The Mystery of Lena Stanley Myers – Solved

We think. Over six years ago one of my hubby’s high school friends asked for help in finding out who her grandfather was. Her father was adopted, and he let the family know that he never wanted to know who is birth parents were. Years after his death, his children did want to know.

Our friend’s brother had a couple of documents that got us started, but it took a number of months (years) and much searching to figure out that the mother – Lena Stanley of Trumansburg, New York, but we could never be sure who the father was. We found out that Lena married Cornell prep school student Joseph Myers of Des Moines, IA, and that they had took a steamer to Texas for their honeymoon. These events were reported in the newspapers.

When Joseph’s father found out he had married, Joseph was pulled out of Cornell in Ithaca, NY and sent to Harvard. A year and a half later Lena had a child – our friend’s father.

The adoption situation of this child created questions. But the bigger question was – Who was the father of the baby born in 1906? We developed a number of scenarios.

The baby was born in February 1906; Lena and Joseph’s annulment proceedings were in the fall of that year. The annulment documents state nothing about a child. Instead, Joseph agreed that the marriage had never been consummated (remember the newspaper articles about their honeymoon cruise), and the reason was he was being treated for venereal disease at the time of their marriage. The annulment took place in a county away from where the couple would have been known. So many twists and turns to this story.

The mystery continued all these years, until recently when our friend’s brother had his DNA tested through Ancestry.com and someone contacted him with a close match. Our friend received an email recently with a photo attached – Here is your grandfather!

The man identified as the father is Gonzalo Martinez-Fortun, a Cuban, possibly in the area attending Cornell University. The census shows him living in Trumansburg, New York a couple of blocks from Lena’s residence. Gonzalo returned to Cuba 1 July 1905, eight months before the baby was born. His family suspects he never knew Lena was pregnant.

Our friend sent a photo of her father, and a photo of Gonzalo, and we can see the similarities.

And so another mystery solved. It took years of research and the miracle of DNA to finally five our friend the closure she desired.When Gonzalo's eldest grandchild was told of the story, she now wants to come to New York and meet everybody. What fun that would be.

For more on this story, scroll down and click on the links to Lena Stanley of blogs written In February and April 2011.

The long-term consequences of the abuse of power

For those who have been reading this blog for a long time . . . you might remember that a few years ago hubby and I were helping one of our friends find the identity of her father’s birth parents.

In a nutshell: Through many years of research we identified the birth mother’s maiden name as Lena Stanley of Trumansburg, NY. Against her parent’s wishes, and without the knowledge of Joseph’s family, Lena and Joseph Myers were married across Cayuga Lake in Ludlowville, New York (abt 1906). According to local newspaper articles the loving couple honeymooned on a cruise to Texas. And that is where Joseph’s parents caught up with them and sent them home. Joseph was taken out of Cornell University and sent to Harvard. Lena went back home to live with her parents. It was a year and a half later that a son was born. And herein lies the difficulty. Who was the baby’s birth father? Was it Joseph (who could have traveled back through Ithaca from Boston on his way west to his home), was it the adopted father, or someone else?

Every adopted child has two birth certificates. Our friend had her father’s, but it listed his adopted parents as his “parents.” Sealed in the New York State archives is the original birth certificate for our friend’s father. It has the same number as his “adopted” certificate, but the original is sealed forever and would only be released if our friend hires an attorney and makes a good case as to why the adoption file should be unsealed.

WHY?

We just learned the reason for why New York State adoption records are sealed forever. Former Governor Herbert Henry Lehman. He was governor for the years 1933-1942, and in 1935 he signed a law sealing birth certificates for New York adoptees. That was because he and his wife Edith had adopted a child through the Tennessee Children’s Home Society run by Georgia Tann.

Georgia Tann was a child trafficker. She stole babies, using a number of tactics, sometimes telling birth mothers that their child had died. She then sold the babies to wealthy people, the Lehman’s being one. Lehman signed a bill sealing adoption records into law to protect his family from finding out from where they came. Unfortunately, that decision has caused harm to the many people trying to find their birth parents.

