What's Up?

I have had a couple of my readers checking in to see what's up and why I haven't posted much lately. So here goes. I haven't posted anything in a very long time because I am actually writing a book. It will be about our Aggie. I've spent much of the last year researching for the project. I've been to Wisconsin, Ohio and New York. I've uncovered some jaw dropping things during those excursions. The book will be an in depth look at her life from 1919 to her death. I have always loved my cousin and it's just possible I love her even more since beginning researching her in depth. I've discovered that this magnificent creature is far more complex than any of us ever thought she might be. There is a strength and determination in her that defies explanation. I can hardly wait to share her once more with you all. Not just her but her family in it's entirety and how they helped form the woman we all know as Aggie. Stay tuned for updates!

The Evolution of Margaret Moorehead

 It's Always Best To Begin At The Beginning

Margaret Ann Moorehead was born on the 12th of April 1906 in Hamilton, Butler County, Ohio. She was named after her maternal grandmother.  Around 1913 she moved with her family to St. Louis where they remained until 1919 when they moved to Reedsburg, Wisconsin. Margaret's parents returned to St. Louis at some point in 1922 after the school year ended. I'm sure that Margaret was more than relieved to return to St. Louis since it was one of the places where Margaret felt at home. In 1922 Margaret began school at Cleveland High School. 

Margaret is alleged by her sister to have been good at mimicking members of her father's congregation often joining her sister at the dinner table in that mimicry. After looking through all the yearbooks it appears as though that side of Peggy, as her family called her, only appeared when she was around her sister. The two sisters are actually as different as night and day. Peggy was a near identical physical copy of her mother and Agnes was her father's daughter.

In 1922 Peggy was playing violin in the school orchestra at Reedsburg High School as well as singing in the choir. She did not play in any orchestra once she began school in St. Louis. She was a member of the Alethinae and the choir but not much else. Margaret's name appears in the 1922 Reedsburg yearbook in a listing of students. The listing includes the virtue of the person and their ambition. Margaret's reads thusly Margaret Moorehead: Virtue: her boyfriend and Ambition row 1 seat 1. The latter item is a reference to being first chair violin and the boyfriend bit well I have an idea. What if the boyfriend mentioned in 1922 is Frank? Would you believe me if I said I found a young man who attended Reedsburg named Francis "Frank" Marion Bechtolt? If you answered no you'd be wrong because I did. More impressively Frank sang in the boy's Glee Club and played trombone in the Cadet Band of Reedsburg. Margaret would have known him. In addition to that Frank Bechtolt also lived in Dayton Ohio when Margaret was there. Frank did not marry until 1937. I think this is it, people. I think we now know who Frank is!

Ladies and Gentlemen

Francis "Frank" Marion Bechtolt

More of Peggy

I am curious about Margaret suddenly ceasing to play the violin academically when she was moved back to St. Louis and even more curious about what led her to choice of a nursing career. Unpicking Peggy one mystery at a time I suppose.

Home Movies.

 Courtesy of VirgoLady63 Please take a peek at the following link. Normal people doing normal things.

https://youtu.be/tVWPFGlAO5E

The Little Things That Make You Wonder

 I have been for ages looking for the marriage certificate for Molly and John. I literally clawed my way through marriage records in the state of Pennsylvania with zero success. Today I decided to take another crack at it but neglected to put the state in for my search and to my surprise popped up a marriage certificate. Then it got seriously weird. I've always known that John was substantially older than Molly. They were married 6 days after her 16th birthday in 1899. That wasn't the surprise though. The surprise was where they were married and what was on the certificate. They got married in Kentucky. Yes, I said Kentucky. Newport Kentucky to be exact which is a suburb of Cincinatti, Ohio. The license gives Molly's age as 21, not 16. Her mother was not a witness nor was her father suggesting they may not have known. Kentucky law allowed for 16-year-olds to marry but only with parental approval. Bring on the surprises I say. We need more. Here's a copy.

Why Did She Do That?

 I have always found the case of Peggy Moorehead compelling. For years I read and read and read looking for her or more aptly her story. I've no doubt that Peggy was a very complex person. Her father was a preacher. Her mother was, well, Molly and that is a whole different complex story. For years I was told she had a "heart seizure." I can only assume this was the story the family told themselves to soften the blow of suicide. Molly wouldn't even use the word on the telephone when she phoned Agnes in New York to say that Peggy was "ill." She wasn't ill in the true sense of the word. She would never recover from what she had done despite her reassurances to her mother that she had nursed a girl who had done the same and recovered. Peggy knew she wasn't going to recover. She was a nurse for heaven's sake. She knew she was dying. She was just waiting for it to happen. She'd made sure it would. For years I've read her story over and over. A story we'd know nothing about saving for a letter from her mother to Agnes explaining that Peggy and "Frank" were over and Peggy had no reason why. We'd never know that  she had been in an argument with her sister driving Agnes to wonder why Peggy couldn't have come to them and find the statement punctuated with the words "You've never loved a man like I have." Plainly it broke Agnes' heart but it would never have come to light save for research done for a book written by somebody else who happened upon the gut-wrenching note in the back of an old notebook that had belonged to Agnes. Every single thing we know comes from other people.

