Ernsthausens in Ohio

I continue to research the family of Thomas Moore and Sarah Harrison (Catherine branch). You may remember that I learned that the Moores married in Canada, moved to Ottawa county, Ohio, and thirty years later to Gratiot county, Michigan.

When at first I found death records for Sarah and Thomas Moore in Toledo, I was suspicious but eventually confirmed they had both died in Toledo. So who else in the family was in Toledo then? Otherwise why would they have returned there?

The Hacksteddes of that generation were all in Toledo, but Caroline Moore Hackstedde had died long before and her widowed husband remarried. Perhaps the Moores were living with grandchildren, but I only knew of the Hackstedde grandchildren. I still did not know what had happened to several of Tom and Sarah’s daughters.

There is a website called Random Acts of Kindness on the internet and that is exactly what it is. Volunteers sign up specifically for an area where they live or have records for and will look up individual pieces of information, for free, or for simply cost of postage. Many can scan info and send it to one by email.

I contacted the volunteer for Gratiot county, Michigan and asked for a copy of the obituary for Tom and Sarah’s son, Edward Moore. He lived in that county for fifty years so I was pretty sure there would be an obituary. In time I received a copy of the obituary and it gave me my next clues. His surviving sisters were listed as Mrs. Frank Oberlin, Bannister (MI), Mrs. Ida Earnsthausen, Toledo, Mrs. Lillian Earnsthausen, Toledo, Mrs. Gertie Griffith, Beaumont, TX, and Mrs. Sylvia Brennan, Long Beach, CA. (My first thought was: “So her name was Lillian.” The 1900 census had Lailly and her birth certificate said Libbie).

It was intriguing that both Ida and Lillian had the same surname. A search of the census for Earnsthausen found nothing. So I tried spelling it Ernsthausen. That brought up ten or eleven families, all of whom lived in the State of Ohio. I could find no one of the appropriate age on the index, but there was one Ida Ernsthausen. When I looked at that record, I realized that this Ida Ernsthausen was our Ida Ernsthausen’s mother-in-law, with the same given name! The older Ida, a widow, ran a large boarding house and her son, Robert, with his wife, Ida, lived there. So now I had the name of one of the Moore daughters’ husbands. In time I learned the name of the other: Arthur. In the 1910 census the older matriarch reported that she had born 7 children and only the 2 were living. This lady continued to run her boarding house for many years. When she died the house evidently passed into the hands of her son or sons, as that is where Sarah Harrison Moore was living when she died – 714 Walnut Street, Toledo!

Arthur and Lillian do not appear to have had any children, but I can not find them in the 1920 census. In 1910, Arthur was working on the railroad and may have been transferred to another location. At that time, Lillian, 29, reported she had no children.

Robert and Ida Ernsthausen had two daughters. Robert was working as a plumber in 1910, a grocery store proprietor in 1920 and foreman at a stock and grain farm in 1930. In 1930 both sons and their wives were living with their mother in the boarding house, though she had slightly fewer boarders than in earlier years.

Preliminary research to find Gertie Moore Griffith of Beaumont, TX, has led to no strong clues. It is unusual to list a woman as Gertie in an obituary unless she was known by and consistently used that name. Her birth certificate says Mary Gertrude, but there is a notation on the record that it has been corrected and the corrected version must be housed in a different volume, which I did not find in the library. I find no death record in Texas for her, and Texas has put their death records for that era online, but I did find a death record for Mary Griffith, who died in 1966 in Clinton county, Michigan. The only way to settle this is to get her obituary. She could have moved back to Michigan before she died; it is not uncommon for people to move “home” in their later years.

Augusta Moore married Frank Oberlin and lived out her life in Bannister, Michigan. She has children and grandchildren, many of whom are still living but with whom I have no contact at this time.

Sylvia Moore married Bill Brennan and in 1920, they too were boarding with Mrs. Ernsthausen. Bill was a railroad switchman. At some point they moved to California, and that is where they were living when Sylvia died in 1968, age 74. I find no record that they had any children.

There is, however, listed with Tom and Sarah Moore, in the census of 1910 a grandson, Roy K. Moore, age 1 1/2, no indication as to who his mother is. There were four single daughters in the household at that time. I have not seen his name again.

In the 1910 census Sarah Harrison Moore reported that she had born 8 children and 7 were living. Now that I have determined that all of the younger daughters were living, that means that the child that died was Thomas D. Moore, their only other son besides Edward. I have not found a death record for him yet, but I have narrowed down the time period. He died between 1900 and 1910, in his early twenties. My first suspect for his demise would be consumption.

Lineage of the Moore children-5, Sarah Moore-4, Catharine Harrison-3, John-2, Alexander Douglass-1

To see an outline of this family go to the family tree for the Catherine branch and scroll down about halfway.