Nelson’s Variety Store: The last days of a Racine Institution

Nelson’s Variety Store was a classic “five & dime” store that first opened in West Racine in 1940. They were a fixture that anchored that neighborhood shopping district for decades. A second Nelson’s opened in the late 1970’s on the far North side of Racine. Their doors closed for good on 1 Apr 2017 and left a void in Racine that won’t be filled by Amazon.

Nelson’s was not my place growing up. I was a Northsider, and while I had close family just a few blocks away I don’t recall going in more than once. In high school I had a girlfriend who loved the place and went with her, and I remember going to the far Northside location once about the same time for some school party. But, I knew Racine would be losing another part of our history and so the closing resonated with me.

Facebook Strikes Again

Local Racine historian Todd Wallace put out a call out on a Facebook group that specializes in Racine history, asking for someone with a high-quality film camera to capture Nelson’s before it was gone. I had been a photojournalist in the early 1990’s, and had just picked up a camera again so I took him up on it. The Nikon F4’s that I craved back then (when they would cost me half a year’s salary!) were now going for $300 on eBay. I had bought one recently, and a nice low-light lens, and thought it would be fun to document these unique institutions.

Wandering the aisles over the 3 days I shot my 5 rolls of color film, I came to fully understand what I missed out on in my childhood. The toy aisle was fantastic. Little bins of everything you could ever imagine, and you could still walk out with a few things for a dollar. I would have lost my mind in the marble bin in 4th grade…when kids still played marbles on the playground! And I can’t imagine what I would have done with all of the little dinosaurs. It was just row, and row of little…stuff. Not junk. Stuff. Things I didn’t know I needed, but now I knew I wanted them. How did I ever throw Packer parties and not stock up at Nelson’s?

Camera Troubles

Exterior photograph of a building with a sign reading Nelson's in front. — *The only salvageable exterior photo of the original Nelson’s*

I took a total of 5 rolls, 2 interiors at each store, and 1 exterior between them. The bad news is that I didn’t run enough film through my camera. One of the mirrors in the eyepiece came loose, and completely threw off the light meter readings. I remember when it happened, I was in the Westside store finishing my 1st role of interiors. I wouldn’t know until their were processed months later, that most of Westside interior shots, and all of my exteriors of the original store. were unusable. The less historic Northside location was fully documented. I’m still upset by that. Much of what I lost was the very cool fixtures that made up the edges of the display area. And, the exteriors. It was a perfect, moody, foggy dusk and I took several time exposures which just would have been amazing. They all turned out blank.

Here is a link to the entire collection of photos (27 from the Westside location, 61 from the Northside) http://archive.anamericangenealogy.com/Collection%20Images/Forms/Nelsons.aspx.

I hope they capture the feeling of what it was like to walk into these amazing establishments. Most focus on the little quirky details that I’ve never seen anywhere but Nelson’s. And now, we’ll never see them again.

Some of the photos taken during the Nelson’s last days (Complete collection here: Collection Images – Nelsons (anamericangenealogy.com)

Solving Our Family Tree Mystery Opens Old Wounds

Putting it all Together – Part 4

(Part 4 of a series on building out Michael’s maternal family tree, read: Our biggest brick wall breakthrough so far started with a forgotten tweet, a LOT of work, and migraine on Super Bowl Sunday: Putting it All Together Part 1, The brick wall starts to crumble: Putting it all together – Part 2, and One stunning turn after another as our brick wall falls: Putting it all together – Part 3)

Patrica’s loss hit the entire family hard. Her death was unexpected, even after years of various health issues. She was only 61 years old and full of life…it just didn’t seem like it was her time. We were jolted because we’d literally just reached out to her to learn how she knew (guessed?) the secret that her Father had a child with her Aunt. A secret that took us 4 DNA tests and years of research to piece together. It didn’t seem real that we couldn’t just pick up the phone and ask her family history questions anymore. It really hit us when it sunk in she wouldn’t ever be laughing with us as she doted on our children.

Her brothers, who a day before sat in our Dining Room receiving our big news, were now in charge of their sister’s funeral. They asked if we’d do the obituary and was a natural ask. We’d probably read more obituaries than anyone else they knew, but it was a sobering task for someone we loved so much.