Over the years I've been told many stories about Peggy. She apparently had an abiding love for dance. In particular, she loved the dancing of Isadora Duncan and I was told by a former neighbor in Reedsburg that Peggy would often dance nude in her parent's backyard. Nude I believe is relative in this instance since it likely refers to wearing sheer tunics a la Duncan. Never the less an uptight individual does not dance a la Duncan in her parent's backyard let alone dance that way when her father is a preacher. It seems to me that Peggy was a fanciful thinker who enjoyed freedom not afforded her sister. Peggy just didn't seem to worry about what other folks thought. This brings me back again to 1929 and her suicide.

I think it's worth mentioning again that  Peggy according to the local newspaper was in St. Louis on June 22nd, 1929. This was a Saturday and the announcement was that she was visiting friends in St. Louis and was expected home the following Friday or Saturday. That would have been June 28th or 29th. It's also worth mentioning again that by July 14th she was dead by her own hand. I have always wondered why did she did that. Why? What happened in St. Louis? What happened in Reedsburg? We have a cryptic note from Molly saying Peggy apologized for the nonsense that recently happened. What nonsense? Why???

Often people attempt suicide as a cry for help but those who actually just do it aren't crying for help they're crying out in pain. A pain that is so deep that it shatters their body and soul. A pain that is so deep that they cannot conceive of surviving it nor do they want to. They just want that pain to stop. I've had pain in my life but not like that.

It took Margaret 3 days to die. That means the decision to kill herself happened on or about July 11th. This happens 12 days after she returns from St. Louis. Molly described that "Frank" said they would quit out of the blue, they being Peggy and Frank. How out of the blue was it though? My gut has always said that perhaps Peggy was pregnant and perhaps that is why she told her sister that she had never loved a man the way Peggy had. I can't prove that but her father was a preacher. However, you choose to look at it suicide was absolutely anti-everything her father preached whether it was because she was pregnant or simply emotionally broken. It is by definition of the bible a sin either way. 

The most curious thing is why her obituary in the Dayton paper says she'd been living there for a year when the Directory of St. Louis in 1929 lists her as a nurse at the Jewish Hospital. Then there is the whole thing of her also being listed as living in Reedsburg in its Directory for the year 1929. What is actually happening here? Let it be said at this point the family had been back in St. Louis where Peggy's father was pastor at Carondelet Presbyterian until June of 1928. He had been there since at least 1925 when his name is first mentioned in the newspaper as pastor. Again I ask what is the gap in Peggy's life from 1922 when she was a freshman in Reedsburg High School and 1925 when the record indicates that her parents moved back to St. Louis. Where in the name of all things holy is she for 3 years??? She allegedly graduated from Cleveland High School in 1925 according to the city of St. Louis. I've looked and I still keep coming up with photos I've already posted but one. The bottom line is Peggy wore glasses and only one picture I can find has a girl with glasses. Admittedly glasses can be removed but Peggy has a very strong chin so and the others I've found do not have that. So this is my newest guess:

The young woman with glasses may be Peggy. The chin is right. The nose is right. The hair is a lighter color as Peggy's was. Of course, they don't list names and she does not have a picture in the Senior photo section. It can never be easy, can it? I have no idea what made Peggy the person she was. I have no idea what drove her to take her own life. I will keep picking it apart though and perhaps in time, I will find out what may have happened.

Joy Throws Little Stones

Phantom No Longer 

Margaret Ann Moorehead has been a mystery to all of us for a very long time. First, we discovered that she had actually committed suicide. Secondly, we learned that she was a nurse. Thirdly we learned that she appeared to have lived in St. Louis after her parents left to go to Reedsburg. I made the assumption that perhaps she had stayed with family friends since by all accounts her parents moved to Reedsburg after they had been in St. Louis and from Reedsburg to Dayton Ohio where Margaret died in 1929. In a serendipitous moment, I stumbled onto a newspaper article that confirmed I was wrong about Margaret and her parents. John and Molly did move to Reedsburg in 1919 but they moved back to St. Louis in 1922 after school ended in Reedsburg taking Margaret with them. Well, what can I say what I write is only as good as what I read on the subject. Every single day new records pop up all over the internet and via my genealogical wanderings, I have discovered a wee bit of a holy grail of sorts. Two photographs from Reedsburg High School dated 1922. One of them is of the Freshman/Sophomore Girls Glee Club and the other of the school Orchestra. Featured in both pictures is Margaret Moorehead. Typical of yearbooks of the time photographs were taken and names were printed underneath but not in any particular order. That left the problem of identifying which one was Margaret. The Girls Glee Club retinue was huge so that was right out the window but the orchestra was small and even better the number of girls even smaller. I took that picture and searched for all the girls in it by name looking for single photos of them so that I could eliminate them one by one. I ended up with two girls and still was not sure which one was Margaret. The other girl was unnamed on the list but I knew since Margaret was also in Glee Club that meant one of the two remaining unidentified girls would be Margaret. Jackpot!!! I took each face separately then scanned through the Girls Glee Club one was eliminated and the other was Margaret Ann Moorehead.

