Cousin LaVerne
Mooney:
Part
II – A Melancholy Middle
St. Luke did not have many
facts about our Lord upon which to report for His ages 12 to 30 years. Neither do I for LaVerne. In the absence of facts, as every Irishman
knows, one is allowed an increase in degrees of freedom to invoke one’s own inspired
imagination. While inspired, unlike the
sainted physician, I am only imperfectly so.
The leaps I take in this missive, I trust, the reader will find, at
least, reasonable.
In gratitude for the
facts we do have, a tip of the hat to Chuck Hallinan and
the other contributors to the Hallinan-Mooney PAF file!
The U.S. 1910 Census
informs us that Laverne, age 12, resided at the Mooney Rockport (aka “Berea”)
farm. Question: Where did James and LaVerne reside from 1902
until James was institutionalized on March 25, 1905? I think it reasonable to speculate that at
some point after Cora’s death in November 1902, James and LaVerne moved to the
Berea farm.
James Leo Mooney’s death
certificate indicates the cause of death as chronic myocarditis with
epilepsy as a contributory cause. The
coroner’s report states that the onset of James heart condition, the immediate
cause of death, was in 1930. The report
also notes that signs of epilepsy, the contributory cause, began in 1900. If true then James epileptic like seizures
began before the traumatic events of his life in 1902, i.e., death of his
daughter, Loretta, and wife, Cora.
If accurate, the coroner’s report also tells us
that James’ unpredictable seizures likely rendered him an unreliable caretaker
for his infant daughter after Cora’s death.
LaVerne’s maternal grandparents, the Kelseys, lived more than 40 miles
away in Kipton, Ohio. We also know that Captain
Ed’s modus operandi was never to abandon his own when in need.
So, shortly after Cora
Kelsey Mooney’s death in November 1902, I speculate that, James (age 32) and
LaVerne (age 4) joined the Mooney family becoming then the 7th and 8th
members of Captain Ed’s clan to take up residence at the farm: Captain Ed (age
57), his wife Margaret (age 46), sons William (age 25), Charles (age 17),
daughter Zita (age 12) and sister-in-law Sarah (Sadie) Sharon (age 43).
After 3 years of caring for his eldest son at the
farm, Captain Ed decided, reluctantly I believe, to commit James to the Ohio
Hospital for Epileptics in hopes that James would be cured of his seizures.
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LaVerne Mooney
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As other family stories indicate, Captain
Ed was a generous man. So also will this story. County property
records suggest that Captain Ed’s generosity did not come only from his
surplus. With the arrival of infant LaVerne and
ailing James, Captain Ed and Margaret,
perhaps facing a liquidity problem, mortgaged their farm in October of 1905. Less than a year later, in August 1906, they sold
property only recently purchased on Cleveland’s east side for $4,000 with the
buyers’ assumption of their outstanding $1,000 mortgage.
At the time, three of the five household members were likely
contributing to household expenses. In 1902 Captain Bill was on the water (as
“Second Mate Bill”), Sarah Sharon was working as a dress-maker and Charles as a
“Window Draper”. However, Zita and
LaVerne were still on Captain Ed’s payroll, so to speak. Young girls can be expensive to maintain,
fashionable clothing being just one such expense category.
finding shade beneath
their Edwardian hats.
We do have (a tip
of the hat again to Chuck Hallinan!) a news
article reporting that Zita and LaVerne
visited LaVerne’s maternal grandparents (the Kelsey’s) in Kipton, Ohio (~ 20
miles southwest of Elyria) in August 1906.
The article suggests that Zita was a friend to Cora Kelsey’s sister,
Nellie, who was just 6 months younger than Zita.
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Aunt Zita and LaVerne: "Kipton or bust!"
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| Best guess: a 1904 De
Dion-Bouton Model Z Tonneau |
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| 1910-De-Dion-Bouton-Modele-Routier-25 |
First "Berea 1" road race ~ 1910.
Edwardian cars driven by
ladies with Edwardian hats. (No hats or hairdos were injured in this race; top speed ~20 Mph) .
