Stephanie's Genealogy: Jimmy Lively

Jimmy Lively

My great grandfather's cousin, Jimmy Lively, was born with a mental delay. He was included in many family photos along with all the other cousins from the time he was a small child until he appeared to be around 10-13 years old. We know that Jimmy existed only because of all the family photographs, family memories, and a brief note written by my grandfather while he was still alive:

Handwritten Note from the home of Carl Spohr & Beverly Monk Spohr: “John Lively stayed with family. Uncle Louie and Anna Lively had an affair. Jimmy was put in home when she died. After problems Uncle Louie found drowned." [Louis Ott was Jimmy's father, and Anna Lively was Jimmy's mother. And John Lively was Jimmy's Uncle].

I spent a summer at my grandparents' house when I was a teenager, and I would riffle through their drawers & boxes finding family photos and papers and sit down with my grandparents each evening, asking them to identify who was in each photo so we could preserve that information. They were willing to do it, although I do remember my grandpa seeming a little tired of identifying photos night after night -- I just kept finding more and more photos everyday when I'd search more through their big old house. Anyway, that's when I learned about Anna Lively and her son Jimmy, as my grandpa would identify who was in the old family photos. Whenever he'd see a photo of Anna Lively he'd get rather quiet and comment that she had such a hard life.

We've done a pretty thorough search on ancestry.com, familysearch.org, and through the online databases in the Illinois State Archive at https://apps.ilsos.gov/isa/globalsrch.jsp. I can't find a single record that even mentions Jimmy Lively. [There was another James Lively - relationship unknown - who lived in the same town, but I learned that he was a veteran and had been married, which was not the case for our Jimmy. So that seems like a dead end]. We know from the family photos that he had to have been born sometime around 1927/1928 (and we also know that his father passed away in 1928, so his birth couldn't have been later than that). And he was born and lived in Madison County, Illinois. Even though Jimmy was mentally handicapped and was the result of an affair, and the family could have easily cut off all contact with the mother and the little boy, it seems that they stayed connected. Jimmy was in photographs with all the other children in the family, and with his father's older sister Anna Marie Ott Spohr (my great, great grandmother) on many occasions. And those photos were saved and handed down in the family throughout the years.

I have found the family members, including the boys' mother Anna Lively, on census records throughout the years, but Jimmy was never listed as living with any of them. I've even traced all the siblings and parents of both his mother and his father, and there's no indication that he was living with any of them. [There was an 11 yr old boy named Carl Lewis listed in the household with Jimmy's mother and uncle on just one census in 1940 -- we have not found a Carl Lewis mentioned in any other family records, or on any earlier/later census records yet. (Interestingly, two of the cousins who Jimmy played with were named Carl and Louis, but maybe that's just a coincidence?) Could this have been Jimmy & his name was incorrectly reported???]

I just found a death record for Anna Lively in 1940, so we assume that Jimmy was "put in a home when she died" around that time. He would have been somewhere around 12 years old then. That's all we know.

Why didn't we find a birth record for him? Or a death record? Or census records? Is it possible that because he was the child of an unwed mother, the result of an affair, and mentally handicapped, that they never registered his birth? It seems like a death certificate would still exist for him somewhere, but I don't even know were to start. And what about that boy on the census with the first and last name that don't match - was that just an honest mistake, or might they have purposefully provided the wrong name for him because of shame for a handicapped child born out of wedlock?

[On a side not: There was a family story that my mom shared with me: that Louis Ott was found drowned at a lake, and that it was suspected that Jimmy had had something to do with his father's drowning. But as we've looked into these records we can see that his cause of death was drowning, but it also appears that Louis Ott died not long after Jimmy was born, so it sounds like the story that Jimmy may have had something to do with Louis' death was incorrect. I'm not sure how that information may have gotten mixed up over the years But it does make me wonder how Louis Ott drowned -- if it was an innocent accident, or if there might have been foul play (by someone other than his infant son)? Haven't found any newspaper articles about his death, and we haven't yet seen a copy of his death certificate -- the record that we have about his death from drowning is a copy of his burial permit from the cemetery where he was burried].

