Grandma Felton has many names and a complicated story. This is the story that led to her and ultimately, us.

In about 1838, a man named Jacob Fudge was born in Ohio. He married a woman named Mary Pine in 1860 and had a son named James. In 1865 he assumed the name Jasper Yeats and married Nancy Mariah Bowen in Kosciusko, Indiana. In 1868 they had a son named James. Unfortunately, he had not divorced Mary Pine. This was somehow discovered and he spent two years in the state prison in Michigan City.

Nancy Mariah Bowen Yeats/Fudge is in 1870 census married to Daniel Hoppes,  a man 20 years older than she is. There are several children listed including the oldest, who is only a few years younger than she is. But her son James is listed as James Yeats.

In 1880 Nancy Mariah Bowen Yeats/Fudge Hoppes is now married to a man named John Henry Schutt. They have 3 boys together named Franklin, George, and Sylvester. James is also listed but is now listed as James Fudge.

James is Hazel's father.

In 1891 he married Annie Warren.

Annie Warren is the daughter of William Warren and Saber Holloway. Annie was born in 1869. Her father died in 1875 and her mother died in 1880. I suspect she then lived with a sibling and I believe it was her brother William, but I have no proof yet. So, Annie was an orphan by the time she was 10.

In 1891 she married James Fudge.

James and Anna Fudge. According to census records, they had 12 children, but in the end only two survived past birth. They had a son Jacob in 1894 and a daughter Hazel in 1897.

Hazel was born in Burkett, Indiana in December of 1897. In 1900 the family is living in Muncie, Indiana. Then in 1904 they are all living at the poor farm in Kosciusko county Indiana.

Jacob and Hazel are taken from their parents and placed in Whites Institute -- an orphanage in Warsaw. The reason seems to be because their father, James was blind.  Anna who had been an orphan, now had children who would be considered orphans.

Hazel would remain at White's for 4 years. Jacob would eventually be sent to another orphanage in Mexico, Indiana.

I visited White's a few years ago, and learned that it used to be a working farm. Boys and girls were kept separate except they attended church at the same time. Children would sleep 12 or so to a dorm room. A husband and wife would be like house parents and had a room attached. They ate together and were a family unit of sorts. Kids would learn a skill, and I believe Hazel's skill with needlework and sewing came from her time at White's.

Hazel was placed in the home of William and Isabelle Conry in 1908. The story I was told was that she was wanted by the Conry's to help with the 5 boys the family had. It was said she was picked up in a horse and wagon.

I was told that Hazel was given the choice of taking her adoptive parents name, but that they wanted her to wait until she was 18 to make the decision to give up her given name. She did choose to become Hazel Conry.

I was told she waited to locate her given family until both adoptive parents had passed. She didn't want to upset them.

I located her adoptive records and found she was visited every year, until she became of age, by the state agency.

I also learned that wanting to wait may not have been true.

I have a letter from her file, written two days after her 18th birthday, that has her writing to the state agency asking to find her brother. There is no reply back to her.

And heartbreakingly, there is a letter from an agency that says Hazel's mother Anna is dying and won't live long. Anna knows she is dying and only wishes to see her daughter one more time. She died 3 months after the letter was sent without having seen the daughter taken from her.

Jacob, Hazel's brother had a rough time and was sent back from homes who tried to foster him. Eventually he spent 18 months in a reform school because he had been convicted of petty larceny. Interesting that his grandfather with the same name had spent 2 years in jail for bigamy,  and he spent 18 months for petty theft.

There are letters from the reform school trying to find out if his parents, James and Anna are suitable for Jacob to be released to. The authorities are reticent and feel that they won't be suitable, but it doesn't say why.  Was James being blind the sole reason? It seems Anna being sick may have something to do with it as well. Jacob is eventually released to his father.

The reason given for not being draftable in World War I was because he had to take care of his parents. Anna died in 1918.

In 1920, James is living alone but near his mother and step-father and near a brother in law. Jacob apparently left his dad and married a woman in Inidanapolis. He would have 3 children with her, but would leave them all. He than married Thelma Fudge. She had a daughter I believe, and they would have a daugher together. Both were raised as being his daughters.

In 1930 James is back at the poor farm. He would die there in 1932 of cancer.

Jacob and Hazel would meet again around 1940.  Hazel's parents had both died by then. Apparently Hazel, her husband, Bill, and their three children drove to Burkett where everything began and as luck would have it, found someone who knew her brother. They were directed to his house and saw each other for the first time in nearly 40 years.

It's a sad and complicated road, but it is what led Hazel to La Porte, and ultimately to us.

Stay tuned for more details.