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Traverse City State Hospital on the 1940 census

4/8/2012

One of the ancestors I had on my list to look for was my great-grandfather Henry Hickox Chase. I knew from family records that he entered the Traverse City State Hospital in 1936 and was there until he died in September 1940.

I spent some time on Google Maps and Google Earth, trying to pin down the ED for the hospital. Turns out I didn't need to go to the trouble, since the State Hospital had an ED all to itself: 28-18.

What I wasn't prepared for was how big this institution was in 1940! The first four pages enumerated over 160 hospital employees, including physicians, therapists, dentists, psychologists, nurses, clerks, cooks, bakers, kitchen helpers, dietitians, housekeepers, maids, seamstresses, laundry workers, telephone operators, and student nurses. When at last the roster of inmates began, they were listed in alphabetical order. I quickly scrolled through page after page until I got to the "C"s, and was momentarily taken aback when H.H. Chase wasn't listed. Then I realized that they began with the listing of women patients. This listing of just the females went on for over 25 pages - well over 1200 women. When I got to the list of men patients, there he was:

1940 U.S. census, Grand Traverse, Michigan, population schedule, Traverse City, enumeration district (ED) 28-18, sheet 19B, Henry H. Chase, digital images, Ancestry (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 8 Apr 2012); citing NARA microfilm T627, roll 1753.

He was listed as age 69, although he had actually just turned 70. He was divorced, and had an 8th grade education. In 1935 he was living in his own home in Bear Lake, Manistee, Michigan.
I thought I knew what I was expecting to find on the 1940 census. But I'm finding out that this census is giving me a clearer picture of the life and times, and the surroundings each of my ancestors was living in. Where before I may have imagined that Henry H. Chase spent his last years in something approaching a nursing home or assisted living facility, now I have the image of something closer to the truth - of many brick buildings, housing well over 2500 inmates, all of them mentally ill.

Henry Hickox Chase, 1870-1940

Finding my mother in the 1940 census

4/6/2012

The 1940 census is here!! I will have to admit that after all the hype, I was a little disappointed (but not surprised) that I wasn't able to get in to the NARA website to view images. As the National Archives put it the following day, they were expecting a tidal wave and got hit with a tsunami!

The first census discovery I wanted to make was finding my mother, Mary Elizabeth Stoelt, living with her parents on 14883 Faust in Detroit, Michigan. Using Steve Morse's website, I was able to narrow down the Enumeration Districts to 1604A and 1604B. When I was finally able to view images on the day after the release, I scrolled through 32 pages of ED 1604A and 8 pages of ED 1604B before I found them.

I was surprised by a number of things on this census. The circled X next to my grandmother's name meant that she was the one giving the information to the census taker. However, given that she was a high school English teacher, the errors are surprising. My grandfather's middle initial was A, not L, and Ervilla's name is spelled Ervilia. This leads me to believe that my grandmother was answering the census taker's question orally, and that the answers were written down as they were heard.

It was also interesting to see that their housekeeper was enumerated with the family. I remember my mother talking about Bernice, but I was under the impression that she was black, and came in for the day. According to the 1940 census, Bernice Robinson was a 26 year old white woman, born in Michigan, who lived with the family. My mother's family needed the help, because both her father and stepmother worked full-time; Arnold Stoelt was a printer at the Detroit Free Press and Ervilla taught school.
It was at once satisfying, and strange, and sad, to see my mother's name on her first census record. She missed being on the 1930 census by a year (my father missed it by 4 days). I have lots of memories visiting that ivy-covered brick house in Detroit when I was a young girl, and now I have another picture in mind - of my grandmother Ervilla, standing in the front door of that house, answering the census-taker's questions.

Mary Elizabeth Stoelt in 1942, holding her baby sister Ethel.

The 1940 census is almost here!