If you wish to read more of this fascinating story, you can find a book on Amazon – The Baby Thief: The Untold Story of Georgia Tann, the Baby Seller who Corrupted Adoption.

Back to the couple Lena and Joseph Myers. They divorced in another county (where they weren’t known) and both claimed (yea, right!) the marriage was never consummated (will save you the gory details of the divorce decree), and the marriage was annulled.

We don’t know if Lena listed the child’s father on the original birth certificate, and thanks to Governor Lehman, we may never know. Hopefully New York State residents will learn about why this law exists and request that it be repealed.

52 Weeks of Abundant Genealogy - Favorite Free Online Tool

I feel somewhat like a broken record responding to this prompt. Because my favorite and most helpful free online tool has been and continues to be the Fulton History website.

Although other sites are frequently used, like Linkpendium, for those of us tracing Upstate New York ancestors, Fulton History remains the go-to site.

At this point over 18,269,000 newspaper pages are name searchable; that number changes frequently as new pages are scanned and put online.  There are now many newspaper pages from New York City, and into Connecticut.

The Fulton History site is a wonderful research tool for filling in the dash of your ancestors’ lives.  You learn about the friends and family they visited, to what church or civic committees the belonged, if they were active politically or ran for public office, and their obits provide a wealth of information. 

I learned of the unbelievable tragic events of 1904 that affected the Washington Hardenbrook family, and that my great-grandparents Enos and Laura Wortman Hardenbrook worked in a small Willow Creek Evaporator plant before they were married.

From Fulton History I learned that one of my relatives, Bertha H. La Clair, worked at the Craig Colony for epileptics in Sonyea, New York.  The Craig Colony was set up about 1896 to house 200 epileptics (many from Madison County) that were deemed to be self-supporting – to serve the indigent and not the insane. However, the colony, only reaching 50% self-sufficiency, received funding from Madison County as well as the state of New York.

And thanks to the Fulton History website, we continue to find very interesting articles on the elusive Lena Stanley Myers Blaskett and her ill-fated marriage to Joseph Myers, pretty much disputing the fact that although they both testified in their divorce hearing the marriage was never consummated….the newspaper articles found on Fulton History lead you to believe otherwise.  Determining the father of Lena’s son remains our great mystery to solve.

Thank you, Mr. Tryniski for providing genealogists with such a great resource!

The Saga of Joseph Myers and Lena Stanley continues...

Mrs. Joseph Myers now Miss Stanley

Ithaca Journal, September 10, 1906

Trumansburg Free Press and Sentinel, September 15, 1906

A Trumansburg lady, who for a time was Mrs. Joseph Myers, of Trumansburg, has resumed her maiden name and is again Miss Lena Stanley. The annulment of her marriage to Joseph Myers took place in Supreme Court in Owego last week before Justice Sewell. The marriage of Miss Stanley to Joseph Myers, occurred in Ludlowville, November 19, 1904. Miss Stanley is the daughter of a Trumansburg barber and studied music at the Conservatory in this city. She is a tall blond and of striking appearance. Joseph Myers was a student in the University Preparatory School. He became infatuated with Miss Stanley and one evening they went to Ludlowville where they were married by the Rev. Mr. Humphreys.  They returned immediately and left for Texas by steamer from New York.  Mayer’s (sic) father, who is a wealthy manufacturer residing in Denver, Colorado, read of his son’s marriage through the Associated Press dispatches and hastened to Ithaca. Mr. and Mrs. Myers returned to Ithaca after only a week’s absence and the happy bridegroom was taken to Cambridge, Mass by his father to enter Harvard. Mrs. Myers sometime ago began an action for annulment of the marriage, claiming fraud. She was represented in court by A.P. Osborn of Trumansburg. Young Myers was in court and made no defense. He was represented by Attorney William N. Noble of this city.  No alimony was mentioned when the annulment was granted by the court. Miss Stanley still resides in Trumansburg.

So…

How powerful was Joseph’s father?

Was it he who needed to see public announcement of the annulment?

Again, no mention of the child born in February 1906.

Perjury most probably was committed by this couple in the annulment documents.

The Myers-Stanley saga continues.