It seems there was a confusion of relatives. There was a "crazy old Candy lady" who took on epic proportions. Because nobody took the time to sort out family tree, ALL the Candy ladies might have been the "crazy old Candy lady." But it wasn't Nellie Belden.
Come to find out, in our research, there was a Candy grandmother who was "put away" in an asylum in Kalamazoo. But the circumstances surrounding such misfortune were neither clear to her contemporaries, nor talk less than "taboo." There seems an irony to human behavior which has everybody living in family and other social groups and there being plenty of talk going round, but far less care given to all the communicating. Here in the 21st century, there is much less taboo about mental health than there used to be. But back when Eliza Hitchcock Candee went to Kalamazoo, senility meant old age and venting feelings was practically criminal.
We look more closely at the life of the "crazy old Candy lady" in our Monroe stop in the Quilt.
So...Nellie Lake Candy Belden, the obituary tells us, was born the 1st of September 1875 (which confirmed some Census information we'd dug up) and came to Michigan from Iowa about 1900. She was married to grandpa George Candy at that time and they worked the land as a settler family until George suddenly died. Nellie re-married to Mr. Charles Belden. And she died on the 16th of January 1946. She'd been ill about eight days which suggests that she had either a visiting doctor checking on her and/or family around her at the time of her death.
We found ourselves tracking down George's burial site based on where other people in the family are resting and virtually meandering among the headstones and archives imagining a sort of family reunion.
Adding cemetery research to our photograph clues, census readings, and family memories was making things more clear and confusing at the same time. We'd find a fact and then the fact would fit into or not fit into a thickening story....so the fact may have seemed simple at first but then the story was getting thicker and bigger and we had moments of total confusion. The confusion wouldn’t have been cleared away any easier if we’d run to the actual cemetery, so we chalked up some amount of frustration to the chores of doing research. Whether online or in person, the work can be tedious and fraught with breakthroughs and standstills.
"It looks like" became a common phrase in my working vocabulary as a researcher.
It looks like...
Glenn had gotten married too!
Some records say...
He married a woman named Buela Edwards (who was born in 1903 in Ogemaw).
Her parents were Christopher Edwards and Louise Meir.
Although like many of the Candys who've gone ahead of us whom we find in Brookside Cemetery in West Branch...there's a conflicting piece of information. It looks like there we find a Glenn who is actually buried with Rena Mae Candy (who lived from 1907 until 1943). From afar it looks like their child Harry S. is also resting there (having died in 1986). As far as research goes, be sure to leave plenty of space between your storyline, so even if you get a confusing clue, you can go back when you can and fill in the gaps.
It’s difficult if not impossible to get whole story by looking at someone or something from afar. Especially in genealogy when people can have the same names or similarities which obscure the simple facts, we’ve found it’s best to go slow and verify, verify, verify.
In the US CENSUS 1920, Delbert A. Candy was a teenager. He was born in 1905, so he was fifteen in 1920. He was only two when George died.
Delbert went on to marry an Estella...both "went home" in their mid-fifties and they were survived by their son--Delbert Candy, Jr. who was a Korean War Veteran and lived until the new millennium--2000!
Delbert Candy, Jr. is buried near his brother who died when he was only six years old in 1937.
And Little George A. Candy was a few years younger than Delbert.
Little George A. Candy was named for his "real" father (and probably "raised" by Charles D. Belden). This was George Augustus Candy who died in April of 1941, seven years before Allie in 1948...when Grover was having children of his own.
All these tidbits keep compiling the wealth of information we’re gathering for Mama’s quilt.
Two years before Allie died, his mother Nellie "Millie" (Candy) Belden passed on.
Our special thanks to Grace Dooley for helping us get a hold of these newspaper clippings.
Virtually walking through the Brookside Cemetery in West Branch, Michigan is how I found the resting spot of another family member.
Little baby Nora May.
Born to George and Nellie (Lake) Candy.