The family lived in Madison County, Illinois, which wasn't far from St. Louis, Missouri. So I assumed that the home he went to was likely in Illinois, or possibly in Missouri. After doing a brief search about finding genealogical records for patients in insane asylums/hospitals, it sounds like it's very difficult to get records about patients in Illinois without hiring a lawyer. But I don't even need medical records -- all I'd like to know is where Jimmy ended up, and when/where he died. (If he was born in 1928 he would be around 97 now if he were still alive. I assume he is dead by now, but don't know for sure. (Wow, the thought of him being sent away as a child and still possibly being alive today in an institution somewhere is really sad to me!) But I don't assume that's the case -- I think it's likely that he has already passed away before now. But he could have been sent anywhere. I don't know where to go from here.

I don't know if we'll ever find Jimmy. It's really just awfully sad to think of how his life turned out.

Handwritten Note from the home of Carl Spohr & Beverly Monk Spohr:
“John Lively stayed with family. Uncle Louie and Anna Lively had an affair. Jimmy was put in home when she died. After problems Uncle Louie found drowned."

Louis Ott:

This is the only photo we have of Louis Ott (the youngest brother of my great, great grandmother, Anna Marie Ott Spohr). Here he is pictured with his older brother Frank and his mother, Maria Anna Strunz Ott. This photo was taken in Cincinnati before the family moved to Madison County, Illinois. The Ott family emigrated from Putschirn, Böhmen [Bohemia] (now Počerny, Czechia) before 1899 when Louis was born in Cincinnati -- he was the only member of the family who was born after they moved to the United States.

This World War I Draft Registration Card for Louis Ott provides some information about him, including his occupation in 1918 as a 34 yr old self employed Pool Room Proprietor in Madison, Illinois. This was about 10 years before his death.

And this is the burial permit from the cemetery, stating that he died by drowning in 1928 in Nameoki, Illinois at the age of 44.

Anna Lively:

We have learned from census records that Anna was born in February 1895, the 4th surviving child of William & Mary Jane Lively.

Anna's father William was of Irish descent. William & his older sister lived with their Aunt & Uncle Bennett's family in Indiana since he was a young child. On 5 June 1888 William Lively married Mary Jane Smith in Daviess, Indiana. The couple had 7 children, 4 of which survived: John, Patrick, Anna, & Margret. (Another brother, Michael, died in childhood. And we have not yet found records with names of their other 2 children who passed away). In 1900 William was working as a railroad contractor in Washington, Indiana. And by 1905 the family had relocated to Madison County, Illinois. In 1910 William was working as a carpenter in a car shop, and Anna's two older brothers worked as laborers in the car shop. And when Anna was 21 years old, on Christmas Eve in 1916 her mother passed away. In 1920 William was working as a laborer for the street department, and his sons were working as car repairmen - one for the railroad, and the other at a car shop. Then William passed away in December 1936.

We're not yet sure exactly when Anna had Jimmy, but Anna Lively would have been somewhere around 32 years old when she was with Louis Ott. If Jimmy was born in approx. 1927 or 1928, that means that he was born within a year or so of when Louis Ott died. Even after Louis' death, Anna and Jimmy seemed to stay closely connected to the Ott/Spohr family. And Anna's older brother, John Lively, was a lodger in the home of Anna Marie Ott Spohr, Louis Ott's older sister, even years past the death of his sister Anna Lively. Anna passed away at age 44 on 12 December 1940 in Granite City, Illinois.

