This is my third time writing for the Carnival of Genealogy and when I first saw the topic “Cars” I couldn’t think what I could really write about except the sad parade of cars my siblings and I have used.

And then I remembered when I was going through some of the paperwork we found in my grandmother’s old suitcase, I found the title to a car that my grandfather purchased in 1955. So I dug it out to take a real good look at it.

It’s dated 23 May 1955 and the car in question is an Oldsmobile 1941 4 door sedan. I did a quick Google search for this car and found this site, A Picture Review of the Oldsmobile from 1901 to 1949. Unfortunately, it didn’t have a picture of this specific car, but I thought this one was probably pretty close to what it looks liked:

And of course, then I remembered that I had seen a picture of my great-great grandfather William Crompton in a picture with a car that had been labeled “My Dad’s First Brandnew Car” along with a second label “Grandpop Crompton & Beatrice Trainer” I asked my mother and it turns out that my grandfather (her dad) purchased the car from my great-grandfather, his future father-in-law.

I can date that picture a little more easily as William Crompton passed away in 1944 and my grandmother was born in 1938. You can’t see much of her in this scan, but she’s about three or four, which places this picture about 1941, which definitely backs up the story that my grandfather bought this from my great-grandfather.

I did a little research and found a site that talked about the purchase price of this car probably would have been around $852. In order to afford that car, assuming my great grandfather Harold Trainer had made minimum wage ($.30), he would have had to work 2840 hours. It would have accounted for more than half his annual wage and at the time this page was published in 2001, it would have been worth $10, 266.00, which is about what I bought my 2002 Mazda Protege for in 2006. And I had to finance it! So I know a little about what my great-grandfather must have felt like to have such a nice new car, especially after the Depression.

What else does this title tell me? My grandfather Charles W. Hammell was living at 208 Morris St, here in Gloucester City, NJ. He was living with my grandmother’s parents at the time. It gives me a bit of a timeline for him. His mother, Minnie Mead passed away when Charles was five and from that time on, he lived with his father’s parents, Francis Hammell, Sr. and Rebecca Priest. Francis passed away in 1941 and Rebecca about 1951, though we haven’t confirmed that and my aunt thinks Rebecca might have died a year or two later, but definitely knows she died on my aunt’s birthday, November 18.

My grandfather then went into the military until he was discharged shortly before his wedding to my grandmother, Beatrice Trainer, in 1958. I don’t know what happened to the car after that.

After looking at the back of the title, it has my grandfather’s signature under “seller” but no one listed as a buyer. I asked my father about it and he thought that maybe since my grandfather bought it from his fiancee’s father, he wasn’t that concerned about where he signed. We’re not sure. It’s possible that when my grandfather went overseas, he attempted to transfer it into my grandmother’s name while he was gone or maybe deeded it back to Harold Trainer.

Without my grandfather to answer these questions, it’s not what this particular title means but it does clear up a few things for me — My mother knows that my grandfather’s grandmother, Rebecca, did not pass away until he’d met my grandmother, so we know it was before 1955, as they’re living together and my grandmother didn’t meet Charles until after she’d dropped out of high school after eighth grade, so it does narrow Rebecca’s death window to 1951-1955. I’ll have to continue a little search for that.

Kate Lyden (3 Nov 1886-5 Apr 1957)

Kate Lyden is a major brick wall, mostly because her mother married a few times and Kate went on to marry twice herself, and lie about her name and age a lot. Here’s what I know for sure.

She’s born 3 Nov 1886 to Michael & Mary Lyden (spelled Lidon in the registry entry). Michael Lyden married Mary Hartman on 7 Sep 1884. Both of these events occured in Philadelpha, Pennsylvania. I discovered both entries at the Philadelphia City Archives on February 2008.

In the 1900 census, Mary has married George Cannon, and her daughter is using the name Katie Hartman. Has Michael died? Possibly. Did Mary divorce him? Unlikely but something to investigate. A divorce would explain why Kate is not using her father’s name.

When Kate marries William Peter Crompton in 1906, she states her name as Agnes Hartman, her parents being Mary Mahoney and John Hartman. I have this marriage certificate from the New Jersey State Archives in October 2007. I knew that Mary had been married three times, from a photo of George Cannon that my grandmother (Kate’s granddaughter) had labeled as “3rd husband – George Cannon” so at the time I assumed that John Hartman was Mary’s first husband, and father of Frank Hartman, a man we have photos of that are labeled as “Grandmother’s Brother Frank Hartman” as noted by Beatrice Trainer, granddaughter to Kate Lidon.

I knew from my grandmother that Kate’s name had been stated as Katherine Agnes Barnes at the time of her death, so I assumed that she was using her middle name. How in six years, she went from a lovely name like Kate to, well, Agnes, I guess we’ll never know, but it makes sense.

She states her age on the certificate as 19, which in September 1906 is completely true. In 1910, she’s Agnes Crompton, age 24, living with her parents with her two daughters. By 1918, she has secured her divorce and has married Ernest Seward Barnes, age 21. Quite a few things have changed about our dear Kate/Agnes since her first marriage. She is now stating her name as Agnes Mary Lyden, her age as 24 (she’s actually 32), she’s never been married and her parents are Michael Lyden and Mary Mahoney.

Good grief.

I have yet to send for a copy of her death certificate to find out who, if any, parents are listed there as well as a birth date. I knew going into the research that we knew next to nothing about Kate/Agnes and her parents but I didn’t realize how hard it would be track anything down.

So what do I know for sure? Kate/Agnes was 70 at the time of her death. She married twice. She lied about her age and her name on official documents (though it’s possible she did it to have her marriage blessed by the church without going through a pesky annulment) and she either didn’t know Michael Lyden was her father in 1906 or a mistake was made. It’s possible.

I tell my mother that her great-grandmother is a pain in my ass because I have thousands of unanswered questions about her that, barring some sort of miraculous discovery of a diary or letters, will never be answered and it’s frustrating. For now, I’ll chalk it up to a vain woman who never wanted to be older than her husband and possibly wanted to put her first marriage completely out of her mind.

I know that I’ll have a few answers after I send for her divorce records, but there are a lot of things I’ll never know. Until I die and I can nag her in person but that’s a long way off hopefully.

What does this teach me? When I make weird decisions, to write down why or tell someone because I would hate for my great-great-granddaughter to want to murder me as well.