The Hyphen Family Lineage

[Obituary for Patricia A. Bellman, posted online to the FindaGrave.com website.]

Patricia Ann Bellman, 67, of Ocean Springs died Thursday, Jan. 1, 1998, in Biloxi.

Mrs. Bellman was a native of New Haven, Ind., and had been a resident of the Gulf Coast since 1976. She was a member of St. Alphonsus Catholic Church. She was a homemaker.

She was preceded in death by her husband, Ralph Bellman of Ocean Springs; a daughter, Sandra Eriksen of Biloxi; three sons, Patrick Bellman of Biloxi, James Bellman of Ocean Springs and Kevin Bellman of Gulfport; a sister, Lavon Nester of Edgerton, Ohio, and three grandchildren.

A rosary was read Sunday night at the Ocean Springs chapel of Bradford-O'Keefe Funeral Home.

Funeral mass was celebrated Monday, Jan. 5, at St. Alphonsus Catholic Church in Ocean Springs with burial in Bellande Cemetery.

[Editing note - the text of the obituary mistakenly indicates that all those mentioned preceded Patricia in death, when in actuality that list was of the surviving family members.]

Note: Researching the marital history of Patricia Ann Lothamer

After the 1940 US Census record lising Patricia in her parents' household at the age of ten, the next record I have found for her is her marriage to Willard Henry Stahlhut in Allen Cty, Indiana in May of 1949. On their marriage license, Patricia's birthdate was reported as 23 Feb 1929, though a review of the 1930 US Census listing for her parents' household indicates she was only two months old as of April 1930. Additionally, her US Social Security Death Index record gives her birthdate as 23 Feb 1930, and this same date is what appears engraved on her gravestone, while her obituary from January of 1998 gives her age as sixty-seven. This would suggest that she misreported her age and birthdate on that marriage license, likely to appear closer in age to her first husband, Willard.

My next finding was Willard's burial listing on the FindaGrave.com website, which includes both a photo of his gravestone (in Bethlehem Lutheran Church Cemetery in Fort Wayne, Allen Cty, Indiana) and the text of his obituary from the Fort Wayne News-Sentinel (18 Aug 1998). This obituary names his wife Marcia, and gives that she preceded him in death in 1973 - the linked burial listing on the website names her Marcia E. (Reynolds) Stahlhut (b. 1933, d. 1973). No date is given for their marriage, though among the surviving relatives are named several children of varying surnames, along with stepchildren. No other spouse is mentioned, either before or after Marcia.

This suggested to me that Willard and Patricia had divorced, though when was unknown to me. Looking further, I found a burial listing on Findagrave.com for Patricia (Lothamer) Bellman in Bellande Cemetery (in Ocean Springs, Jackson Cty, Mississippi) which includes vital dates, a copy of the obituary clipping, and a photo of her shared gravestone with her husband, Ralph F. Bellman. The text of the obituary names her a native of "New Haven, Ind." and states that she came to the "Gulf Coast" in 1976. The obituary mistakenly lists the survivors as preceding her in death, but among those named is her sister "Lavon Nester of Edgerton, Ohio." Also among the named relatives are three sons (Patrick, James, and Kevin) and a daughter (Sandra Eriksen), all of Mississippi.

Linked to her listing is that for her husband, Ralph F. Bellman, who died less than thirteen months later. His listing also includes the photo of their shared headstone, and the text of his obituary from the Biloxi Sun-Herald (30 Jan 1999) which notes that he was preceded in death by his wife and a son (Kerry Bellman), and which names the same surviving children as Patricia's but adds one more ("Ralph Bellman of Fort Lauderdale, Fla."). Of the four children named in common between the two obituaries, birthdates from public records searches all seem to fall within the range of the years 1961 through 1966. (Of interesting note is that the son who preceded Ralph in death, Kerry, shares the same birthdate as named survivor Kevin, suggesting the two were twins.)

I will also note that none of the children named in Willard Stahlhut's obituary are mentioned in Patricia's, and the same is true in reverse.

All of this suggests to me that Patricia and Willard divorced after some undetermined amount of time, possibly as late as the late 1950s or around 1960, and that they had no children together. I suspect Ralph was previously married, as well, and had at least one son from that first marriage before divorcing. (This may have been in Florida, but that is undertermined at this point.) I would also expect that Patricia remarried around 1960, possibly earlier, and possibly while still a young woman approaching thirty. This would allow plenty of time for the couple to have had their four children before Patricia was even in her forties. I do not know where their children were born, nor when or where Patricia and Ralph were married. I also do not have confirmation of the recorded parentage for the adult children named in their obituaries. As such, I have not included the children in the tree, but have made note of them here for future research.