Cecil Hartwell Chambliss of Mexico, Missouri

[Uncle Buddy]

Or is it Cecil Houx Chambliss?

When an old man in his mid-80s responded to a genealogical query from a relative, he wrote his long-dead grandson's middle name as "Houx". Or else his handwriting was hard to read, or...? That shouldn't have been a problem but it is because the relative who wrote the query then wrote a book, and from now till the end of genealogical time, Cecil Hartwell Chambliss will be known as Cecil Houx Chambliss or Cecil Hartwell Chambliss since genealogists are in a hurry to fill out a big tree and don't stop to check facts. The fact is, he went by the nickname "Jack".

It's also being stated that "maybe" Cecil's father Charles H. Chambliss died in the Spanish American War. Then other genealogists just delete the inconvenient "maybe" and the poor man is dead before his time. He actually died in 1948, after four marriages, two of them to Cecil's mother.

Proving that Cecil's middle name is Hartwell is too easy to detail here. Some folks are getting it right since it's kinda obvious. For example, his World War I draft registration clearly states all the pertinent facts needed to identify him correctly including his middle name. So we won't belabor the obvious.

But it would be interesting to prove that his father didn't die in the Spanish American War, because it took at least an hour of research to prove that the two Charles H. Chamblisses from the same time and place are really the same person. Before I start on the proof I'll try to spice up the story a little bit with a few interesting facts.

Cecil's father wanted to be a newspaperman. His father was a schoolteacher and a Baptist minister of the fire-and-brimstone variety. His brother also took up the preaching trade. Cecil was the youngest son of a large family. I'd guess he must have been under a lot of pressure, trying to start his own newspaper as a very young man. Cecil's mother, Fannie Rixey, daughter of a prominent local businessman, divorced him once for cruelty and non-support, accusing him of beating her and the child. A year or two later they remarried. The second divorce apparently didn't make the papers, or more likely they'd left town by then and the Mexico, Missouri newspaper wasn't notified. So researchers have decided that "maybe" Charles died in the war, and then the "maybe" became bothersome and was dropped.

Maybe the "maybe" comes about since Fannie and Cecil are found living with her parents in 1900 and her marital status is something illegible scrawled over by something else illegible. In proper genealogy practice, this means her marital status can't be determined from that source, but in actuality a scribble has been read as a "W" for "widowed". In reality, what probably happened is that whoever was answering the census taker's questions found the question of her marital status hard to answer directly and probably found the question embarrassing since Fannie had quit the same marriage twice. Not Fannie's fault, no doubt, but still an embarrassment to a prominent business family. If the scrawl really is a "W", that doesn't prove anything because single and divorced mothers back then would sometimes call themselves "Mrs." and "widow" their whole life to avoid stigma. In genealogy, if there's any reason to doubt a source, such as illegibility, a fact is not a fact till there are two or more sources that say more or less the same thing.

Cecil was a smart kid with a lot of drive and imagination. He won a beautiful baby contest. His letter to Santa Claus (probably written by his mother) was published in the Mexico paper. He published a classified ad looking for work. As a teenager he invented a compressed air powered airplane that made its own electricity and could travel hundreds of miles on its own, taking energy from the air itself. (Some kind of solar heat absorber.) He moved to Colorado where he had four claims on gold mining sites. He wrote home to announce he was planning to marry a girl who'd won a race in Cheyenne, Wyoming. We don't know if this marriage ever took place, but like several of his life dreams, it was announced in the newspaper back home in Mexico, Missouri. He also lived in Florida briefly.

Cecil tried to volunteer for World War I but was turned down due to physical disabilities of some kind. So when they tried to draft him, he claimed exemption on those grounds but they drafted him anyway. Unfortunately he contracted pneumonia while in boot camp and died in a hospital where no one even knew where he was from. A few weeks later, his mother told the papers she'd given his compressed air powered airplane to the government, and this article was published in papers all over the country. By this time, Fannie had married an Irish fella in St. Louis. She never had another child, and lived to the age of 97.

In the next post, I'll prove that Fannie's first two husbands, Charles H. Chambliss, did not die in the Spanish American War.