A Second Family

*Funeral Program, Patricia White (1958-2109)*

In addition to learning that Felice’s Mother “Susan” was Pat’s half-Sister, we also had recently figured out their Father Luther had a 2^nd family. Two of his daughters from that 2nd marriage tested with AncestryDNA, and we had confirmed their linage through vital records. They had just lost a half-Sibling, and the brothers agreed we should confirm their information for the obituary. We reached out to both of the DNA testers, leaving messages about losing their half-Sister.

One of the siblings responded, and we found out that we had unknowingly opened up old wounds. Luther’s 2^nd family was close to him, closer than the children of his 1st marriage. While his 2nd family was news to most of us, Luther’s children from his marriage to Ann knew of them. They were apparently dismissive and cold as Luther was dying.

The dynamics became apparent when we learned we’d never get a response from the other DNA tester. The wounds and anger ran too deep. Even the tester we were working with was struggling hard participating with us. She understood we played no role in the drama, and she had enjoyed their time with Pat. But there was too much damage done to want to revisit this side of the family. She did eventually provide information on her siblings which allowed us to include them in the obituary. However, even though they lived in town, two of the children from the 2nd marriage did not attend her funeral.

After the Funeral

After the funeral, our contact with the 2nd family asked about Susan’s DNA results. She too couldn’t figure out how Susan could be so close a match. We explained that her Father had a child with the Sister of his first wife, and that only added to the pain we’d opened. In the end it was all too much. While very supportive and respectful, it was clear she needed some time before reaching out again. I doubt we’ll ever initiate another conversation with the 2nd family.

Ann’s surviving children now know that Susan is their half-Sister, as well as their 1^st cousin. They have decided that Ann doesn’t need to know the truth, and we won’t be bringing it up. For this reason, we didn’t include Susan as a sibling in Pat’s obituary.

One Last Puzzle to Solve

When we started that Super Bowl Sunday we had two theories: 1) Susan was the Daughter of Luther; and 2) Luther’s Grandmother Sarah Moore’s maiden name was Jones and she was the daughter of Roman and Mary Jones. Several months later, the final piece of that puzzle fell into place.

The proof on the second theory came when we were browsing around FamilySearch in December that year. There was a hint showing the Marriage Register of Joseph and Sarah Moore, married in 1894 in Carroll County, Mississippi. Carroll County is where Roman and Mary had raised there children and would reside in until their deaths. The marriage record showed that Sarah’s maiden name was Jones, and she was born in 1873. That’s the matches the records for Roman and Mary’s daughter.

Michael Leonard's maternal family tree — *Susan Moore is the missing link to 17 DNA matches*

Combined with our other research, we’re confident this being the same Sarah meets the Genealogical Proof Standard. Additionally, the cM’s in other the DNA tests fit and support this link. We’re now able to link our family tree with the 17 DNA matches we’d grouped together in the “Casting a Wide Net” series.

Putting it All Together

In the end we realized we had much of the data needed to break down these brick walls all along. Going back to June 2018 we had a good idea that Susan and Charles were closer than 1^st Cousins. If we’d opened our minds a bit, we likely should have figured out they shared Fathers. We had Sarah Jones’ daughter in our family tree, and a little digging could have likely linked her pretty quickly. Also, it was pretty clear there was no link on Susan’s maternal line to those 17 DNA matches.

Even with that, it took a stroke of inspiration on a random Super Bowl Sunday to put it all together. We learned our lesson on this. Again. We often have all we need to solve these mysteries, we just need to better examine the data. We also opened more family wounds than we would have liked, including ones with families we didn’t even know existed. Additionally, there doesn’t feel like we have any closure by resolving Felice’s Mother’s biggest family history mystery. Susan doesn’t discuss her father and the family dynamic hasn’t changed. While they all know they are 1/2 siblings, they still rarely interact…just like Cousins.

Was it worth it?

Michael’s family tree is now more complete and the stories of Roman and Mary Jones help round out his family history. Genealogically, it was a clear success and two brick walls have been toppled. Still, it’s hard to see this as a victory. These “mysteries” often weren’t that when the people involved were alive. It’s likely become lost to future generations because those who lived them didn’t want them to be known. They often aren’t just quirks of poor record keeping. Brick walls aren’t always meant to fall.

We’ve said it before in this blog: Building a family tree using DNA testing is serious (Family History is a hobby…but DNA is serious business). Even when the tools work better than hoped, the results can be complicated and painful. We will always tell the truth we find in our journey, but we have learned to consider whether we want an answer to the questions we ask.

