The Rest of the Story

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.

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.

The Merry Cricket

Mary Elizabeth Lowry and her six sisters. (Thanks to Linda Grinnell.)

In our last post, we met Eliza Ann Sweet and Jackson Lowry of Clark County, Illinois, and heard mention of their granddaughter Mary Elizabeth Lowry, who compared her grandmother to a “rip-snorting dragon.”

Mary Elizabeth Lowry was born 6 Aug 1888 in Clark County, Illinois, to first cousins Mahala Elizabeth Sweet and Lewis Taylor Lowry, one of thirteen children, three of whom died very young. Mary became a teacher, got married (to Soren Peter Johansen, a native of Denmark), and migrated from Martinsville to Los Angeles with her husband and their two children, Dane and Karen. In California she began teaching again and was able to get a B.S. in Education from the University of Southern California. She taught for 33 years in Los Angeles city schools and won a number of awards for her public service.

It was after she retired from teaching that Mary accomplished the deed that earns her a well-deserved spot in this post. She wrote a book, a wonderful book, The Merry Cricket (the nickname given her by her parents). which describes her childhood in Clark County, Illinois. She wrote about her brother Ellsworth (whom she adored), her six sisters, her parents, her grandparents Austin and Mary Ellen Sweet, her uncle Morgan Sweet (who married Cora Isabelle Tapscott), her aunt Rachel Lowry, and, of course, her grandmother Eliza Ann Sweet. And she tells about the collection of neighbors — some funny, some weird, some a little scary — who lived around Possum Ridge, many of whom attended Sour Oak Church. And she gives a rich description of backwoods life in Clark County. From the jacket of the book,

Through her many happy memories Mary Johansen takes us back into the forever lost world of the one-room school, the rare outings to market town, home hymn singing, joyous reunions with cherished grandparents, the hazards of exploring a still untamed countryside, and the thousands and one farming and farmhouse crafts from pig-killing to jam-making known then to any self-reliant farmer and his wife before our age of trucks, refrigeration, supermarkets, and door-to-door service.

Mary’s book is a door to the world of the Lowrys, Sweets, Wrights, Mallorys, and Tapscotts who inhabited Martinsville, Auburn, and Anderson townships at the turn of the century — the last century!

The Merry Cricket, by Mary Lowry Johansen, was published by Carlton Press, New York, in 1967. My copy of the book, a gift many years ago from my cousin Dolores (Tingley) Berbaum, is signed by the author with a handwritten dedication to her children Dane and Karen. I have tried, without success, to find another copy. It appears in no library holdings, no used book inventories, and no on-line bibliographies. My copy, perhaps the only one still extant, will someday go to a library, where it will be available to all.

Mary Elizabeth Lowry Johansen, passed away 4 Jan 1981 in Orange County, California.

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.