3/25/2012

    I'm a little late in getting started, but I have finally started making my list(s) of who I'm going to look for in the 1940 census, for myself and my clients. This census is especially exciting for me, since I was not involved with genealogy 10 years ago when the 1930 census was released, and therefore missed the excitement then. Also, this is the first census to be released digitally - no more going to the National Archives branch on Sand Point Way in Seattle, to crank the handles of microfilm readers!
    One of the most important reasons I like to keep my records in a genealogy software program (Legacy Family Tree) on my computer is the ability to run specialized reports. For instance, I can run a report that will list everyone born in Medina County, Ohio after 1900, or generate a list of people who died in Michigan before 1920. The most recent report I've run for myself and my clients is a list of those people who were born before 1940 and died after 1940.
    My own list of 577 names (out of a database of 3400) includes both sets of grandparents: my maternal grandfather Arnold A. Stoelt and his second wife Ervilla, living at 14883 Faust St. in Detroit, and my paternal grandparents Maurice and Ruby Reed, living at 1030 E. St. Joseph St. in Lansing. I imagine that both these families were grateful to have made it through the Great Depression with steady employment - Arnold Stoelt was a printer at the Detroit Free Press, and Ervilla taught high school English, while Maurice Reed was a truant officer for the Lansing Public Schools.
    Since it will be released digitally with images only, there won't be a searchable index for several months. I am fortunate that I know where both sets of my grandparents lived in 1940, and I can determine the Enumeration Districts (ED) to look at.
    To do that, I used Steven Morse's website on obtaining Enumeration Districts for large cities: http://www.stevemorse.org/census/. I selected the state (Michigan), the city (Detroit), and then selected the street (Faust).   It gave me a list of 17 ED's, but I can narrow it down further by selecting the nearest street that crosses Faust. I looked it up on Google Maps, and found that the nearest street was Chalfonte. That narrows the possible ED's down to 2 - a much smaller target!
    My great grandparents Percy and Mary Reed, however, lived in Beulah, a tiny village on the shores of Crystal Lake, in northwest Michigan. In order to determine their ED, I used Steven Morse's conversion tool, which converts the 1930 ED to the ED used for the 1940 census, here. Their 1930 ED was 10-3, and using the conversion tool I can see that I need to look at ED 10-3 and 10-4 in 1940. However, I can narrow it down further by looking at the 1940 ED map of Beulah, using the 1940 ED map finder, here.

    On this map, it's easy for me to see that ED 10-4 is the one I want to look at, since I know that Percy and Mary lived in that section of Beulah (which is spelled wrong on the map).
    My great grandfather Henry Hickox Chase, in 1940, was a resident of the Traverse City State Hospital, having been diagnosed with a form of dementia in 1936. It took me a combination of Google Earth, Wikipedia, and a private website to determine that the hospital was (more or less) at the cross streets of Elmwood and 11th in Traverse City. The ED here is 28-17.
    My great great grandfather Stacy Clay Thompson was living in Manistee, Michigan, with his second wife Marian. His address on the 1930 census was 214 Arthur Street, and on the 1940 census I will want to look at ED's 51-9 and 51-10.
    For my clients, I will be looking at ED's in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, Montgomery County, North Carolina, Seattle, Washington, Mercer County, Ohio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and various small towns in Minnesota.
    I can tell I'm going to be busy, come April 2. Who will you be looking for on the 1940 census?

Help Index the 1940 Census!

11/14/2011

As of today, we're just 140 days away from the release of the 1940 US census on April 2, 2012! This release is historic for a number of reasons, first and foremost is that it will be the first census released as free digital images at the National Archives website. The images will be there, but until the census is indexed you'll have to browse the images to find the families you're interested in.
FamilySearch is now recruiting volunteers to help with the indexing of over 132 million names. You can sign up here. And you can even pick the state you're most interested in! I picked Michigan. (You had to ask?)

Traverse City State Hospital on the 1940 census

Finding my mother in the 1940 census

The 1940 census is almost here!

Help Index the 1940 Census!

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