The Hyphen Family Lineage

[Obituary for Martin Shady, from the Decatur Daily Democrat, 30 Apr 1941; posted online to the FindaGrave.com website.]

[headline] DEATH CLAIMS MARTIN SHADY
[second headline] Former Adams County Resident Dies At Home in Elkhart

Martin M. Shady, 82, for many years a resident of Adams County, died this morning at Elkhart after a year's illness of cancer of the stomach. He had resided in Adams County most of his life, leaving this community in 1913.

Surviving are his third wife, Pearl Dewey; three children, Mrs. Ethel Bryan of Craigville, Mrs. Edith Carder of Fort Wayne and Dewey M. Shady of Elkhart; two sisters, Mrs. Martha Ellen Beery of Kendallville, and Mrs. Mary Jane Rex of Battle Creek, Michigan; a brother, Marion F. Shady of Battle Creek, Mich.; 10 grandchildren and three great grandchildren. His first two wives, Sally Wolfe and Allie Call, preceded him in death.

Funeral services will be held at the Pleasant Valley Church, one mile east and one mile north of Tocsin, Thursday afternoon at 2 o'clock (CST), Rev. R. H. Heald of Fort Wayne will officiate, assisted by Rev. Oscar Pace of Elkhart, Rev. C. C. Moore of Craigville and Rev. Florence of Wilmore, Ky. Burial will be in the Shady Cemetery.
The body has been taken to the Thoma Funeral Home at Bluffton.

[Obituary for Martin Monroe Shady, from the Evening News-Banner, 30 Apr 1941; posted online to the FindaGrave.com website.]

Funeral services for Martin Monroe Shady, 82, retired farmer, formerly of Craigville, whose death occurred at 1:45 p.m. Tuesday at his home at 238 Gargeld avenue, Elkhart, will be held at 1:15 p.m. Thursday at the Thoma funeral home and at 2 p.m. at the Pleasant Valley church, in charge of Rev. R. H. Heald, assisted by Rev. Charles Moore, of Craigville, and Rev. Pase, of Elkhart. Burial will be in the Shady cemetery. The body will be at the Thoma funeral home until the time of the funeral.

Mr. Shady was born in Wells county on Mar. 12, 1859, a son of Joseph and Elizabeth Mills Shady. His first marriage was to Sally Wolf and his second marriage was to Allie Call, both of whom are deceased. He married Rev. Pearl Dewey on Aug. 15, 1911. She survives.

Two daughters and a son surviving are Mrs. Ethel Shady Bryan, of Craigville; Mrs. Edith Carder, of Fort Wayne, and Dewey Martin Shady, of Elkhart. One daughter, Arta Shady, is deceased.

A brother and two sister [sic] surviving are Marion F. Shady, of Battle Creek, Mich.; Mrs. Martha Ellen Beery, of Kendallville, and Mrs. Mary Jane Rex, of Sturgis, Mich.

[Editing note - the second obituary, from the Evening News-Banner, incorrectly identifies Arta Shady as a daughter. Arta was a son from Martin's first marriage.]

 

Note: the marriages and families of Martin Monroe Shady

In a space of less than twenty years, Martin married three times and was a widower twice, and had children from at least two of those marriages, which has made tracing the specific family connections somewhat more challenging than it might otherwise have been. Census records often listed younger members of the family with incorrect surnames - a common-enough mistake - or with inaccurate relationship descriptions. The following is the best summary I have been able to derive so far for Martin, his wives, and his children.

Martin's first marriage was in Wells Cty, Indiana on 10 Apr 1884, to Sarah E. Wolf (b. 5 Jun 1864). The two of them had two children, Arta Logan Shady (b. 25 Jan 1885, d. 14 Nov 1937) and Ethel Rose Shady (b. 8 Jan 1887, d. 26 Dec 1974; m. Bryan). Sarah died on 17 Oct 1889, at the age of twenty-five, leaving Martin with their two young children.

Martin's second marriage was also in Wells Cty, this time on 22 Jun 1892 to Alice E. Call (b. 5 Oct 1871). The two of them were counted together in the 1900 US Census in nearby Kirkland Twp, Adams Cty, Indiana, with their two young children, Edith Eva Shady (b. 28 Sep 1894, d. 7 Mar 1986; m. Carder) and Dewey Martin Shady (b. 25 Jul 1898, d. 8 Apr 1979), along with Arta and Ethel, Martin's two children from his first marriage. Alice died after several years' suffering from tuberculosis, on 7 Mar 1906.