One stunning turn after another as our brick wall falls: Putting it all together – Part 3

(Part 3 of a series on building out Michael’s maternal family tree, read Putting it all together Part 1 – Our biggest brick wall breakthrough so far started with a forgotten tweet, a LOT of work, and migraine on Super Bowl Sunday and Putting it all together – Part 2: The brick wall starts to crumble)

In the months after that Super Bowl Sunday Felice and I talked a lot about sharing what we suspected. We talked to her Mother “Susan” to gauge if she wanted to know if we found troubling results. She was hard to read. Susan seemed pretty indifferent, but it also seemed like she was increasingly uncomfortable with discussing the topic.

The cousin with the very high centimorgan match with Susan also had a deep interest in Felice’s family history. “Charles” is the son of “Ann”, but he’d focused more on his Mother’s side when he was doing family research. At the time, he was the only DNA test we had to reference for his Father Luther’s decedents. We started working with Charles getting his test into GEDmatch and leverage their tools to confirm our “3/4 Sibling” theory.

We also started building out Luther’s family tree, and ordered the Birth/Marriage/Death records of himself, his siblings, parents, and children. After Luther and Ann split in Mississippi, she moved to Milwaukee and he moved to Hartford, CT. Luther started a second family with a woman and they had 6 children together.

Family tree reflecting our new theory that "Susan's" father was Luther White. — Our new *theoretical* *family tree*

The work to move Charles’ test into GEDmatch had fallen off (as we began to question if we would continue using GEDmatch for our African American family). In the meantime we were surprised by two new DNA test matches for Susan. Two of Luther’s children from his second marriage tested with Ancestry, and they matched both Susan and Charles as half-siblings. That sealed it. We didn’t need to do a deeper dive into their chromosomes. There was no doubt that Luther was the father to the 2 new siblings, as well as Charles and Susan.

It was time to talk to Susan, especially because we needed to understand from her how we could proceed and if we could share this information with anyone but her. Felice and I talked to her early in the summer of 2019, and she didn’t show much reaction. She was pretty calm about it, and we weren’t quite sure if they believed it or not. In the end, proving how she matched the children from Luther’s second marriage settled it. Susan was ok with us sharing this with whomever we wanted, and we decided that we’d talk with Charles next. As a fellow family historian, he was most interested, and he’d know how to approach his mother Ann about this.

We had a few more conversations with Susan, giving her time to change her mind. But she was fine, and about 6 weeks later we setup a time to have Charles to talk.

He brought his brother “George” with the next Friday and we laid out everything we knew. They were speechless. We talked it through a few times, and they understood that we’d found the truth: Susan was not just their cousin but their sister as well, and that their Father had been with their Aunt at least once.

Michael with Patricia in 2014 — *Patricia, with Michael, Shakiera and Felice in 2014*

At the end of it all, George calmly said “You know, all these years and Patricia was right. She said dad was Susan’s dad and I just brushed it off. But somehow, she knew…she was right!”. This just rocked our world.

Patricia was their baby sister, and we are close to her. She was our first family history interview subject and had been a valuable source. Pat loved to share stories about the family and bound everyone together for us. Pat was one of our first family history interviews and we had asked her who might be Susan’s Father. She was the first person to share “Big James” as the most likely candidate, but now it appeared this deep family secret wasn’t secret to her. Pat just hadn’t shared it with us.

As soon as the brothers left, we called Pat and left a message asking her to call us back. Our voicemail explained that we had some information we’d come across and we wanted get together the next day. It had been too long since we’d talked to Pat, and we loved seeing her so we were excited. Plus, it sounded like she was going to help fill in some of the gaps on this major family twist.

Unfortunately, we’d never get to discuss these findings with her. We received a call from Charles the next morning that she had passed away unexpectedly overnight. Not only were we grieving the loss of one of our favorite family members, but one of the keys to unlocking this mystery was now gone…just a few hours after we found out she held that key. We were stunned.

This turn of events would only bring more family pain to the surface, even as the last pieces of this mysterious family tree fell into place.

Check out the next in the series: Solving Our Family Tree Mystery Opens Old Wounds

An American Genealogy

Share the journey to document one family's history, as well as tips, tricks, and lessons learned along the way!

Month: April 2021