Granddad - Mystery Man!

GRANDDAD—MYSTERY MAN

Chapter One
The Search Begins

Sylvia and I became interested in genealogy when my cousin researched my mother’s family, and my sisters decided that it would be a good idea for me to do the same for the Jahn family. I was willing, but soon ran into trouble, as my grandparents had immigrated from Germany, and it was hard to trace them from this side of the Atlantic. Sylvia’s mother posed the same problem, because she had come from Norway as a young lady. That left Sylvia’s father, and since by now the genealogy bug had bitten us, we decided to go to work on his ancestry.

We didn’t know much about “Granddad,” because he seldom spoke of his family. In fact, Sylvia said he once answered one of her mother’s questions with, “I don’t ask about your family—you don’t have to ask about mine.”

Furthermore, he deserted his family when Sylvia was 12, and we didn’t become reacquainted with him until much later.

There were some things, though, that we knew—or thought we knew. We don’t know whether he told us all these things, or just allowed us to jump to conclusions and never corrected us.

•  His name was Charles Everett Wendel, and he was born in San Francisco April 2, 1884.

•  His parents died in the San Francisco earthquake in 1905.

•  Sometimes he lived with his “old Granddad in Kansas,” who was the only relative I ever heard him mention.

•  He falsified his age in order to enlist in the Spanish‐American War. His war service was in the Philippines.

•  On October 28, 1912, he married Sylvia’s mother, Marie Isdahl, in Billings, Montana.

•  His step‐brother, Langdon Smith, is credited with writing the poem, “Evolution,” but Grandad claimed that he wrote most of it himself.

•  On May 3, 1965, he died in the Veterans’ Hospital in Portland, Oregon, and he was buried in the Willamette National Cemetery.

With all these data at hand, we set to work. Sylvia’s sisters came up with some additional information right away. First, a copy of his death certificate, which identified his parents as John Wendel and Carrie Carson. Also a sheet which had been compiled by a neighbor lady who had come in periodically to help with the housekeeping and cooking before Granddad’s final trip to the hospital. We were never able to determine just who this lady was, or why she recorded the following information:

CHARLES WENDEL, SR.
Born: San Francisco, California, April 2, 1884
Reared: San Francisco, California
Attended: Stanford University for a short time
Spanish‐American War veteran

•  Joined: Crescent, Iowa, November 20, 1901
   Discharged: Fort Logan (Denver), 1904
   Stationed: Philippines

Grandfather: From Fredonia, Kansas
Married: Dolly Paget at Ft. Logan (Denver), in 1905.

•  From Cheyenne, Wyoming
   Deceased 1910.

Employed: Billings, Montana, 1912, freelance writer
Building business started, Billings, Montana
Married: Marie Isdahl at Billings, Montana, October 28, 1912

•  Five children
   Deceased July 1951

Married: Bessie Amens Trask, 1952

•  Deceased 1956, Newberg, Oregon.

Married: Myrtle Welch, from Eugene Oregon, May 1957
Elected commander of Spanish‐American War Veterans, McMinnville, Oregon
Step‐brother: Langdon Smith, writer.

Most of this we already knew, of course. Learning the additional facts of his Army service was helpful. Even more so was pinpointing Fredonia as the home of his “old Granddad in Kansas.” But the real bombshell, the event which was eventually to become the key to the mystery of Granddad’s identity, was his marriage to Dolly Paget. This really excited Sylvia. She had never heard of this union before, and she was sure her mother had not, either. And if Dolly had borne any children, they would have been Sylvia’s half brothers or sisters!

Chapter 2