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LaVerne Mooney
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The four women --
Margaret, her sister Sarah (Sadie) Sharon, daughter Zita and grand niece LaVerne --
eventually took over management of the farm. Captain Bill married Evangeline on January 26,
1910 and moved with his bride to 9407 Detroit Avenue. Captain Ed departed this life on December 21,
1910. Charles joined the U.S. Army and
was off to San Antonio, Texas in 1917 for basic training and then onto Europe
to fight the Germans. The men’s departure left the women to manage the farm.
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LaVerne Mooney
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As Chuck Hallinan has reported in this blog, the year 1918 was a hard
one for the Mooney family. In March, Zita’s
mother, Margaret, died and in December, Evangeline died.
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Charles & LaVerne Mooney
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On his return from WWI
in early 1919, after mustering out of the army, Charles may have briefly
returned to the farm as the photo to the right suggests, but soon after returning to
the United States Charles relocated to San Antonio, TX to pursue his career in
interior design.
In 1920, LaVerne and
Zita vacated the farm and took up residence at Zita’s newly purchased home at 4827 Riverside Dr., located just
south of the farm. A number of
real estate transactions beginning in 1920 and culminating in 1923 show that
Captain Ed’s heirs and the Sharon heirs sold both the Mooney and Sharon farms.
During this time, 1915 - 1920,
LaVerne pursued her education, qualifying as a stenographer around 1920. The stenotype, invented in 1913, was the
novel Information Technology machine at the turn of the 20th century. Stenographers, like
LaVerne, were at the cutting edge of modern office technologies.
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LaVerne Mooney
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From 1921 to 1923,
LaVerne worked as stenographer for various companies in the Cleveland
area. In 1922, or thereabouts, Zita
relocated to San Antonio to join step-brother Charles in his business as an
interior decorator. We lose track of
LaVerne from 1923 to 1928. However, by 1928, we
know that LaVerne is in Columbus, OH.
Sometime after Zita’s
left Ohio in 1922 and before 1928, LaVerne relocated to Columbus, perhaps to allow
more frequent visits to her father at the Ohio
Hospital for Epileptics in Gallipolis (~ 100 miles to the south) or to intervene in
his treatment. A movement was underway to legalize
the sterilization of "undesirables", i.e., epileptics, in Ohio and the hospital's superintendent was a strong promoter. The idea of Social Darwinism altered Darwin's notion of the survival of the fittest to survival for only the fittest. The idea of eliminating the "unfit" from society influenced Americans, especially during early 1920’s. The acceptance of eugenics, especially the sterilization of epileptic inmates, as a necessary treatment to protect society from the "feeble-minded" was growing. It's promoters began to seek enabling legislation to work their largely unfounded hypothesis. (See Post Script: Ohio Hospital for Epileptics- Hospital or Asylum?).
On May 5, 1928, LaVerne
(age 29) and Mearl Harned (age 37) applied for a marriage license at the Franklin
County courthouse and solemnized their marriage the following month on June 15,
1928. In the subsequent year, the 1929 Columbus City Directory
lists LaVerne as a stenographer at the Town & Village Insurance Agency. A good guess is that LaVerne met Mearl at the
Columbus office of the Equitable Life Insurance Company where Mearl was an
Assistant Manager.
Sometime after 1929,
LaVerne and Mearl moved to Pennsylvania where Mearl operated a Gulf Oil gas station. The station most likely was located in Crawford
County, PA, Mearl’s birthplace as listed on the marriage license. Perhaps Mearl and LaVerne, like others, experienced
a financial setback following the October 1929 stock market crash. Or one or both lost their jobs as the Great
Depression gripped the economy. As a
result, they decided to live with or near family choosing Mearl’s family in
Pennsylvania.
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Mearl Harned ~ 1930
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Family tradition reports
that “Mearl took off with another woman” shortly after they relocated to
PA. A good guess as to the “other woman”
was Golda Nevada Hanes,
a local who, like Mearl,
was in her second marriage also soon to be on the rocks. After being deserted in ~ 1930, LaVerne returned
to Cleveland but did not divorce Mearl until sometime after 1937. Mearl and Golda bounced around as “man
and wife” in PA and NY until 1960 when Mearl married “Goldie”.
We know that LaVerne was
close to her aunt Zita. Chuck H’s
research shows that,
until her death in April 1939, Aunt Sarah (Sadie) Sharon was also close to her niece,
Zita. After Zita’s departure to Texas
from ~ 1922 to 1937, and LaVerne’s to Pennsylvania, the threesome reunited in
Cleveland sometime before 1937.
