Grandpa Coyle, a Natural Disaster and a Surprise Wife

"As you go down the rabbit hole of reading into our history, you realize that there are so many things that history books didn't teach us about ourselves."    - Usher

I love genealogy because it not only keeps our ancestors alive in our memories, but it also brings history itself alive.  As a kid, I thought history was one of THE most boring school subjects ever – an endless list of names and dates to be memorized, spewed onto a paper during a test, and promptly forgotten to make room for the next batch of names and dates. How I wish just one of my teachers had shown us how to frame history through the eyes of our own kin. It makes the random dates and names relevant, fleshes out our ancestors’ stories, and accidentally teaches us a thing or two along the way.

A good case in point is my own grandfather, William David Coyle. He died when I was only six, and due to the ravages of senility he was never able to share any of his life stories with me. I knew him only as Grandpa, the skinny, sweet and sometimes scary old man who lived with us – who had a bony but welcoming lap, smelled of cherry pipe tobacco, and brought me chocolate coins wrapped in gold foil. All I really knew about him was that he loved cars and dogs.

His son, my Dad, was an only child who left home at a young age to fight World War II; he remained in the military and spent the next 20 years away from his parents, grandparents and cousins. Whatever knowledge he had of his father’s younger years was lost to time and not passed on to me. As a result, when I began my ancestral digging I hungrily searched out any details that would fill in the generational knowledge gaps.

I learned many things about my Grandpa, good and bad; perhaps the most shocking discovery was that he had been married before meeting my grandmother. My dad had passed by the time I learned this, so I have no idea if he was aware – but I highly doubt it. There were hints dropped from time to time (usually by my mom) that Grandpa had been a “ladies’ man” in his youth, and it caused “some trouble” early in his marriage, but I’ll save that for another blog post.

The handsome devil on the right is my grandfather, William David Coyle, 
pictured with his brother-in-law Frank Stites.

Grandpa was born in 1889, smack dab in the middle of eight sisters. He was born a twin, but his brother died several months after their birth, leaving him the sole son in a sea of estrogen. His father was a hard-working, hard-drinking Irishman and may or may not have been the finest model of manhood for a young boy. Known as Willie, his first mention in the local papers came at the tender age of 15, when he was assaulted by a Mrs. Fresie Graham (I have no other details but you can bet I’m searching!); six months later, Willie and another boy were arrested themselves for assaulting a third boy.  He had numerous, largely minor, run-ins with the law while growing up in Jeffersonville – including being arrested for “riding a wheel on the sidewalk” at age 16.

In spite of his escapades, Willie was a hard worker and by 1907 he was working at the American Car and Foundry in Jeffersonville alongside his father. He learned the skills of a blacksmith, and after a few years went searching for work outside of his little hometown. By February 3, 1913, he was living in a boarding house at 41 N. St. Clair Street in Dayton, Ohio. I discovered this during a Newspaper.com search, which turned up an article from that date in the Dayton Daily News; it described a robbery that took place at the boarding house, and he was named as one of the victims.

I then found a small mention in the April 19, 1914 edition of the Louisville Courier-Journal:  Mr. and Mrs. William Coyle of Dayton, Ohio are the guests of Mr. and Mrs. William Coyle.  This was surprising! I thought my grandparents were married in 1920, and had no knowledge of them living in Dayton. I immediately started searching marriage records in Ohio – and that’s how I learned Grandpa was married on Mar 7, 1914 in Athens, Ohio to Eva Allen.

Then, while searching for more information about this surprise marriage, I fell down a genealogical rabbit hole. I stumbled on a newspaper mention in the Louisville Courier-Journal (I regularly search this Louisville paper because it commonly carries news from across the river in Jeffersonville, Indiana – and the Jeffersonville newspaper is not one I have access to) dated March 31, 1913. This headline reads “Back from Dayton” and details the return home of several young men from Jeffersonville who had been living and/or working in Dayton, Ohio when a storm struck. They had trouble travelling as floodwaters had shut many trains down. One of the young men listed other folks from Jeffersonville that he had knowledge of – including my grandfather, who was “uninjured, but outside of Dayton and could not communicate with relatives”.

