The U.S. federal census, on its face, does not appear to be the most intimate of records in which to get to know your ancestors. However, in addition to dishing out facts on their residence, relationships, occupation, and economic status, at times, it will inadvertently shed light on one's perceived identity. As they say, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and details on a census are in the hands of the enumerator!
There's one particular enumeration that comes to mind when thinking about a 'document with personality' and that's the 1950 U.S. federal census. At the time it was recorded, my great grandmother, Ethel (Hinman) Eggenberger, was living with her sister, Fanny (Hinman) Stephenson, in Huntington Beach, Orange County, California. Both women were widowed and neither would ever go on to remarry. Surprisingly, I do not know of a photo of the two women together during that time period.
Fanny was getting up there in years, and her only son, John Robert Stephenson, Jr., an employee at Lockheed Aircraft in Burbank, had preceded her in death ten years earlier in an unfortunate car crash on PCH at the age of 23.
Exactly one week prior to his passing, on 16 October 1940, John had registered for the draft on "R-Day," the first day in which male citizens and residents of the United States between the ages of 21 and 35 were required to sign up for selective military service (America would not officially enter World War II until the end of the following year).
Ancestry.com. U.S., World War II Draft Cards Young Men, 1940-1947 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.
The loss of Fanny's son in 1940 may have been the catalyst for Ethel to leave her home and business out in Ottawa, Kansas and join my great grandaunt on the west coast. So, by 1950, the two eldest siblings of the Hinman family were keeping each other company just mere blocks from the ocean at 119 8th Street in Huntington Beach.
In her younger years, Fanny had graduated from Sibley Hospital in D.C. (now part of Johns Hopkins) and went into nursing. Ethel had taken up her husband's restaurant and confectionary venture after he died in 1928. But now that the women had entered retirement, it was time for Ethel to start playing nurse to her older sister. The 1950 census is what enlightens us to this change in their dynamic.
Understandably, the census recorder clocked the fact that Fanny had entered senility, as they made a note next to her entry that she was "not clear mentally" and resembled a 74-year old more so than a 54-year old, as she must have been reporting to them. And they were quite right -- spot on, in fact! She was 74 and Ethel was 72 at the time. It makes me chuckle to think the enumerator gave a tad more grace to my great grandmother, flattering her with an age guess of 65!
The fact that they even took a stab at Ethel's true age tells us that she was also at home and in sight of the enumerator. These sparse notes allow for such a vivid picture to come into view of how this visit played out. I'd like to imagine Fanny is standing in the doorway of their small bungalow telling the enumerator, with a side of sass, that she's 20 years younger than her birth certificate would attest to, and that Ethel is sitting in a chair in the living room within earshot of this conversation minding her own business and not bothering to correct her sister's fantasies.
And while the scene in my mind may not be completely rooted in truth, there would have certainly been no way for me to fathom it had the document not been penned with a dash of extra context. I tip my hat to the enumerator for giving me that glimpse into the sisters' home life.
Fanny died just five years after that census was recorded. Ethel's health eventually began to give way as well in the following decade. She moved in with her daughter Alta Foltz (and Alta's husband Harry) in Gardena and passed away in 1963. The little house near the beach stayed in the family for another decade or so before it was sold.
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