(It is, I think, odd
that Sarah is absent in all the Mooney group photos (that I have) taken at the
farm during family reunions. Perhaps Sarah
was the group’s designated photographer.)
LaVerne, Zita and Sadie -- Lifelong Friends
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Sarah (Sadie) Sharon
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Bridget (Aunt) Zita Mooney
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LaVerne Mooney
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1343 West Blvd.
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The 1934 Cleveland City Directory lists LaVerne (age 36) and Sarah (Sadie) Mooney (age 75) residing at 1343 West Blvd. It's reasonable to think that LaVerne on her return to Cleveland moved in to live with her great Aunt Sadie.
Sometime before May of 1937, Aunt Zita returned to Cleveland from San Antonio and joined LaVerne and Sarah at the same address. The San Antonio, Texas newspaper's report on the death of Charles Mooney's reads, "Charles Mooney ... died in Cleveland, Ohio, Thursday night after a year's illness. ... He disposed of his interests here a month ago and went to Cleveland to reside with his sister, Miss Vita [sic] Mooney." Charles died May 20, 1937 (age 52).
The three generations of Sharon/Mooney women, reunited after 15 years, remained at the West Blvd. address until Sarah's death on April 3, 1939 (age 80). After Sarah's death, records show that LaVerne moved to 1373 W. 80th Street Apt. #4. Although the City Directory does not list Aunt Zita as residing in the same apartment building on W. 80th until 1951, it's reasonable to assume she remained with LaVerne after Sarah's death.
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Another Tip o' the Hat to those who contribute to the PAF file!
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Post Script: Ohio Hospital for Epileptics- Hospital or Asylum?
Gallipolis is along the
Ohio River about 55 miles
southeast of Chillicothe and 44 miles northwest of Charleston, West Virginia. In 1892,
Governor William McKinley of Ohio authorized funding for the construction of a
facility to care of for the state’s epileptics. (McKinley’s wife, Ida
Saxton, after the death of their two infant daughters [Katherine (b.1871,
d.1875] and Ida [b.1873, d.1873], descended into a deep depression and was
diagnosed as epileptic.) Moved perhaps
by his personal experience, McKinley initiated the first public work program in
the United States to provide for the care of epileptics.
…
there were approximately 7,000 Ohio residents with epilepsy, many
residing in the community with varying degrees of success and supervision, with
417 in county infirmaries, 165 in state asylums and 64 in county jails—646 in
all. (Ohio
Hospital for Epileptics (1901). CE Brinkworth, Buffalo, NY, pp. 6–8).
The Ohio Legislature
provisionally titled the facility, “The
Asylum for Epileptics and Epileptic Insane”. Prior to its opening, the
facility underwent a name change to, “The
Ohio Hospital for Epileptics”,
indicating a lack of understanding as to the cause of the disease and its
treatabiltiy. On Thanksgiving Day,
November 20, 1893, Governor McKinley declared the opening of the facility for
the admission of patients, the first of the specialized epilepsy colonies in
the United States.
In 1901, the hospital
consisted of an administration building, thirteen residence cottages, a number
of support buildings, and a building for insane patients that could house two
hundred people. Unfortunately, the early
reviews were not good:
The
original institution … was little better than a series of unlovely barracks,
closely grouped, of severe lines and cheerless.
The so-called “cottages” were designed for from fifty to seventy-five
patients each, admitted of little or no clinical aggregation of cases, and were
much too large for discipline. In fact,
the original plan of institution apparently was the creating of a special almshouse
for the housing of the state’s epileptics.
(JAMA; October 15, 1904; THE OHIO HOSPITAL FOR EPILEPTICS, Vol. XLIII No.16: pp.1151-1152.)
The 1910 US Census list
James as a patient at Gallipolis.
However, the 1920 Census lists him as an inmate and the 1930 Census
reverts his status back to patient perhaps because of his heart condition. Whether this classification was based on
revised physical evaluation or bureaucratic election is unknown. It is likely based on where the person
physically resided, i.e., cottage or asylum.
Other than this change in his status, I do not know much about James’
life at Gallipolis from 1905 until his death in 1936. Unfortunately, the family tradition makes no
mention of him and he is not in the photographs taken on the occasion of
reunions at the West Park farm or elsewhere.
