For some time we have been stuck in the mire of the Sweets
and Lowrys. Today, we finally get back to the Tapscotts—sort of.
On 1 Mar 1884, at the Clark
County, Illinois, office of Justice of the Peace John G. Towell, Cora Isabelle
Tapscott (often called “Bell”) married Richard Morgan Sweet (who usually went
by just “Morgan”). Morgan was a grandson of
Nathaniel and Elizabeth (Maddox) Sweet. His father was Austin Sweet, a brother of
Eliza Ann (Sweet) Lowry, about whom we have heard so much. Cora was a granddaughter
of Henry and Susan Bass Tapscott.
In 1880, there were only sixteen
Sweets in all of Clark County, most living near Martinsville, a few miles west
of the Tapscott farms in Anderson township. The union of Richard and Cora eventually
added thirteen descendants to this number—Ithamar, William, Robert, Charles,
Emma, Murl, Faris, Ruth, Ruby, Leslie, Eugene, Harold, and Nila. My uncle
Clarence Benson Tapscott claimed that there was a fourteenth Sweet, Thomas, but
if so Thomas must have died as an infant. No documentation of his existence has
been found.
With the many children in the
family of Morgan and Bell Sweet and the rather common surname, tracing them
down for a book on the Tapscotts of the Wabash Valley has been an onerous
task. One person who was particularly
difficult to track was Leslie Morgan Sweet.
Leslie was born to Cora and
Richard on 14 Oct 1903. Sometime in the early 1920s, after working on the
family farm, he moved to Michigan City, Indiana, and then on to Detroit.
There Leslie worked as grinder in an automobile factory, married Agnes May Ford
(the ceremony actually occurred across the state line in Ohio), and was
divorced in 1952. He next appeared in the 21 July 1957 edition of The Marshall
Herald, in which it was reported that the Sweet clan had been called together
by the “by the sudden death of their brother and uncle, Leslie Sweet, of
Effingham, Ill.” Leslie was buried near Martinsville in Mt. Pleasant Cemetery,
the resting place of a multitude of Sweets.
Leslie’s life appeared
nicely wrapped up until I saw a 24 Jul 1959 Marshall Herald article about a
reunion of “Morgan and Bell Tapscott Sweet” descendants held in Covington,
Indiana. Among those attending was “Mrs. Leslie Sweet of Effingham, Ill.”
Unless Leslie’s ex-wife decided to attend a reunion of her in-laws, which
seemed unlikely, Leslie’s life was not “wrapped up.” Moreover, the earlier report that
he had died suddenly was a bother. Thus when Mary Frances and I
headed for Illinois to do family history research this summer, we set aside a
day in Effingham in attempt to put together the rest of Leslie’s tale. (And to
eat at an outstanding Effingham restaurant, the Firefly Grill, just down the
street from our hotel.) The records collected from the courthouse and
the Helen Matthes library have been reviewed, and with the provision of some detailed information by Michael L. Hébert, we can complete the story of Leslie's life.
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| Leslie Sweet death certificate. |
Around 1950, Leslie moved from Detroit to Effingham, where
he apparently met Cora Katherine Campbell, to whom he was wedded sometime
between 1952, when his first marriage was dissolved, and 1954, when Cora was designated “Cora Sweet”
in an obituary for her father. Raised by John and Susan (Hilton) Campbell in
the town of Montrose in Effingham County, Cora was first married to Oakley Earl (“Jack”) Hargrave
on 15 May 1926. The marriage produced one child, but ended in an acrimonious
divorce on 4 Nov 1935, with Jack Hargrave later arrested for nonpayment of
alimony.
Cora’s marriage to Leslie Sweet was short. On 9 Jun 1957, at
8:15 in the evening, Leslie stepped in front of a car while crossing a busy
street in the city of Effingham and was struck by a driver who may have been
blinded by oncoming traffic. He died instantly. Leslie left no descendants. Less than a year earlier, on 3 Aug 1956,
Leslie had been involved in an automobile accident near Mattoon in which he hit
the rear end of an automobile. The accident injured five people with one dying.
Two years later, Cora married Gerald E. Lockart, a widowed
funeral home owner and operator from Shelby County, Illinois. Dying on 24 Aug
1983, Cora is interred in Montrose Cemetery in Effingham County.
From the 1950s through the 1990s, ABC radio broadcaster Paul Harvey would present little-known or forgotten facts on events and people, concluding his broadcast with the phrase "And now you know the rest of the story." Here, for Leslie Sweet, was the “Rest of the Story.”
All genealogical data reported in these posts are from primary and/or reputable secondary sources, or reliable transcriptions thereof, and never from unsourced online trees. Contact the author to request sources, which have been omitted here to improve readability.
