52 Ancestors 2026: Week 4 "A Theory in Progress" and Week 5 "A Breakthrough Moment"

 Yeah, I never got around to writing week 4, even though I had an idea, because we spent the week trying to stay warm in the middle of a very long, Arctic, cold snap (winter storm Fern) that started with snow that turned to ice.  Our front yard is still under ice, as are our sidewalks because when they ploughed our street they dumped that ice on the sidewalks, thus rendering them impossible to shovel.  We've left our faucets dripping, even during the day, hoping to avoid burst pipes.  I just looked at our energy (gas and electric) bill for the last month and let's just say I am grateful that at least it has no commas.  But, onward!

For week 4, I was thinking of writing about my paternal grandmother, Olive (Howdeshell) Keeton Prewitt.  Olive was born in rural Missouri, maybe 30 miles from where my grandfather was living.  Her first husband was Charles Keeton, and from that marriage my 1/2 aunt Ione was born in 1904.  Ollie married my grandfather G. Claude Prewitt in 1910 in Calhoun Illinois, just across the Mississippi River from Elsberry, Missouri where my grandfather had been living.  In 1911, their daughter Virginia was born and sometime around then they moved to Washington state.  Since no documentary evidence had appeared and I was already operating under the assumption that divorce was rare and hard to get "in those days" I concocted a theory that Ollie had just never gotten around to legally divorcing Charles.  Ha!  On to week 5, the Breakthrough Moment.

Imagine my surprise when Newspapers.com alerted me to this tidbit from the Bowling Green Times of September 23, 1909:

The divorce was granted on October of 1909, according to another legal announcement.   I have to wonder about Charles Keeton:  I've always heard that it was hard for wives to get custody of their children when a divorce happened in that era but in the 1910 census Ione was living with her mother and stepfather in Missouri, and with her maternal grandparents in the 1920 census.  She must have lived with Claude and Ollie later as well because my father definitely had some very vivid memories of his sister. 

As to the rest of these people, if you're wondering:  Baby Virginia died at age 3, just two months before my dad was born.  Ione married several times but never had children, and died in 1986, aged 82.  The maternal grandparents, Hezekiah (d. 1929) and Sarah Virginia Howdeshell (d. 1938), ended up moving to Washington state too, along with most of their adult children.  Ollie died in 1942, and Claude in 1974.  I have no idea what happened to Charles but maybe I'll try to find out someday.