Genealogy Story – The Gap in the Levy Story

This is the story of five families and how they intersected in the early 20^th century.  But there is a large gap right in the place in the story where much of the intersection took place.  However, I’d like to speculate on the only way that they could have intersected.

The Northrop Family

Lawrence Northrop, my great-great-grandfather, was born in New Milford, CT, in 1835.  He married Mary Lois Drake in 1870.  She had been born in Lee, MA, about 50 miles straight north up Route 7.  Although they continued to live in New Milford for most of their lives, their first two children, including my great-grandmother Caroline, were born in Lee.

The Levy Family

Alexander Levy, my great-great-grandfather, was born in England in 1840 and came to the US as a young boy.  The family initially lived in Brooklyn, NY.  There he met and married Phoebe Isaacs, also a recent immigrant.  My great-grandfather, Maurice Levy, was born in Brooklyn in 1870, but the family moved to New Milford, when he was just an infant – before his sister was born in 1873.  The family remained in New Milford.

Maurice married Caroline Northrop in 1893 and the couple moved to Brooklyn where worked as a printer.  It was there that they had two daughters, my grandmother Vera Levy in 1895, and her sister Irene Levy in 1899.  They also had two other children sometime between 1900 and 1910 as the 1900 census shows Caroline as having had two children, two living, but the 1910 census shows four children, two living.  Maurice died later that year and is buried in New Milford.

It is at this point that the gap occurs in the Levy family.  Caroline is missing in the 1920 census and she reappears in the 1930 census, living with Vera and her children in Bridgeport, CT.  She died in 1935 and is buried in New Milford – sharing a gravestone with her husband.

The Russell Family

Erskine Russell, my grandfather, was born in 1894 in Sherman, CT, a small town in Litchfield County.  Sometime before 1910 his family moved to New Milford.  He married Vera Levy in 1914 when they were each 19 years old. 

The couple moved to Bridgeport, CT, where their children, my Aunt Dot and my father, were born in 1916 and 1920 respectively.  My father’s nomadic existence is detailed in another blog entry, but to summarize, Erskine and Vera separated around 1924, she staying in Bridgeport and he moving to Waterbury, CT.  They reunited in 1926, but separated again and divorced in 1928 with Vera moving back to Bridgeport.  She remained there with her children until 1930.

The Hartwell Family

Joseph Hartwell, my great-uncle, was born in New Milford in 1900.  His family moved to Roxbury, CT, just a few miles away, sometime during his teenage years.  In 1922 he married Irene Levy.  They remained in Roxbury until their deaths in 1991 and 1981 respectively.

The Rogers Family

Charles Rogers, my step-grandfather, was born in Hartford, CT, but grew up in Danbury, CT.  In the 1890’s he was briefly in New Hampshire where he married Mary Keefe.  After her death, he moved back to Danbury again.

In early June of 1930, he married Vera [Levy] Russell (a second marriage for both).  They lived in Danbury with her two children for one year, then moved to New Milford where they remained until they both entered separate nursing/assisted living homes in the early 1950’s.

The Gap

All of the above families intersected sometime in the years between 1910 and 1930.  But there is a key missing census record for the Levy family from 1920 that could complete the story.  In the 1920 census, all parties are accounted for – except for Caroline Levy and her daughter Irene.  However, to my mind there is only one way that these intersections could have happened, and that is for Caroline and Irene to have been living in New Milford in 1920.  (You should have noticed that every one of the above families had a connection to New Milford.)  Here is what I believe happened.

My speculation

In 1910, following the death of Maurice sometime that fall (he was still living at the time of the 1910 census, but his gravestone shows that he died in 1910), Caroline could no longer afford to keep living in Brooklyn.  The logical place for her to move was back to New Milford, where both her parents and her husband’s parents were living.  They did so, and Maurice was buried in Center Cemetery in New Milford where all Caroline’s Northrop relatives are also buried.

It was in New Milford that my grandmother, Vera, met Erskine.  They married there in 1914 and then moved to Bridgeport – a larger city with better job prospects.  It was also there that Vera’s sister, Irene, met and married Joseph Hartwell.  New Milford was where anyone from Roxbury would have done their shopping as Roxbury has no commercial establishments of any consequence.

After her divorce from Erskine in 1928, Vera lived in Bridgeport and her mother Caroline also lived with her.  They would have traveled frequently up the road from Bridgeport to New Milford where their Northrop and Levy relatives were still living.  Danbury is along that route which is where she would have met Charles Rogers.  Although Vera and Charles lived in Danbury for a year after their marriage in 1930 (with Charles’ mother and brother?), by 1931 they had moved to New Milford.  Caroline probably moved back to New Milford in 1930 when Vera and children went to Danbury, as she died a few years later and is also buried there.

This scenario is the only one that accounts for all the various intersections of the families.  So I suggest that the census taker for New Milford in 1920 somehow missed Caroline and her daughter Irene who were most certainly living there in close proximity to all their relatives.