Our Ancestors Were Just Like Us — Complicated

Discovering Charles Sumner Hart was an accident. I stumbled upon him when researching divorce records, having found him in a collection of New Hampshire divorce certificates on Ancestry Library Edition. His marriage to Eliza M. Glazier lasted less than a year before “Elsie” was granted a divorce in the spring of 1878 for the cause of “extreme cruelty.”

I followed Charles’s story from there. It provided the opportunity to think about how to humanize our ancestors as the complicated, nuanced, and, at times, troubled people they were.

Two years later, Elsie Glazier was enumerated in the 1880 Federal Census as a housekeeper living in the household of Franklin Fay and working as a schoolteacher. Despite the stigma and ostracization that likely followed her after the divorce, she created a life of her own. Good for her! Charles, however, had a much more difficult journey.

In the 1880 Census, Charles lived with his family again on their farm. His occupation was curiously enumerated as “car carpenter” though he had been unemployed for 9 months. His marital status is listed as “single” rather than “divorced,” as Elsie was. Most notable, however, was his response to Column 15 — whether this person was “sick or temporarily disabled, so as to be unable to attend to ordinary business or duties?” The enumerator put a checkmark there.

While Charles was not enumerated as being, in the language of the time, “blind,” “deaf and dumb,” “idiotic,” insane,” or otherwise physically disabled, I knew there was more to the story. One of the unique features of the Federal Census in 1880 was a variety of supplemental schedules. Of particular interest to me was the very unfortunately named “Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent” Schedule which is available online.

The DDD schedule was designed to collect detailed information about the disabled population, homeless children, inhabitants of prisons, and people who lived in institutions like asylums or poorhouses. I did some research with the New Hampshire State Library, where their DDD Schedules are kept on microfilm, but Charles was not enumerated there.

However, I found Charles again in the 1900 Census. At the time, he was living in the New Hampshire Asylum of the Insane in Concord, New Hampshire. He was forty-six by then, enumerated as divorced and a “carpenter.”

Charles died later that year, with his death record stating the cause of death as septicemia. The contributing cause was “Chronic Delusional Insanity,” which lasted for 20 years.

He’d also lived at the State Asylum for 20 years. This means his struggle with mental health began around 1880, just two years after his wife filed for divorce. I can’t help but wonder how much of the cruel behavior he enacted upon Elsie was rooted in that struggle. His story was a complicated one.

Just like us, our ancestors were human—and messy. While we may find controversial or troubling things as we research our family history, we shouldn’t let that keep us from discovering and telling our ancestors’ stories.

Chelsea C
Midwest Genealogy Center