I then noticed the other news items on this page:  communication between neighboring towns shut off by the flood, railways shut down, convict labor being used to fight the flood, a home burning because floodwaters prevented the fire department from reaching it. I grew up hearing stories from both parents about the terrible 1937 Flood along the Ohio but was not aware of one in 1913 – so I started searching. And I learned just what an ordeal my young grandfather lived through: one of Ohio’s worst natural disasters ever.

The historic storm began wreaking havoc across the Midwest section of the country with high winds and tornados on March 20-21. By the 22^nd, much of the Midwest was cut off from the rest of the country with no functioning telephone lines. In Dayton, hurricane force winds roared into the city on Good Friday, March 21, taking out telegraph and telephone lines.  By Easter Sunday, Dayton had received between 8 and 11 inches of rain onto soil already saturated from the melting ice and snow of late winter, and it was still raining.

Around 8:00 AM on Tuesday, March 24, the levees protecting the city from the Great Miami River and three of its tributaries were breached and waters rushed at about 25 mph into the city amongst church bells and factory whistles sounding the alarm. People frantically climbed trees and even telegraph poles, crossing to safety via the wires. Streetcars crowded with morning commuters overturned, horses drowned in the streets.

There are many first-hand accounts from survivors of this disaster, but several stood out to me because of their location.  I had my grandfather’s address from the first newspaper article which placed him in Dayton – 41 N. St. Clair Street. I did a Google search of that address and was able to compare that current map to maps of 1913. I also found a wonderful book, “Floodwaters and Flames – the 1913 Disaster in Dayton”, Ohio by Lois Miner Huey, which included a map marking several locations where some of the survivors’ stories had occurred.

My grandfather lived directly across St. Clair Street from the main branch of the Dayton Library, which sprawled between St. Clair and Patterson on East Third Street. One account from the library told of the wave of water that came crashing in from St. Clair Street on the west side, breaking windows and doors, knocking over heavy wooden shelves and forcing people to the second floor, where they remained with no heat, no food and no fresh water for four days until rescuers were able to reach them. Just outside their window but out of their reach, a young boy clung to a tree where the horse he had been riding became stuck; the boy removed the horse’s bridal and it freed itself. He then used the reins to tie himself to the tree where he remained until around noon the following day – more than 20 hours – when rescuers in a small boat were able to help him climb through the 2^nd floor window into the library, where he remained with the other survivors until rescued on Friday afternoon.

To the south of my grandfather’s house, across 3^rd Street, were The Finke Company and the Beckel Building. Workers at the Finke Company fled to The Beckel Building next door, as it was built 4 feet above street level and thus considered a safe spot by both humans and horses, all of which had climbed the steps into the building. But at some point on Wednesday, the explosions began. Gas lines were rupturing, and the high winds drove the fires unimpeded. People who had been sheltering in the upper floors of buildings were soon leaping from roof to roof to escape the flames The workers from the Finke Company saw the entire block behind them burning.  They laid planks from an upstairs window to the building next door and crawled across, abandoning the horses to their fate.  

This is the NW corner of Third and St. Clair - the same corner where my grandfather rented a room, although I believe his building may have been one of the ones in the back, still standing (barely).

This is the north side of Third Street, between Jefferson and St. Clair - 

another view of my grandfather's block.

Although my grandfather’s home was right in the middle of this chaos, I unfortunately have no way of knowing exactly what he experienced. I believe that he moved to Dayton to find work, and with no car he probably lived close to where he worked. At 8:00 in the morning on a workday, I assume he was either on his way to work or already there, and was likely either walking or taking a streetcar to get there. Either way, it seems likely that he would have been caught up in the water.