[Uncle Buddy]

Charles H. Chambliss, Cecil's father, was probably Charles Hardy Chambliss since two genealogy books about Fannie Rixey's ancestors say so. But these books are notoriously inaccurate. One of them gives Cecil's middle name as "Houx" for example. But the source for the statements made in that book was Fannie's father, so the statement that Cecil died during boot camp can be taken seriously since official documents pretty much back it up. Where "Houx" came from, we can only guess. It's the name of a town in France. Possibly old Mr. Rixey was correct about the birth name, and Cecil might have changed his name when he got tired of saying, "My middle name is 'Hoo'."

There is at least one instance of a "Hardee Chambliss" living in St. Louis, Missouri where our Charles H. is known to have ended up from time to time. This is someone else, close to the same age, but from Selma, Alabama.

And let's get this straight: Charles H. Chambliss went by the nickname "Bob" and his son Cecil was called "Jack". We learn this from Jack (Cecil) himself, when he writes to a St Louis newspaper in 1911 offering a $25 reward for information about the whereabouts of his father, who he hasn't seen for 15 years. That puts the disappearance of Bob from the life of Fannie and Jack at around 1896, shortly after the second wedding. Fannie and Bob's second wedding had been a quiet affair but newspapers all over the place thought it was interesting enough to mention. The publicity must have been embarrassing for Fannie, who it appears managed to obtain her second divorce more quietly than the first. Which partially explains the myth that Bob died in the Spanish American War.

Bob went where the work was, and had a variety of jobs, starting out as a printer and newspaperman, and trying to start his own newspaper. The Mexico, Missouri newspaper called him a "prominent" newspaperman but let's just guess that he (as a fellow newspaperman) or his father-in-law (as a local merchant and banker) had some influence down at that paper to get them to say "prominent". Influence in the form of a box of cigars? Well I shouldn't speculate (make things up), or someone will quote me and then it will become a well-worn genealogical factoid.

As a young man, Bob was a printer and newspaperman like the famous writer Mark Twain who was from the same neck of the woods, northeast Missouri. In fact they were from the same county, but Mark Twain was over 30 years old when Bob was born and hadn't lived in the county of his birth, as far as I know, since he was a small child.

Bob is found in the 1880 census living in Paris, Monroe County, Missouri at the age of approximately 9. Later documents give his birth date as July 1, 1869 or 1870, so when the census said he was 9, he was actually a few days short of turning 11. In those days, if you had a lot of kids and actually knew how old they all were, it would make you some sort of scholar or genius. Rich people and well-educated people were much more likely to know the exact age of everyone in their family, but ages listed on censuses are notoriously inaccurate. Actually, the younger the child, the more likely the age given in the census is close to correct, and the older the adult, the more likely that their age could be off by ten years or more. Even Jack (Cecil--the hero of this story) might have forgotten exactly what year he was born, since the year he gave on his draft registration was before his parents were married. More likely he gave his age to the resistrar, not his birth year; the registrar did a quick subtraction and wrote down 1890, but Jack was probably born in 1891, almost a year after his parents were married.

The same sort of confusion explains why so many people, including Jack's father, were said to be born exactly one year off from the year they were actually born.

Bob' siblings were born in four different states. Bob was the only one born in Kentucky. His first marriage to Fannie Rixey was on March 3, 1891. Sometime around 1893, a C. H. Chambliss is found working in a shoe store in St. Louis. We know that Bob & family lived in St. Louis in June of that year since the Mexico, Missouri paper reported that Jack had won a contest there for being the largest and healthiest baby. Around this time, Bob was a "traveling man" (salesman). St. Louis is in the southeast corner of northeast Missouri. Mexico and most of the places where Bob lived were in northeast Missouri.

