Mabel!

In search of Joan’s mother’s first name, I emailed saying maybe it was Bernice, but next morning Brother Dave emailed to say that Aunt Betty’s first name was Bernice and since women, unlike men, do not seem to feel some need to name their girl children after themselves, that pretty much ruled out Bernice.

Brother Dave had found that info by going through stuff on the web; he found Aunt Bernice’s obituary.  So I thought, OK, I will check out the web too, and went to Ancestry.com that has mounds of documents and data bases.  All I had was Joan’s Mother’s last name:  Barrett.  So I started to search for Barretts born in England (that was another bit of info) and, man, you wouldn’t believe how many Barretts were born in England.  And then I remember I search births for England and Wales.  I knew she had grown up in Dorset, but, man, it was like every Barrett born in England was born in Dorset.

Finally I noticed the 1930 Census for the USA.  And bingo, I had it.  On a census children are recorded.  So I typed in Joan Kaller (Joan’s mother’s married name), and up comes one Joan Kaller from San Diego, California.  She is categorized as “daughter” and she is believed to be about 8 years old.  Then I type in Bernice Kaller, for cross confirmation, and up comes one Bernice Kaller in San Diego California in 1930.  And she is listed as about 10 years old; she also is listed as daughter.

And the mother of both was named Mabel.  So Joan’s mother’s name was Mabel Barrett Kaller.  In 1930, she was 41 years old and was indeed born in England in 1881.  Based on what Joan said—that her mother died when she was 12 years old—Mabel must have died in 1934 or 35.

Just to see what the old degenerate, reprobate was up to in 1930, I checked out Joan’s nerdowell father, Barney. He was born in 1888 in Canada, was 41 years old at the time of the census and is listed as “Lodger.”  His occupation is listed as restaurant Chef and he was in the army in WWI.  He apparently lived in a boarding housing with about 15 other people.  The head of the household was one William Crapp.

The categories for people in a household for the 1930 census are interesting.  One finds the usual, head, spouse, daughter, son, cousin, nephew, and so on, but also lodger, renter, boarder, roomer, hired man, and servant.

In any case, we were able to fill in the spot on the death certificate that asks for "mother’s name."

Mabel.

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