As for where he worked, again I can only guess. But in Jeffersonville he had worked for several years at the American Car and Foundry, which made railroad cars and was often referred to as the “car works”. In Dayton, there was a “car works” as well - the Barney Smith Car Company, which also made railroad cars and suffered so much damage during the flood that they declared bankruptcy and closed not long after; they were located not far from my grandfather’s rooming house. The 1913 Louisville Courier-Journal clip which quoted a Marvin Kendall from Jeffersonville, who said: “William Coyle and Charles Brooks were uninjured but were outside of Dayton and could not communicate with relatives”. A quick search found a Charles Brooks in 1910 census in Dayton, occupation “car works”, while Marvin Kendall appears in the 1916 Dayton City Directory living at 41 N. St. Clair – which, if correct, means my grandfather’s building survived against all odds, although that location is now a parking lot for the main public library. While this doesn’t prove that my grandfather worked at the Barney Smith company, it does show a definite link between three young men from Jeffersonville who likely knew each other and quite possibly worked together.

While thrashing around in this rabbit hole, I stumbled on yet another surprise: a search of the 1913 Dayton City Directory turned up my grandfather, but not at the expected address of 41 N. St. Clair. Instead, he is listed as “Coyle, Wm blacksmith, rooms 421 S. Ludlow (Eva).  Well, how interesting is THAT?  I had accidentally found a major link between my grandfather and his future bride – and they were living together!

 This directory was published late in the year, after the flood – there is a note on the City Government page naming the city officials who were elected in the November 1913 election, so the directory had to have been published after this date. Although I now know that my grandfather’s home on St. Clair St. did survive the flood, it’s almost certain that it was uninhabitable for a time. I don’t know how or when he met Eva, but an unmarried couple living together in 1913 was not as common as it is now, and I doubt it was a  decision that was taken lightly, particularly for a Catholic boy.  Perhaps housing was difficult to find in the immediate aftermath of the disaster, and this seemed a natural solution for them.

At any rate, a year later they were married and I have reason to believe the honeymoon ended almost immediately. While my grandfather’s reputation was not spotless by this time, Eva’s certainly wasn’t either. Her marriage to Willie was not her first – Eva’s birth name was Eva Wanda Davis; Allen was her married name from her previous husband, John Allen, who she married at age 16; 9 months later she gave birth to her son, Ralph G. Allen. I have found her husband in the 1910 census, a married soldier living at the barracks in Columbus, Ohio. I’m not sure where Eva was living, but her son was born in Nelsonville, about an hour from Columbus. Eva and John obviously divorced, although I have not found the records yet, and Ralph must have either lived with his father or with his grandparents, as he was apparently not with Eva in Dayton (I can’t imagine my grandfather dating or living with a woman who had a young child, but I could be wrong!).

By February of 1917, Eva had filed for divorce from my grandfather, as evidenced by notices placed in Ohio Newspapers; apparently Willie had left with no forwarding address, and Eva claimed extreme cruelty and adultery. I am still searching for these records. But Willie, never one to let any grass grow beneath his feet, was living in Indianapolis by June of 1917, at the home of his sister and brother-in-law. He gave their address on his draft registration card, and also listed that he was married and supporting a wife, although name or contact info is given.  He served briefly in the Army and was in France during World War I; after his return he is listed at the same address in the 1920 census, (enumerated January 2, 1920) working as an apprentice at the car works and still listed as married. 

But there is a problem with this. Just who was he married to? Eva married her third husband, Earl  Smith, in June of 1917, so the divorce from my grandfather was final before then.  And Grandpa didn’t marry my grandmother until October 1920. Sooooo, who is this mystery wife? Did Willie have yet another wife before my grandmother? Or was he lying, and, if so, why? 

I think I see another rabbit hole up ahead. But that's OK! "Rabbit hole" in genealogy may just be another way of saying "thorough research"; this one taught me a piece of history I was totally ignorant of, and led me to important new information about my grandfather's personal relationships. I also picked up a few new skills: using Google Maps to really visualize an ancestor's place in history (even if the buildings no longer exist - my grandfather's boarding house is now the parking lot for the Dayton Public Library, which I consider further proof that I have the location correct), and finding proof of publishing dates of city directories (often not specifically mentioned, but in this case the naming of city officials elected in November proved it was published long after the flood in March).

So don't let a rabbit hole scare you - it may help you tear down a brick wall.