles Edward was born 12 Nov 1881 or 1882, Blanchard May was born on 4 May 1886, and Annie was born 24 Aug 1888 or 1889. (There are a couple census records that say Charles was born in Wisconsin, but all the other records I’ve found for him say he was born in Texas like his two younger sisters).
If the family stories are correct, James left his first wife after the birth of their third daughter. Which is supported by the fact that we find him on the city directories in St. Louis between 1881 and 1887. There is also a newspaper article mentioning “Secretary Dobbins of the Moulder’s Union” in St. Louis in April 1887. Then, he first shows up on the directories in Texas in 1889. And James worked as an Iron Moulder. I don’t know if he may have ever had the opportunity to travel, but at least we know that he wasn’t working as a traveling salesman or something that caused him to be traveling frequently. But it seems that he was living in St. Louis from 1881 to 1887, during the entire period that his three girls were born there. And Lottie was living in Texas even before James’ marriage to his first wife, and her children were born in Texas. (Not to say that it was impossible for Lottie or James to travel during those years, so he could be the biological father of all 6 children. But I think it’s less likely that he was. I started to look for information about Lottie’s first husband. The only clue I had was her surname, McCown, on both her marriage records to James Dobbins. I quickly came across a marriage certificate for Lottie J. Norton & James McCown in Grayson County, Texas. They were married 5 February 1882. So if Lottie’s oldest child, Charles, was born in November 1882, that means he would have been born 9 months after Lottie’s marriage to her first husband. I’d say it’s almost a sure thing that Charles, at least was the biological son of James McCown. And that being the case, along with the fact that we know James Dobbins was still in St. Louis until at least 1887 and Blanchard was born in Texas in 1886, makes me think it’s very likely that Blanchard’s biological father was James McCown too. As for Lottie’s youngest daughter, Annie: Lottie & James Dobbins’ first marriage to each other was on 23 Oct 1888, and Annie was born on 24 Aug either in 1888 or 1889. If she was born in 1889, her birth would have been 10 months after Lottie & James Dobbins were married. But if she was born in 1888, it would have been before their marriage date (not that it’s not still possible that James Dobbins was her father even if she was born before they were married). So I’m not sure about Annie, but she could be James Dobbins’ biological daughter. Not that any of that changes the fact that as far as I can tell, these three children considered James Dobbins their father and he raised them for the remainder of his life.
(I would have really loved to find a death record for Lottie’s first husband, James McCown, just to add one more detail about who the father may have been, but no matter how much time I spent searching I was unable to find anything more about him. It’s not necessarily a lack of information about individuals in Texas named James McCown/McCann/McCuen/etc., but an over abundance of James McCowns living in that region, but none with any strong ties to the town of Sherman, Texas or any other indication that he might be more likely than all the others to be Lottie’s first husband. So no luck on that front yet).
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| Death certificate of Blanchard May Dobbins McLendon, which lists James Albert Dobbins as her father |
Then I decided to check one more resource that I thought might be helpful: I signed up for a 1 week trial on newspapers.com, and the first search that i did returned this article:
“Newspapers.com, Newspaper article about James A Dobbins, Fort Worth Daily Gazette, Fort Worth Texas, 5 Aug 1894,
“To Produce His License — A Request to Investigate the Marriage Records
City Secretary Montgomery received a letter yesterday morning from one F.P. White of St. Louis asking him to please investigate the date a license was issued to James A. Dobbins. The request says that Dobbins was married in Fort Worth something like twelve years ago; that he brought his wife to St. Louis and there abandoned her and her three little girls seven years ago.
Mrs. Dobbins never had a divorce from her erring husband and never knew that he had ever married again.
Mrs. Dobbins died about a month ago, and now Dobbins has appeared on the scene in St. Louis, saying that he has been married twice since he deserted his first wide, and that he intends taking the children and bringing them to Fort Worth. The children are said to detest the idea of coming with their father, and friends of the children wish to prevent his bringing them if they can. For this purpose they have asked Secretary Montgomery to furnish them wiht the date of the license so that Dobbins may be prosecuted for bigamy.
Inquiry has been made here and no one remembers Dobbins. County Clerk Jno. P. King has not made a thorough investigation yet, but will, and the exact date of Dobbins’ marriage and to whom (for the letter does not state Mrs. Dobbins’ maiden name) can be learned.
The letter has excited considerable interest among those to whom it has been shown, and all join Secretary Montgomery in his desire to do anything that can benefit the three little motherless children.”
I do believe that the article (or possibly the letter mentioned in the article) did get at least one fact wrong: I know that James Dobbins & Florence Fritz were married in St. Louis — I have a copy of their marriage record. And both of them were living in St. Louis before they were married (and I don’t have any indication that either of them were in Texas before their marriage), so I don’t believe there would have been a marriage license in Texas. But other than that, it seems to get lots of the details right: It says Mrs. Dobbins died about a month earlier which is correct, it says they were married about 12 years earlier (it was 13 years), and it claims that James abandoned the family 7 years earlier, which would have been 1887 (and that goes along with the information we have). If this article is correct, it answers the question about whether James & Florence may have been divorced or not.