_, _, Florence Spohr, Anna Ott Spohr, Frank Ott, "Aunt Cora", Anna Lively, Nettie Spohr, Louis J Spohr, Louis C Spohr, Carl Spohr, Carl Spohr Jr

Anna Lively is pictured here with the two surviving siblings of Louis Ott: Anna Marie Ott Spohr & Frank Ott. The rest of the known relatives in the photo are the two sons of Anna Marie Ott Spohr, their wives, and their two little boys. Jimmy is not in this photo, even though he would have been around the same age as these little boys.
[The woman standing between Frank Ott & Anna Lively was identified as "Aunt Cora" by Carl John Spohr Jr. (Carl is the baby in this photo), but he clarified that he knew her as Aunt Cora, but he did not know her relationship to the family. Nettie Graham Spohr had a sister named Cora, but this is not the same Cora].

Anna Marie Ott, Louis Spohr Jr., Annie Lively, Aunt Cora (not Nettie's sister), and Florence Graham Spohr

Anna Lively

Anna Lively passed away in 1940. This photo would have been taken sometime near the end of her life.

Jimmy Lively:

Frank Kenneth Spohr, Carl John Spohr Jr, Jimmy Lively, Louis John Spohr, & Dolores Anne Spohr. Jimmy Lively, pictured here wearing glasses, appeared in several photographs alongside the grandchildren of Anna Marie Ott Spohr, the older sister of Louis Ott.

Jimmy Lively, Carl Spohr Jr., unknown girl (back), and Dolores Spohr (front)

Dolores Spohr, Frank Spohr, Carl Spohr, Jimmy Lively, and Louis Spohr

Jimmy Lively

Louis John Spohr, Carl John Spohr Jr., and Jimmy Lively.
Louis was born in June 1928, and Carl was born in June 1930. (And we know that Louis Ott died in June 1928, so Jimmy had to have been conceived sometime before then). Our best estimate is that Jimmy was likely born around 1927-1928.

Colorized photograph of Louis Spohr, Carl Spohr, and Jimmy Lively

Jimmy Lively

Jimmy Lively with his aunt, Anna Marie Ott Spohr

Jimmy Lively

John Lively:

John R. Lively was Anna Lively's oldest brother. He was born in July 1888 in Indiana. In 1930 when he was 41 years old he was living in St. Louis, Missouri with his wife, Elfa Louise Harrington (it was John's first marriage, and Efa's second marriage), where he worked as a steam railroad car inspector. But Elfa passed away in 1931 in Madison, Illinois. And in 1940 John was working as a steel worker & living in Madison in a household with his sister, Anna Lively, and his 11 year old nephew Carl Lewis. In 1950 John Lively was working as a cheuffer in the city garage & living as a lodger in the home of Anna Marie Ott Spohr in Madison. John passed away in 1972.

[It is very curious that the nephew living with John & Anna Lively on the 1940 census was named Carl Lewis, as we have not yet found any solid leads for any relative named Carl Lewis, or any marriages of sisters to anyone with the surname Lewis. This boy was 11 years old, born about 1929. And it says that the boy attended school that year, and that his highest grade of school was 4th grade. Might have this boy actually been Jimmy Lively? The age matches up, and the fact that he was a grade or two lower than that of the typical 11 year old in school at the time might have had no significance, or it might possibly have had to do with Jimmy's mental delay. Also, it's an interesting coincidence that Jimmy's two family members that he played with who were closest to him in age were Carl Spohr & Louis Spohr, and this child was listed with the name "Carl Lewis." So we're still not sure about this boy on the census. Is it possible that there was another little boy of similar age who was also a nephew of John Lively -- possibly a nephew of his wife's or a stepchild from his wife's first marriage? Or maybe the child of John & Anna's younger sister Margaret? Maybe so. But if so, where was Jimmy on the 1940 census?]

Originally Carl John Spohr Jr. identified the individuals in this tiny photograph as Anna Marie Ott Spohr, Jimmy Lively, and Louis Ott. But in comparing the ages of these individuals with the records, we know that Louis Ott passed away when Jimmy was just a baby, so this could not have been Louis Ott in this photo. But when comparing these photos with the one other photograph that we have of John Lively, it looks like it is very likely that this is John Lively in this photo with Anna Spohr & Jimmy Lively.