She only graced the family with her presence for a short amount of time in the fall of 1901. Nora May might have come early, too early for a teeny baby to survive the conditions of traveling and setting up farmland. It was around the same time that George and Millie had moved to West Branch, Michigan from Iowa.
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Grover Candy passed on some photographs to Sherry Candy Lane.
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| Believed to be George Augustus Candy and Nellie (Lake) |
George and Millie were married for 12 years before George died.
In Census readings "Farmer" shows up as his occupation. But he was a "pioneer" and a "settler" too. He may have been the "barn builder" that we've heard of in fragments of family stories, course that may have been George's son, Grandpa Ted.
From records, it seems that George called Nellie, "Millie."
This is NOT the George listed in Baldwin's Genealogy as the son of Caius and Eliza Candee, who at the time of the book being published hadn't married yet. In his biological family, George H. Candy had a sister named Mary C. and as siblings they grew up with Caius and Eliza Candee in Whiteford Township, Monroe County, Michigan.
In fact, our George Candy's future wife, Nellie Lake was a baby at the time that (Baldwin‘s) Candee Genealogy came out!
George Candy had married Nellie Lake on the 6th April 1895, in Garner, Hancock, Iowa. The marriage record says George Candy was 28 years old and Nellie was twenty at the time of their wedding. George said he was born in Illinois on that record.
We thought we'd followed Nellie Lake back before her marriage out to Iowa by reading Censuses and biographical sketches and piecing together what we could. We even contacted someone in Iowa who does general genealogy about our particular ancestors.
Our little compilation of facts was NOT correct. The facts were the facts, but we weren't putting the puzzle together correctly, just as we were stymied by trying the make our Grandpa George Candy into George H. Candee.
We were seeing...
Nellie (born about 1875) came from her parents' place in Iowa...
Her parents were Florentine (also known as Ferd?) and Delilah S. Lake.
And as late as 1900 there is record of Nellie living in the Buckeye & Ellis Townships, Hardin, Iowa.
But George and Nellie came Back East to Michigan to raise their family. Possibly because Nellie had inherited some land.
We turned again to our Census record readings. And needed to drop the "H" in between George and Candy on our story-journey.
And discovered that as young people in the process of getting married and starting their own families, some people are on more than one census account in the same year! Yet more reason to not give up looking when we find one or two clues along the way. In fact, digging around in the censuses, especially for small villages and towns, has helped us more than once find other family and the whys in how some people of the past were connected. Plus, we're not talking about communications technology like the internet when we are looking back in time like this. People didn't hear from people for long stretches of time, sometimes didn't at all. I can imagine it felt like safeguarding loved ones to record their existences on something like a Census and this may have added to that phenomena of being recorded more than once in a Census place.
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The family tree found in that work led Mr. Parker to discover census records which confirmed the information compiled by Jessie White.
Mr. Parker contacted us to let us know that he found OUR family in his family tree research.
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27 APRIL 2013
Dear Lara and family,
I have included several sheets of the Descendants of Ebenezer Stephens Family Tree.
The family tree "Record of Ebenezer Stephens and a Roster of His Descendants" compiled by Jessie Fraser-White in 1926 was instrumental in helping with my ability to compile this Family Tree. Before I came across her tree, I was not able to make any order of the many Stephens families. To make matters worse, many of the early families reported their names as "Stevens" to the Census Takers, or in later years, changed the name.
I have been revising the Boyd, Stearns and finally the Stephen family trees. This involves spreading out the information, making room to enter addition [sic] details for family members that is available with the recently released 1940 Census.
Would you be interested in providing any information that you can for your family?
Could you also review the information I have compiled in the Stephens Tree and see if you recognize any one else. If you have the current addresses for others who might have information to contribute, I would appreciate having the addresses (and telephone numbers) so that I may get in touch with them as well.
I do not post my information on-line and make it available to family members only.
