The Hyphen Family Lineage

Note: Researching Robert Marion Schoch and family

The records I have found for Robert and his family have been somewhat scattered, so the picture I have of his line is far from complete. The frequent phonetic spelling variations of his last name - Shock, Schock, etc. - have definitely complicated the searches. (I will note that his wife's maiden name - Mylius - was also frequently grossly misunderstood when transcribed for contemporary records, as well as when indexed from the handwritten originals records.)

I have not found a birth or christening record for him, though his Washington Death Record gives his birthplace as Bluffton, Wells Cty, Indiana. His parents were each born and raised in the rural townships nearby, and married in Bluffton just a few years before his birth, so I believe this location is accurate. The birthdate given on his death record agrees with the date he gave on his WWI Draft Registration Card, so I think that is correct, as well.

After he was listed in his parents' household in the 1900 and 1910 US Census records, I have been unable to find him in the 1920 US Census; he was not listed with his parents and younger siblings, nor was he listed with his older sister's household. I would expect that he was living as a bachelor laborer somewhere in Washington - his occupation was typically given as "lumberer" or "miner" on the historical records I have found so far - before marrying Anna, several years his senior, in King Cty, Washington in 1924.

(It should be noted that Anna's older brother Charles had relocated to Washington sometime after 1910, and married Anna Louise Lafferty; the two of them can be found in the 1920 US Census listed with two children. Anna Lafferty Milius was close in age to Anna Mylius Schoch, and both were Illinois-born, so keeping the two separated in searches does pose a minor challenge.)

Robert and Anna can be found in the 1930 US Census with their three children (Annette, Robert, and Lauren) in a mining town in Shoshone Cty, Idaho; at some point over the next ten years, the family must have returned to Chelan Cty, Washington, as the elder Robert died there in early 1940. I have not found Anna or the children in any 1940 US Census listing as of yet, though a FindaGrave.com contributor notes that Anna was counted as a widow in that census.

I have found little to account for Anna or their children after the elder Robert's death, as I have also not managed to find 1940 US Census records for any of the three children. What I have found for the surviving family is listed here:

- Anna appears to have lived to be one hundred and one years old, and is buried in Aurora, Kane Cty, Illinois, in the same cemetery as her parents. She appears not to have remarried after Robert's death, and her occupation on her death record was noted as "music teacher." Notice of her death in 1988 was carried in the national newspaper USA Today, and gave that she joined a tourist group at the age of ninety to visit Spain and Morocco.

- Annette married in 1954 in San Francisco, San Francisco Cty, California, to Donald J. Schneeman; I have found no records of her life after that date, though she was mentioned as a survivor in her brother Lauren's 1999 obituary. Public records indicate that she and her husband mayu have been living in Minnesota around the time of Anna's death.

- Robert is listed with the rest of the family in the previously-mentioned 1930 US Census, but I have found no record for him after that point. Like Annette, he is mentioned as a survivor in Lauren's obituary.

- Lauren married in 1959 in Minnesota to Mary L. Meyer, and the couple had at least one surviving daughter prior to their divorce in 1978. Lauren remarried in 1984, and his second wife was listed, along with his daughter Cheralynn and her two children, as survivors in his obituary in 1999.