The other question it brings up is, if James claimed that he had been married twice since he left his first wife, was there possibly another wife other than Florence & Lottie??? (Or, could he possibly have been referring to both of his marriages to Lottie?) I’ve done some searching, and haven’t found any marriage records for James and another wife so far. Also, I’m wondering when he could have been married to another woman? Assuming that he wasn’t actively living in a marriage relationship with more than one woman at the same time, the only apparent potential time would have been between 1887 when he was last in St. Louis and 1888 when he first married Lottie. So it’s possible he could have had a really short marriage in between. Or, he could possibly have separated from Lottie for a time and then gotten back together with her, or it’s also possible that he could have been married (or in a marriage-like relationship) with another woman at the same time as he was with Lottie. I’m not sure if we’ll ever know for sure.
I had hoped that there might be an equally interesting follow up article with more details, or possibly another article in St. Louis referring to the same situation. But so far I haven’t come across any further details about this. The one thing I do know is that Susie, Laura, and Cora did remain in St. Louis. They were raised by their “Aunt Lena,” Florence’s sister, Maria Magdalena Fritz Hamburg, who was married, but never had children of her own. The girls lived in St. Louis into their adult years — Susie was married in St. Louis in 1901 and then moved to a nearby town in Illinois, but both Laura & Cora remained in St. Louis all their lives. I get the idea that their lives may not have been easy financially. On the 1900 census two of the three girls were employed: 18 year old Susie as a shoe fitter & 16 year old Laura as a seamstress. And by the 1920 census Aunt Lena was working as a laundress. By 1930 when she was 71 years old, Lena was working as a laundress at the Children’s Home Society of Missouri. Then on her death certificate, it mentions that Lena had fractured her wrist during a fall before she passed away. And it the location where the accident occurred as “Little Sisters of the Poor.” So it sounds to me like Lena may have either been residing at or getting assistance from a Catholic institution for the poor before she passed away.
And, regardless of his apparent faults, this does bring to light the idea that James Dobbins may have had at least redeeming quality: he came back for his girls. Now, we may never know what went on in James & Florence's relationship, the reasons that he left the family, or whether his motivation to return for his girls was pure or not -- could he possibly have been motivated by love for his girls, a desire for a second change at a relationship with them, or by his own ego that they were his daughters so he should raise them, or possibly his belief that he could potentially benefit financially from taking custody of the girls (although their Aunt Lena's financial condition in her older age seems to indicate that she was not well off, at least in her later years, but we don't know if James knew and/or believed that). Who knows? But I personally like to try to give people the benefit of the doubt whenever possible, and I can see from the records that James appears to have been a father figure to Lottie's children and apparently supported them, and I like to think that maybe his attempt to go back for his girls may have been his effort to repair his broken relationship with his daughters after their mother's death.
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| Article about James A. Dobbins' marriage, 1894 |
Article about J. A. Dobbins, molder, in The Los Angeles Times, 29 Dec 1889,
“In A Fiery Tempest — Nine Men Horribly Burned by Molten Metal
New Orleans, Dec. 28. — [By the Associated Press.] The Picayune’s Dallas (Tex.) special says: Nine men were horribly, and some fatally, burned by a shower of molten metal from an exploding mold at the Moshier Machine Company’s foundry, on Ross avenue, this afternoon at 6 o’clock. The names of the victims are:
J. A. Dobbins, molder, his body, head and neck were fairly riddled by the melting metal; his left ear was burned off. His injuries will prove fatal.
John Hughes, molder, had the clothing burned from his person, both eyes were filled with red-hot metal, and he is burned from head to foot. He had to be wrapped in cotton saturated with oil, and opiates were applied.
Malsom, a molder, and foreman of the foundry, was fearfully burned. His neck and breast were injured. The metal ran into one of his shoes and almost cooked his foot before he could kick it off. He will recover.
Charles Hurst received two terrible wounds in the back, from which the flesh fell in strips, and the blood oozed out as his clothing was town from him. His injuries will keep him disabled for some time.
John Wheeless, a workman, was severely burned about the head and shoulders, and was knocked senseless by flying bricks.
Ed Ayers, Wiley Jones, Mack Haney, Jake Mitchell and other workmen were all more or less burned about the head and shoulders.
The cause of the explosion was the generation of gas inside a mold which was prepared to cast a 1600-pound piece, and when the hot metal was poured into the mouth it exploded, sending thousands of pounds of molten metal in a perfect shower among the men.”
I wasn’t sure at first if this was “our” James Dobbins, since it sounded pretty sure that this man would die from his injuries. I also found a second article with almost exactly the same information as this one, dated 2 Jan 1890 in a St. Joseph, Missouri newspaper. The only new details included in the second article were that J. A. Dobbins was married, and it said that he “will probably die.” But I compared this information to my findings on the city directories, and James A. Dobbins was working at Mosher Mfg. Co. in 1889. And there weren’t other men also showing up on the city directories in 1889 or surrounding years with similar names, making it hard to tell which one may have been our James — it’s pretty straight forward that it was him working there throughout the years. He didn’t die from those injuries, though. He shows up on the Dallas city directories in 1891 (now working as a moulder for Queen City Iron Works), then again in 1893 & 1896 working back at Mosher Mfg. Co. again, and then working as a moulder at different companies, right up until the year before he passed away.
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| Article about James A Dobbins in a factory accident, 1889 |
I’m still searching for more clues about this family, and I’m hopeful to continue to find more details about them. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed this search and where it has lead me so far, and have been so excited by these discoveries.
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