The Hyphen Family Lineage

Note: Researching William H. Weible

Because of the gaps in the records I have been able to find for William and his family, I do not know if I have a complete list of his children, nor a thorough accounting of his immediate descendancy as of yet. Some of what I will list here is drawn from inferences in the records, and not from the records themselves.

William was born in Ohio, likely in Henry Twp, Wood Cty, where his parents and older siblings had been counted in the 1860 US Census just some months before his birth. He moved with his family to Berlin Twp, Bureau Cty, Illinois as a teenager, and sometime in the mid-1890s he married to the Nebraska-born Estella Wood. Their first known child, Glen, was born in Princeton, Bureau Cty in 1897, and shortly after the family moved to Iowa, where their second child, Grace, was born. William's household was counted in the 1900 US Census in Buffalo Center, Winnebago Cty, Iowa, but shortly afterwards the family relocated to Michigan (based on the reported birthplaces of the next two children, sons Ralph and Charles Edwin).

I have not found the family in the 1910 US Census record, but by the time of the 1920 US Census the family had more-or-less permanently settled in the area of Flint, Genesee Cty, Michigan, and here they appear to have remained for the remainder of William's years. Another child, daughter Clara, was born in Michigan about 1912, and their last known child, Lillian Beulah, was born in Flint in 1921.

William's death certificate gives his date of death and his status as married, suggesting that his wife survived him, but I have not found a death record or confirmed date of death for her, nor have I found a burial location for either of them (though I suspect this would be somewhere in the area of Flint). One of their three known daughters, Lillian, was known to have died young (in 1929, at the age of eight), but I have not located adult records for the other two known daughters. I have not found Estella living with any of her known surviving sons in 1940, though she would have only been in her early sixties and may well have survived to at least that point.

Of their two other daughters - Grace and Clara - I have found little. For Grace there is an Iowa birth record and her presence in their house in the 1900 US Census, but as I have not found a 1910 US Census record for the family (when she would have been about eleven years old), I do not know if she survived to adulthood. By the time of the 1920 US Census, she would have been twenty-one years old, and if she had survived she may well have married prior to that time, but I have found no marriage record for her, either. Likewise for Clara, the only record I have found for her is her presence in the 1920 US Census for the household, where she was given as eight years old, and by the time of the 1930 US Census she would have been about eighteen, and possibly married if she had survived to adulthood, but I have not found a marriage record for her.

Of their three sons, the following is what I have found.

- Glen was living in the area of Flint at the time of the WWI draft prior to 1920, and in 1923 married Bessie (Pryer) Hicks, a previously-married woman a few years older than he with at least four children from her first marriage. The two of them appear to have had only one child together (Glen, born about 1925), and remained married until at least 1940 and possibly until Glen's death in 1966. I have not found further record for his son after the 1940 US Census.

- Ralph married in 1923 to Vena (Kilbourne) Inman, a young divorcée who would divorce him only a few years later, after the birth of their son Ralph A. The elder Ralph lived with his parents for some years, and eventually remarried to another divorcée, Mable Cullimore, whose daughter from a previous marriage (Dorothy) interestingly bore the Weible surname (an item returned to further below in discussion of his younger brother). Ralph and Mable appear to have had a daughter together, Joyce Mae, born about 1939. I have not confirmed it, but I believe Ralph and Mable remained married until their deaths some decades later.

- Charles Edwin married first to Mable Gordon in 1925; though I have not found information to determine what ended their marriage or when, I strongly believe they were married for only a few years and divorced about the time their daughter Dorothy was born. Mable apparently remarried to Vernon Cullimore about 1928, and divorced again a few years later. I believe it was a few years after that she remarried again, this time to Ralph, older brother of her first husband and her daughter Dorothy's uncle. Charles Edwin would go on to meet and marry young divorcée Frances (Bakale) Skutts, presumably introduced by his relative Margaret Weible, with whom Frances worked, in 1931. Charles Edwin and Frances had two daughters, Ruth and Louella, and the two appear to have remained married until Charles Edwin's death in 1952.

As such, I can fully account for only five biological grandchildren for William and Estella - six, if my beliefs about Dorothy's parentage are correct. I have not found further confirmed information after 1940 for grandson Glen or granddaughters Dorothy or Joyce, though grandson Ralph appears to have had at least six children, and the obituary for William's daughter-in-law Frances suggests that his granddaughters Ruth and Louella each married and had children.