It seems clear that there was growing acceptance of eugenics in
the general environment of institutional care in Ohio. By an act of the
Legislature during the 1910–11 session, a Central Board of Administration was
created to oversee all state benevolent institutions, uniting 18 state
institutions under one administrative authority. In 1912, Allen W. Thurman, President
of the State Board of Administration, declared that if a law for sterilization
was not passed the State of Ohio would be bankrupt within ten years by the
expense of caring for the weak-minded (New York Times, 9/25/1912).
In 1918, The
Ohio State Institution Journal was established, publishing articles from staff
and superintendents across Ohio’s institutions. Here eugenic views were very
publicly espoused, advocating the need to segregate “the unfit” of many types,
including those with epilepsy, and curtail their ability to reproduce through
surgical means (Emerick, 1918; Haynes, 1920; Clark, 1920; Goebel, 1920).
Dr. G. G. Kineon headed
the Ohio Hospital for Epileptics for 32 years from June 1911 until his death in
1943. Following Dr. Kineon’s appointment
as Superintendent, “there was growing acceptance of eugenics in the general
environment of institutional care in Ohio” (Source: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3775289/).
{His] eugenic
views were very publicly espoused, advocating the need to segregate “the unfit”
of many types, including those with epilepsy, and curtail their ability to reproduce
through surgical means. …
In 1919, in
“Heredity as a Factor in Epilepsy”, Kineon discussed the causes of epilepsy
with an emphasis on hereditary. He showed a bias to assume a hereditary
etiology …
The State of
Ohio alone has between eight thousand and nine thousand recorded epileptics … a
great many of these are unrestricted and allowed to propagate their species …
this is a big mistake and a gross injustice to the people of our State.
… may it not
be well to consider sterilization of the chronically defective as a means of
preventing the propagation of their species? (John Schwartz, Assistant
Physician at the Ohio Hospital for Epileptics).
Our failure
[at treating epilepsy] is largely due to the fact that we are trying to tackle
the problem from the wrong end. We … neglect to cure those who may succeed him.
In other words, … we start to find a way to prevent them from developing into
new plants like the parents from which they sprang.
If you cut
down the parent thistle plant, there can be no production of its kind. The same
holds good with the epileptic—only we cannot actually cut down the parent, but
the production of the offspring can be prevented …
There are
different methods by which a reduction in the number of defectives may be
accomplished; first, by education of the general public concerning …the best
methods to prevent the continuance of undesirable hereditary taints …. Education
is the only method which will induce people to adopt such preventative measures
as segregation and sterilization. (Kineon, 1920,
p. 59).
What the eugenists lacked in data, they made up with enthusiasm. Under the pretense of being science, the promoters claimed the cause of the "defectives" burdening society to be hereditary. The promise of eugenics -- the controlled breeding of supermen -- coursed across the U.S. How would LaVerne, a 22 year old woman, the daughter of a diagnosed and institutionalized epileptic, react to this crusade to sterilize the "feeble-minded"? Did LaVerne believe she had the predisposition for epilepsy? Did thinking so affect her decision to marry or have children? We'll have to wait for the Parousia to find out.
See: The Eugenics Crusade https://www.pbs.org/video/the-eugenics-crusade-jtaetc/
Post-Post Script:
While visiting Sharon at her home in Ohio on July 24, 2021, I reviewed
her files on our Mooney family history. The file contained a large
sketch pad sheet with notes Sharon made while discussing the family tree
with my Mom. Sharon did not remember the date of her notes. (Ignore
her doodling on how to properly do eye makeup.)
In
the second image, I zoomed in on the sketch and read that James Leo had
his first attack on the night of Loretta's death (1902) and had a steel
plate in his skull as a result of a childhood accident. This new info
calls for a correction to the LaVerne Mooney story. Traumatic brain
injury (TBI) is a known cause of epilepsy. However, the first attack
for over 75% of such injuries occurs in the first 24 hours.
Post-traumatic epilepsy (PTE) occurs less often but may explain James
Leo's condition.
I recall in a family
tradition that Martin Leo Mooney died from falling on or being
gored by a cow's horn. Perhaps the story cited Martin
Leo instead of James Leo as the victim and the fact that James Leo survived rather
than died was less dramatic (Irish rule on storytelling employed).
