Don, Wally and Nancy Lawder had a cousin they never knew, Alice Lawder, named after their shared grandmother, Alice [Van Houten] Lawder, Papa's mother. Cousin Alice was born one hundred years ago today, April 26, 1912, in San Antonio, Texas. Her parents were Charles Vernon Lawder, Papa's half brother and his wife, Swedish-born Anna [Nylander] Lawder. Charles was the first child of Papa's mother, Alice Van Houten, and her first husband, Alonzo Lumbard, but both Lumbard children took on the Lawder name after their mother remarried.
At the time of Cousin Alice's birth in 1912, her parents Charles and Anna lived south of the Texas border where he was an experienced staff foreman in the gold mine in Hidalgo de Perral, in the state of Chihuahua, Mexico. It seems likely that they traveled to Texas just for the birth of their daughter since they returned to Chihuahua to live. Papa's mother Alice treasured a black and white photo of Charles (whom she called "Vernie"), Anna and their daughter. She wrote on the back of the photo in pencil "Mr. and Mrs. Charles Vernon Lawder and their two year old girl, Alice, in the back yard of their home in Mexico City. Please return [photo] to Mrs. Alice Lawder, 1109 E. 65th St., Chicago." [I'll post this photo as soon as I re-find it! Sorry.]
Did Papa ever know of his niece's birth? Don, Wally and Nancy never knew of her existence. Even the memory of Papa's half-brother was hazy to them. His brother was 11 years older than he and may have not stayed in his mother's house past his mid-teens. Charles, b. 1878, was one of two children from Alice Van Houten's first marriage, Mary, later known as "Aunt Dot" to Don, Wally and Nancy) was born in 1881, both in Delaware Ohio. They would have experienced a violent home life with their abusive father before Alice successfully sued for divorce in 1884. Papa remained very close to his half-sister, Mary (Dot) throughout his life, wrote her loving letters and supported her in her later years as a widow in Chicago.
Charles died of pneumonia while in Mexico in November 1917, age 40. [Aside: the news of Charles' death was reported in a Chicago newspaper and the notice mentioned his mother Alice Lawder, a Chicago resident. This article was seen by Alice's own half-sister, Mary (Mamie Van Houten Dawes). Mamie Dawes and Alice Lawder hadn't been in touch for twenty years. They discovered that they had been living only 3 blocks apart in Chicago for a decade!] Charles' wife, Anna, filed the form to report his death to the embassy (online at Ancestry.com). Anna had to wait six months for a passport to return with her 7 year old daughter Alice to Kansas City where Grandmother Alice and her son Donald (Papa) were still living, Papa then a reporter for the Kansas City Star. Or at least, Anna said she was heading for Kansas City on her passport form in 1918. Did she ever contact her mother-in-law, Alice? Did she go to Kansas City? We find her in 1930 living with her 18 yr. old daughter Alice in Newark, New Jersey, less than 50 miles away from Papa, Bano and their 3 children in Greenwich, CT. Was there any contact between them? Alice Maria [Nylander] Lawder never remarried, worked as a "servant" according to the census, and lived a long life. She died at the age of 101, still in Newark NJ in 1978.
And what happened to her daughter Alice, the "lost cousin"? She would be 100 years old today. Maybe the 1940 census will give us the next clue. If she married and changed her name, she's harder to find.
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