REPRISE: In honor of the 123rd anniversary of Gilbert Fleetwood Cottrell’s birth, 10 October 1892, The Legal Genealogist offers this reprise of this July 2014 posting. It’s too good a story to run only once…
Like grandfather, like grandson?
The apple, it is said, doesn’t fall far from the tree.
As a saying, it’s used to indicate that traits we see in the younger folks can often be traced back to the older folks of their family.
If little Johnny is a bit of a hellraiser, well, just look at his Dad when he was a boy. If Susie is a bit of a flirt, well, just remember what her mama was like as a girl.
So…
Gilbert Fleetwood Cottrell was born on the 10th of October 1892 in Iowa Park, Wichita County, Texas.1 He was the eighth known child of Martin Gilbert and Martha (Johnson) Cottrell — and The Legal Genealogist‘s great uncle, older brother to my grandfather Clay Rex Cottrell.2
His first appearance in the records is as a seven-year-old in the 1900 census there in Iowa Park, though I’m sure he would have been dismayed to know he’d been recorded as a little girl named Birdie rather than a little boy called Bertie.3 After his parents separated, he lived with his mother and siblings in Tillman County, Oklahoma.4
And in 1913, he joined the Army.5 He spent time in the Quartermaster Corps at Fort Yellowstone, Wyoming,6 before being ordered to the Philippines:
The following named enlisted men of the Quartermaster Corps will be sent to Fort McDowell, Cal., in time to report to the commanding officer and be sent on the transport scheduled to leave September 5, 1914, to Manila for assignment to duty in the Philippine Department in the capacity indicated: …
Private First Class Gilbert F. Cottrell, Fort Yellowstone, Wyo., as packer.7
He was still in the Army in 1920 when he was enumerated at Camp Zachary Taylor, Kentucky, as 27-year-old Gilbert F. “Cotterall”, a sergeant in the United States Army, born TX.8 The camp was a military training camp that opened in 1917 to train soldiers for U.S. involvement in World War I. It was closed three years later.
And he was still in the Army when he married a Kentucky girl, Myrtie Hart, in Clark County, Indiana, on the 15th of May 1920.9 That relationship quickly soured, Bert left the Army and went back to Texas, and in 1922, he took out a marriage license in Victoria County, Texas, to marry a German girl, Hertha Musch.10
He and Hertha spent their entire lives in the Houston area. You can find them there on the 1930 census11 and the 1940 census.12 Bert died there 44 years ago today, on 12 July 197013 and Hertha in 1990.14 They’re buried there, in the Earthman Resthaven Cemetery.15
There’s just one hitch.
There’s not a shred of evidence that Bert ever divorced Myrtie.
And, in fact, there’s a wonderful family story that Bert rid himself of this unwanted spouse by simply putting her on a train back to her family with instructions never to darken his doorstep again. And, the story goes on, many years later there was a flap with the Social Security Administration when two women tried to collect benefits as Bert’s widow…16
So what does this have to do with apples and trees?
Well, I’m putting together this talk for the Federation of Genealogical Societies Conference in San Antonio, coming up in August. The title is That Scoundrel George. It’s about Bert’s grandfather, my second great grandfather, George Washington Cottrell. The one who qualifies me for membership in the Daughters of the Republic of Texas.
See, all I need to do to join the Daughters of the Republic of Texas is prove that I descend from someone “male or female, regardless of age, who established residence in Texas prior to the nineteenth day of February, eighteen hundred forty-six (19 February 1846).”17
And I can sure prove George was a resident of the Republic of Texas.
I can prove he was indicted by the Republic of Texas.
For bigamy.18
I love my family.
SOURCES
- See Draft Registration Card, Gilbert Fleetwood Cottrell, no. U2688 (stamped), Local Board No. 10, Houston, Harris County, Texas; Selective Service Registration Cards, World War II: Fourth Registration (Texas); Records of the Selective Service System, Record Group Number 147; National Archives, St. Louis; St. Louis, Missouri; digital images, “World War II Draft Registration Cards, 1942,” Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 July 2014). ↩
- See 1900 U.S. census, Wichita County, Texas, Justice Precinct 6, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 127, p. 238(A) (stamped), dwelling 86, family 86, “Birdie” Cottrell; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 4 Feb 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T623, roll 1679. ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- 1910 U.S. census, Tillman County, Oklahoma, Frederick Ward 1, enumeration district (ED) 248, p. 41(A) (stamped), sheet 4(A), dwelling 71, family 74, Bert Cottrell; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 29 Sep 2012); citing National Archive microfilm publication T624, roll 1275. ↩
- Entry for Gilbert Cottrell, “Department of Veterans Affairs BIRLS Death File, 1850-2010,” database and index, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 July 2014). ↩
- See “Washington Army Orders,” Galveston (Texas) Daily News, page 4, col. 3 (“Privates Gilbert F. Cottrell and Charles M. Tellman, quartermaster corps, now in confinement at Fort Yellowstone, Wyo., are assigned to that post”). ↩
- U.S. War Department, Special Order 198, 22 August 1914, in Special Orders, 1914, vol. 2 (Washington, D.C. : War Department, 1914); digital images, Internet Archive (http://www.archive.org : accessed 11 July 2014). ↩
- 1920 U.S. census, Jefferson County, Kentucky, Camp Zachary Taylor, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 18, p. 268(B) (stamped), dwelling B79, family 159, Gilbert F “Cotterall”; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 Oct 2011); citing National Archive microfilm publication T625, roll 577. ↩
