Saturday, January 12, 2019

Florence Darlington: An epilogue about the beginning


Previously on the Florence Darlington chronicles...


It's been a heck of a week for research on Florence Darlington, who has a minor but apparently crucial tie to my family history. In posts this past Sunday and Tuesday, I finally discovered and confirmed some details about her life with reasonable certainty. That includes her date of death and place of burial.

The biggest piece of the puzzle still missing was information about when and where she was born. But reader Charlie Connelly has swooped in as a history hero and provided some information to fill in the blanks. Connelly, who contacted me on Twitter, is an author whose books include the splendid Attention All Shipping: A Journey Round the Shipping Forecast, a history of BBC Radio's iconic maritmie weather report. You can check out his spiffy website here.

Here's the information that Connelly provided about Florence Darlington, which kind of brings things full circle. He says he found much of it on Ancestry.com (which I don't have a subscription to).

  • Florence was born on June 24, 1895, in Wilmington, Delaware. Her parents were Ida L. Walker and Evan J. Darlington.
  • She was issued a Social Security number by Delaware in 1973 (which helped to provide secondary confirmation for her dates of birth and death).
  • She is listed in the 1940 United States census, as the 45-year-old wife of Leon G. Moore. Fifteen-year-old daughter Jean is also listed on that census. Leon is listed as a brokerage salesman. There is no occupation noted for Florence.
  • And here's a little more about Florence's parents. Her father, Evan J. Darlington, was born on August 31, 1856, in Wilmington, Delaware, the son of Elisha and Sidney P. (Stern) Darlington. Her mother, Ida J. Walker, was born on May 22, 1858, the daughter of John Walker Jr. and Sophia D. Heck. Evan and Ida were married on April 8, 1886. Evan is described as follows: "He is a bookkeeper in Wilmington. He is a crack marksman, having inherited a love for the use of firearms, and with it a rifle which belonged to his grandfather; and, like his father, is noted for proficiency with this weapon."
  • Florence's siblings were Bertha W. Darlington (born 1887) and Helen Darlington (born 1889). Recall that it was Helen Darlington Husband's 1979 obituary that provided one of the key clues on this interesting research journey.

Thank you again, Charlie! It's fair to say that we now know, as recorded in this week's three posts, all of the key genealogical details about Florence Darlington Moore's life and death. We don't some of the fun stuff, such as books she liked, her favorite meal, her hobbies and her pets. But those are, sadly, the things that get lost in the sands of time if they aren't recorded in letters, diaries or blogs. And we don't know the circumstances of how she knew my great-grandparents and introduced them, or if they even kept in touch after that. But some mysteries will always remain, won't they?

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