Best regards,
Alan and Susan Parker
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In chapter nine of Jessie White's work it is explained that:
Maria Stephens married John Bennett
Elizabeth Bennett married Alenza Lake
--Nellie Lake married George Candy
--Florence Lake married ? Richardson
Mr. Parker says that other than spelling errors, Jessie White's work has proved to be very accurate. Parker's own research has empowered him to find documents to confirm:
Maria Stephens married John Bennett in Lakefield, Quebec. Many of their children were born near Lakefield in the Gore Township, Argenteuil County, Quebec. They later moved to the Ionia County, Michigan area and are buried in the Letts Cemetery, Peck Lake Road in Ionia County.
Maria (Stephens) and John Bennett's eldest daughter was Elizabeth Bennett. This daughter married Alonzo S. Lake on the 30th of May, 1874.
Elizabeth (Bennett) and Alonzo S. Lake's eldest daughter was...drum roll please...
NELLIE LAKE
Mr. Parker finds Nellie in the 1880 Census for Sunfield, Eaton, Michigan:
Alonzo Lake, head of household, age 37 (born in 1843, New York State)
Elizabeth (Bennett), wife, age 32 (born in 1848, Canada, parents born in Ireland and Canada)
Nellie Lake, daughter, age 4 (born in 1876, Michigan)
Florence Lake, daughter, age 3 (born in 1877, Michigan)
In the Census readings Mr. Parker finds Alonzo at age 67 in the 1910 Census for West Branch, Michigan (where Sherry grew up). Alonzo listed his birthplace as New York which is also where his parents were born. At that time he was living with his GRANDdaughter (although she was listed as his daughter)--Estella Candy, age 14 (born in Iowa of parents born in Iowa and Illinois which is where Nellie and George were respectively born).
Alonzo Lake, head of household, age 37 (born in 1843, New York State)
Elizabeth (Bennett), wife, age 32 (born in 1848, Canada, parents born in Ireland and Canada)
Nellie Lake, daughter, age 4 (born in 1876, Michigan)
Florence Lake, daughter, age 3 (born in 1877, Michigan)
In the Census readings Mr. Parker finds Alonzo at age 67 in the 1910 Census for West Branch, Michigan (where Sherry grew up). Alonzo listed his birthplace as New York which is also where his parents were born. At that time he was living with his GRANDdaughter (although she was listed as his daughter)--Estella Candy, age 14 (born in Iowa of parents born in Iowa and Illinois which is where Nellie and George were respectively born).
By September of 1895 George and Millie gave birth to Estella in Iowa.
Mr. Parker also tells us that Nellie's sister, Florence Lake, married Arthur H. Richardson in Evergreen, Montcalm, Michigan.
So this is re-directing information which helps us make more sense of what we'd found in our research. It wouldn't be the first time that those in-general biographical sketch books didn't quite have all the details about people 100% correct.
We do know that there were many families who moved north to Canada due to hostilities between nationalities in the late 1700s.
And we also heard wind from researchers in Michigan that Alonzo had land in West Branch and it was to this land that Nellie and George came when they came back to Michigan from Iowa.
We found Alonzo's resting place in the Brookside Cemetery in West Branch, Michigan. And the additional information at the online database abstract tells us that Alonzo was involved with the Civil War. Might've been why he'd had acquired some land there in West Branch.
Mr. Parker also tells us that Nellie's sister, Florence Lake, married Arthur H. Richardson in Evergreen, Montcalm, Michigan.
So this is re-directing information which helps us make more sense of what we'd found in our research. It wouldn't be the first time that those in-general biographical sketch books didn't quite have all the details about people 100% correct.
We do know that there were many families who moved north to Canada due to hostilities between nationalities in the late 1700s.
And we also heard wind from researchers in Michigan that Alonzo had land in West Branch and it was to this land that Nellie and George came when they came back to Michigan from Iowa.
We found Alonzo's resting place in the Brookside Cemetery in West Branch, Michigan. And the additional information at the online database abstract tells us that Alonzo was involved with the Civil War. Might've been why he'd had acquired some land there in West Branch.
Certainly another interesting chapter in Mama's Quilt. To which we'll be sure and add more information as we gather it.