In the 1910 US Census, Martin was counted as a widower still in Kirkland Twp, living with his three youngest children (Ethel, Edith, and Dewey). On 15 Aug 1911, in Vermontville, Eaton Cty, Michigan, Martin remarried to the divorcée Itylene Pearl Dewey (b. 16 Jun 1880 in Michigan), who as of the 1910 US Census had been living with her Pennsylvania-born daughter Arvilla Bassett in Muncie, Delaware Cty, Indiana.

In the 1920 US Census, Martin was counted with his wife Pearl and his step-daughter Arvilla in Elkhart, Elkhart Cty, Indiana. Martin and Pearl were counted in the 1930 US Census in Crown Point, Lake Cty, Indiana, this time with none of their children residing with them, but with an eight-year-old grandson noted as Robert E. Shady in the household's listing. (Robert will be discussed later in this note.)

In the 1940 US Census, Martin's household included himself, his wife, his adult son Dewey (who had returned home after he left his wife in Virginia, following the death of their infant son in 1939), and the aforementioned Robert, eighteen years of age, now listed as a son of the household.

Martin's death came about a year later, on 29 Apr 1941, after battling stomach cancer. His obituaries named his two previous wives and his son Arta as preceding him in death, while naming his wife Pearl, his daughters Ethel Bryan and Edith Carder, and son Dewey Shady, as survivors. One obituary went as far as to count his grandchildren (ten) and great-grandchildren (three) at the time of his death, but did not name any of them.

Pearl's history was somewhat more difficult to trace. As mentioned, she was Michigan-born, a daughter of Orin Dewey and Arvilla Burroughs, and in Grand Rapids, Kent Cty, Michigan on 18 May 1897, she married Edward D. Bassett (son of Spencer Bassett and Jennie Hill). Pearl and Edward were married at least long enough for the birth of their daughter Arvilla (b. 15 Aug 1901 in Pennsylvania), but were presumably divorced by 1910, when Pearl and Arvilla were living on their own in Indiana. I have not yet found any records confirming Edward's history following his divorce from Pearl, nor have I confirmed their divorce date.

I have not found any indication of the details of Pearl's life after Martin's death in 1941, until a death record for her from 28 Sep 1962 in Niles, Berrien Cty, Michigan. Pearl is listed on the FindaGrave.com website as buried in Oakhill Cemetery in Grand Rapids, Kent Cty, Michigan, though the listing does not include a great deal of supplemental information, nor a photo of her gravesite.

Returning to the aforementioned "Robert E. Shady," I suspected this was not a son of Martin and Pearl, but rather a member of the next generation, especially as he was listed as a grandson in the 1920 US Census record for the household. It would appear he was a grandson not of Martin's, but of Pearl's - Robert appears to actually be Robert E. Uhls, the oldest of four children borh to Pearl's daughter Arvilla and Arvilla's first husband, Arthur Samuel Uhls.

There is a marriage record for Arvilla Bassett and Arthur S. Uhls from Elkhart Cty, Indiana on 7 Aug 1920, just months after the census that year recorded Arvilla living with her mother and Martin in the same county. Arvilla and Arthur appear to have had four children in the 1920s, but by 1930 Arvilla was listed as a married employee at a juvenile detention facility in Crown Point, Lake Cty, Indiana, while Arthur was nowhere I have been able to find. (Online pedigrees indicate that he died in 1934, but I have not found any sources to confirm this.) The four children were scattered to other households to live in 1930 - Robert, the oldest, lived with his maternal grandmother, while the other three were all placed elsewhere:

- Donald, aged seven, was living with Oscar Wise and his wife in Jackson, White Cty, Indiana.
- Phylis, aged five, was living with William Bachelor and his wife and daughter in Jackson Twp, DeKalb Cty, Indiana.
- Arthur Samuel Jr., aged two, was living with Ed Faucer and his family in Crown Point, Lake Cty, Indiana.

The youngest three children returned to living with their mother by 1940, when the four of them were counted in the 1940 US Census living in Calumet Twp, Lake County, Indiana; Robert, the oldest son, seems to have chosen to remain with his grandmother and her household (which included her husband Martin), and was listed as an adult son of the household. Arvilla, it should be noted, was giving her marital status at this point as widowed. She does appear to have remarried at some later point, but I do not believe she had further children after Arthur Jr.

I have not found information to confirm, but I believe Arthur Samuel Uhls Sr. may have become seriously injured or ill after the birth of his youngest child, and his condition likely left the family in dire straits and may have even persisted for years until his death sometime prior to 1940.