Stories Lie In The Eyes

I cropped the photographs down so that I could study the face. There are stories in those eyes good and bad, imagined and real, happy, and sad. In the orchestra, Margaret played the violin. It's worth keeping in mind that Molly taught herself to play the cello so it is certainly no surprise that Margaret chose a string instrument. While studying Margaret's face I realized that she reminded me of somebody and that somebody was not her sister it was her mother. In fact, Margaret appears to be the spitting image of her mother. The story goes that Molly always favored Margaret and it's no surprise really since they looked so much alike.

Orchestra 1922

Top photo Margaret is on the left and on the right is unknown

The bottom photo is Molly Moorehead

They resemble each other so closely it is uncanny right down to the glasses.

To me, Margaret looks like she has a semblance of a smile but the eyes are sad with a hint of defiance. Molly looks exactly the same way. 

Girls Glee Club 1922

In this picture again the hint of a smile but the eyes seem sad and defiant.

These are full-size pictures from the Reedsburg High School yearbook. Margaret was 16 when these were taken and had only 7 years more on earth.

Joy threw me a little stone. I wish it had done the same for Margaret.

The End of the Sean Saga

Just when you think that you are done with twists and turns and loop the loops you crash headlong into new information. So here goes.

The Tip of the Iceberg

A while back I mentioned in an update that I had found Sean Moorehead. I did of I absolutely did but I made one small mistake. I assumed that he was still alive. Newsflash he is no longer living. The man the world knows as Sean Moorehead died at the age of 48 in 1996. He did come from an extremely large family and they were not incredibly well off but there were never 6 or 7 siblings parsed out as Agnes had said. As far as I can tell there were two parsed out Sean and a younger sister. I have found no evidence that Sean was frail, ill and hospitalized at the time he was parsed out. His family did have relatives in California though and that may be how this all came to pass. His father was a construction worker and the family often moved with him as he went from job to job. In 1963 Sean ran away from Agnes' home for 3 weeks. Everybody assumed he ran to San Francisco but what if he ran home. The family was living in the upper midwest at the time. What if he ran home?

A Ticket To Die For

I posit this what if he always ran home to his family. I say this because one of the things that often gets mentioned in biographies about Agnes is that in 1967 she had a massive blow out with Sean. Sean had a dismantled gun in a drawer in his room. Agnes found it and immediately demanded Sean leave her home. He obliged and that would be the end of that. Once Sean had departed Agnes learned that he had a warrant out for his arrest for failure to appear in traffic court and failure to have a driver's license. I found an article that correlates to this identifying him by his birth name because it happened where his family lived. He ran a red light then backed up through the red light and had no driver's license. He was charged with careless driving and assessed a fine of $166.00 in October of 1966. That's a steep fine for the time. Perhaps Sean went back to Beverly Hills to escape what had happened.

Enlistment
One of the things Sean wanted to do before graduating from high school was to enlist in the military. In 1968 he did just that under his birth name. He served in the Army for two years. His enlistment actually proves his lungs were fine despite what we were led to believe or he would not have made the medical cut. He also did not wear glasses and his eyes appeared to be just fine.

Tying Up Loose Ends
Sean died at the age of 48 of a cardiopulmonary arrest, pericarditis, and renal disease. He was a 2 pack a day smoker as well as a truck driver. He did reunite with his family. His heritage was Scottish and French Canadian. He married twice and I am unaware of any children. I have opted not to release his birth name because the majority of his siblings are still very much alive and it would be incredibly unfair to do so. His name wasn't Sean or Eric but he did travel under the name Sean Moorehead when he went abroad however he was never legally adopted nor does it appear he ever legally change his name so it was plainly long before you had to ante up mega identification in order to obtain a passport or to board a plane. Since he enlisted on July 24, 1968, we now know he remained in Europe until 1968.

Sean was troubled and when compared to his siblings he definitely lived a colorful life. In the end, it's enough for me to know he's no longer with us and to hope that by the time he left this planet he found peace.