- Clark County, Indiana, Marriage License and Return, Marriage Book 50: 482, Gilbert F. Cottrell and Myrtie Hart, 15 May 1920; digital images, “Indiana, Marriages, 1811-1959,” FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org : accessed 11 July 2014). ↩
- “Licensed to Wed,” Victoria (Texas) Advocate, 9 June 1922, page 2, col. 3. ↩
- 1930 U.S. census, Harris County, Texas, Houston, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 142, p. 158(B) (stamped), sheet 18(B), dwelling 248, family 249, Gilbert F. and Hertha Cottrell; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 July 2014); citing National Archive microfilm publication T626, roll 2351. ↩
- 1940 U.S. census, Harris County, Texas, Houston, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 258-34, sheet 6B, household 138, Gilbert and Hertha Cottrell; digital image, Archives.gov (http://1940census.archives.gov : accessed 11 July 2014); citing National Archive microfilm publication T627, roll 4191. ↩
- Texas Department of Health, Death Certif. No. 49224, Gilbert F. Cottrell (1970); Bureau of Vital Statistics, Austin. ↩
- Social Security Death Index, entry for Hertha Cottrell, Houston, Texas, 1990; database and index, Mocavo.com (http://www.mocavo.com : accessed 11 July 2014). ↩
- Earthman Resthaven Cemetery, Harris County, Texas, Gilbert F. Cottrell marker; digital image, Find A Grave (http://findagrave.com : accessed 11 July 2014). See also ibid., Hertha Gertrude Elizabeth Musch memorial # 86911056. ↩
- Email, C.C. Barrett to J.G. Russell, 29 Sep 2002. ↩
- “Membership eligibility,” Daughters of the Republic of Texas (http://www.drtinfo.org/ : accessed 11 July 2014). ↩
- Colorado County, Texas, District Court Minute Book AB: 185 (1843); FHL microfilm 1927723. ↩
What a wonderful, if sad, story, Judy! Sometimes it amazes me how many people I know find bigamy in their family trees. I haven’t found it yet, but maybe I’m simply not looking hard enough. I do have the feeling that there was a time when divorce was such a scandal that it was simply easier to “put her on the train back to her family” when things turned sour than to go through the difficult legal process of getting a divorce. Then if somebody turned up that you really did want to marry, why, just go ahead. In a way, Bertie’s father had paved the way for this behavior, since you don’t say his parents divorced, just that they separated. Does that mean his father deserted the family, or do you know?
If Bert had been married to Myrtie for 10 years, and divorced her, both women could have collected on his Social Security. At least that’s how the law works now. My ex has been married to three women, including me, for that length of time by now–that I’m aware of. Maybe more; I’ve lost track of him. I’ve earned more on my own than I would get by collecting through him, but I’m entitled to do it that way. I don’t know if he’s aware that that’s how the law reads, but if he is, I suspect he wouldn’t be pleased!
At the time, only one wife could collect — and that ended up being Hertha. The other woman never remarried.
In a way, what Bert doesn’t so much count as bigamy in my mind than neglect of legal details. It was clear the marriage was over. To me, “real” bigamy is when a man or woman keeps two or more spouses at the same time, with neither knowing of the other. That involves deception. What I have a little trouble coming to terms with is being descended from several lines of people who practiced what was known as plural marriage. A bit beyong polygamy, because there were many instances in which an alpha male (so to speak) fancied the wife of another man, and married her. She often would end up returning to her original husband. And there is one case in my family’s ancestors where we don’t know which children belonged to which of five wivee. Fun. Why did they put up with it? It wasn’t in part of the deal when the first marriage took place.
And then there’s my 2nd great grandfather, John Marion Renfro, at least six wives, one known divorce. Why?
“Charged with Polygamy
John A. Renfro is sought for by the Hyde Park police on complaint of Jennie Marsden of Gladstone, Ill. who says he married her while he had several other wives living. So far as heard from four living women claim to be wives of Renfro, who is 50 years old. His latest wife was Mrs. Brown, with whom he lived for a short time next door to the Hyde Park Police Station. Renfro has disappeared. His case will be presented to the grand jury.” (Chicago Daily Tribune (Chicago, Illinois) 11 April 1893, p. 1)
https://digginupgraves.wordpress.com/2014/12/08/john-marion-renfro-union-soldier-and-polygamist-52-ancestors/
https://digginupgraves.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/the-much-married-renfro-52-ancestors-2015/
His great-grandson, my father, was a bigamist. As you say, “Apples and Trees.”
Thanks for the post, Judy.
Oh my… What fun tracking HIM down!
Your article caught my eye, as my mother’s maiden name was Cottrell. However, all of her family was from West Virginia. Does your Cottrell line trace back to West Virginia as well? There’s a joke in our family that if you meet a Cottrell, you’re going to be related to him. So far, that’s been the case!
Very interesting article, by the way. It’s humorous the stories we fine while research our trees!
Take care,
Jessica
The Virginia Cottrells, descended from Richard of New Kent and Henrico, are my line and they are not related to the West Virginia Cottrells out of what was Harrison and later was Kanawha and Lewis. But my brother-in-law is related by marriage to that WVA crowd!
I love that he was recorded as a girl in the 1900 census. My father-in-law, Harry, was recorded as a girl, Hattie, in the 1930 census. When I told him this, he imitated his Hungarian-born mother saying his name, which would have sounded like Hattie to a census-taker unfamiliar with her accent!
That’s a wonderful story, and oh yeah… you can just see how it happened!
In my family, it’s “The nut doesn’t fall far from the tree.”