A recent blog concluded that Sam
and Susie Tapscott had four children, three girls (Viola, Julia, and Stella)
and a boy (Austin). But then ended with
We May Be Wrong!
What brings on this declaration?
On Mon 30
Dec 1946 a news article on a court case in Decatur, Illinois, was published in The
Decatur Daily Review newspaper. Lola Flint of Paris and Stella McLain of Terre Haute (.Samuel and
Susie’s daughters Viola and Stella) had asked the court to declare their
brothers, Frank and Harry, former Decatur residents who had been missing for
more than fifty years, legally dead. Who in the world are, or were, Frank and
Harry? And what sort of estate would they have inherited? They have not been
identified in any document other than the Decatur newspaper. That they had not
been seen for more than fifty years implies a birth year prior to 1896. One
possibility is that one of them was Austin, who may have had a middle name
Harry or Frank (or vice versa). Another possibility is that they were
illegitimate children of Samuel, or even of Susie. Or, or course, they could
have just been two additional children born to Susie and Sam in the 1880s or
1890s.
What do you think?
