SOMETIMES RECORDING MY ANCESTOR’S LIVES BREAKS MY HEART

 Chester, Helen, Walter & Adolph Ortell

This is one of those days.  I’m continuing my goal to get all of those 33 death certificates I downloaded from the seekingmichigan.org site in March, entered and sourced in my Legacy database.  When I wrote the blog post about this process I had only recorded 4 of them.  I am up to 21 as of this afternoon.  Progress is good.
 
However, in doing my entries today, I am reminded of the terrible heartbreak that occurred in many of the lives of our ancestors.  Today it concerns the Ortell family.
 
The Ortell’s are related to me via my 2nd & 3rd cousins, Paula, Shirley, Betty & Debbie.  I’m closest to my cousin, Paula, but am proud to call all these ladies family.
 
Shirley, Betty & Paula are daughters of Everett Hockster and Mary Sophie Ortell.  It is the story of Mary Ortell’s siblings and father that I share with you today.

Here is the story of the Ortell’s as I recorded it today.
 
6 May 1936 – Chester Ortell, age 23 dies of a broken neck in a tractor accident on the family farm.
17 Nov 1936 – Helen Ortell, age 22 dies of pulmonary tuberculosis.
7 Feb 1937 – Ladislaus “Walter” Ortell (father of Chester, Helen & Adolph), age 47 dies of a fractured skull in an auto accident.
22 May 1944 – Adolph Ortell, age 26 jumps to his death from the 7th story of a hotel.

Within 9 months, between May 1936 and Feb 1937, Walter Ortell’s wife Sophie lost two of her children and her husband.  Then 7 years later she loses another son.  In 1920 she had lost a son at the age of one month to convulsions.

I cannot help but be affected by these events.  Our ancestors are very real people with the same joys and sorrows that we have in our lives.  I never want to forget that.

Here is a family group photo of some of the Ortell children, including Chester, Helen & Adolph
 

Here are the death certificates for Chester, Helen, Walter and Adolph

Death certificate - Chester Ortell

Death certificate - Helen Ortell

Death certificate - Walter Ortell

Death certificate - Adolph Ortell

Newspaper article about the death of Walter Ortell and one that tells of the families sad losses.

There are memorials created for the Ortell family on findagrave.com.  You may visit them here:

Chester – Memorial #93489947
Helen – Memorial #93490009
Walter – Memorial #89393193
Adolph – Memorial #93489344

Do you have stories like this in your family that have made you stop and think of what they went through?  If so, I’d love to hear about them.  Please share in comments here or on your own blog with a comment and a link to your blog.

If you think you might be related, even remotely, to anyone mentioned in this blog, please contact me!

OTHER POSTS THAT MAY BE OF INTEREST
WEDDING WEDNESDAY - Walter Ortell & Sophie Warchol – 1908
THRILLER THURSDAY - Hobart B. Stewart Murdered – 1936

Happy hunting,

Michigan Girl

Copyright ©  2015   Diane Gould Hall

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.  NO USE WITHOUT PERMISSION

More cousins and a laptop crash

Yup, it's been a few days since I've written. For one thing I ended up with a stupid virus on my laptop. Had to have the entire hard drive wiped and re-formatted. Good thing that all my family files are on my desktop computer and backed up on external hard drives and flash drives. This is one thing I cannot stress to you enough. Backup, backup and backup some more. This is absolutely critical for all reserachers and has saved me more than once. I'm happy to say that after about five days I have most everything back on my laptop. Most importantly my family database.
On to happier things. I drove about 3 hours up the coast to visit my 2nd cousin. She's related to me on the Lindsay side. Seems like all of us Lindsay descendants are coming out of the woodwork lately. It was a real nice visit. We talked a lot and looked at family pictures and exchanged information. We even called her sister in Detroit and talked to her for a while. Since my 2nd cousin's sister is about 14 years older than her, she has more memories of Grandparents and family lore. Certainly there are mysteries and curiosities to uncover in this Lindsay clan. Children born "out of wedlock" back at the beginning of the last century and marriages up in Canada with some questionable information on the certificates. Children given up for adoption. Who were the fathers of these children? We are certainly trying to unravel all these interesting stories.
Of course you know that if we'd been smart enough to talk to our Grandmothers and Grandfathers back when they were still with us, we would have some of these answers. So this would be another thing I cannot stress enough. If you have family members on any side of your family that may be getting on in years, please take the time to interview them now. Don't wait. Either record you conversation or take really good notes. Boy, what I wouldn't give for 10 minutes with any of my grandparents or even my Dad.
That's all for today,
Michigan Girl