Also around this time, Bob was a city editor at the Sedalia, Missouri Bazoo. Sedalia is as far from Mexico as St. Louis. Before long, Bob moved back to Mexico, Missouri where he started up a printing business. By March of 1894, Bob had moved his printing business about 15 miles away to Santa Fe, Missouri. Santa Fe is also less than 20 miles from Paris, Missouri where he lived as a child. In April, the Mexico, Missouri paper quotes the Paris, Missouri paper in saying that Bob is trying to start his own newspaper, "The Herald", in Santa Fe. This article states that Bob is from Paris and is the youngest son of the minister "Rev. W. E. Chambliss, dec." who we found teaching school in Paris in 1880. (In 1883 the Kirksville, Missouri newspaper had reported that Will Chambliss was giving up his teaching post to do something else.) When Bob and Fannie got married the first time, Bob was said to be from Kirksville.

When Bob moved his printing business to Santa Fe, Fannie Chambliss filed for divorce. So we can speculate that Bob was mis-placing his priorities at this time, to say the very least. Fannie said he'd been beating her and Cecil since Cecil was a small baby. Locked her out of the room to prevent the assaults. Pawned her furniture.

Around late 1894, Bob was working on a farm not far from Santa Fe, Missouri. This is the first mention of his willingness to farm for a living, but not the last. (This is Monroe County, where Mark Twain was born and lived as a very small child.) In Feb 1895, Bob took a job with the Gazette back in Sedalia.

On Thanksgiving Day 1895, Fannie and Bob were remarried by J. E. Chambliss, Bob's uncle. They were planning to live "permanently" in La Monte, Missouri (near Sedalia) where Bob had a newspaper job.

In 1897, Bob's aunt, the wife of Rev. J. E. Chambliss, fell through a trap door in her house and on the way down grabbed at something. The something turned out to be a kettle of boiling water. She died the next day, survived by ten children and her husband. At Christmastime that year, Jack, the hero of this tale, wrote a letter to Santa Claus that was published in the Mexico, Missouri paper. By this time, maybe Fannie had got tired of moving every few months and gone back home to Mexico, Missouri where her family had the means to support her.

Now for the second Charles H. Chambliss, who I intend to show is the same person as the one just discussed.

[Uncle Buddy]

Since Charles H. "Bob" Chambliss, newspaperman, disappears around the time of the Spanish American War, some have speculated that he died in the war. But we also have the mysterious appearance of another Charles H. Chambliss at the same time. Since there is no time at which the two of them can be found separately, it's worth looking into whether or not they could be the same person. I have found evidence that they are in fact the same person. OK, so it's proof. But let me drag this out as long as I can.

The research blossomed when I remembered to search for "Bob" Chambliss instead of "Charles" or "C. H." Evidence quickly turned into proof. Actually it took two days, but that's pretty quick in terms of genealogical inquiries.

On Nov. 29, 1895 the Sedalia Democrat published on page 1 a notice of Bob and Fannie's second marriage, mentioning that Bob had worked on two other papers in that area. In this report, it's also mentioned that Bob had spent some time working with horses in La Monte, Missouri, which explains the short stint of "farming" in Monroe County mentioned earlier, as well as his son's communication to a St. Louis newspaper in which Jack Chambliss, the hero of our story, described his lost father as "a horseman".

In April 1897, it was reported that Bob had owned up to starting a rumor which apparently had turned into a news sensation by "joking" (he later claimed) that hundreds of people had watched an airship float over Everest, Kansas doing impossible stunts for an hour and twenty minutes. (Everest is less than 100 miles northwest of Kansas City.) This was either shortly before or after his second marriage with Fannie broke up. By this time, Bob had also lived in the Higginsville/Lexington area in northwest Missouri, but was currently living in Kansas somewhere. Heck, if I was Fannie, I'd have divorced him twice too. But not for seeing a UFO. I think by this time, Fannie had probably found him not worth following around.

Bob married a Maud J. Finley in Jan. 1900 and they can be found farming near Independence, Missouri. We know it's Bob because this Charles H. Chambliss was from Kirksville, Missouri and was born in Kentucky in July 1869, his father is from one of the Carolinas (Bob was never sure which), and his mother was from Georgia as usual. Maud was born June 1880 in Missouri. Her father's from Missouri and her mother's from New York. In 1901 several Chamblisses including Charles H (driver) and Joseph E (pastor) are living in Kansas City.

In 1902, Fannie married an Irish guy named Charles W. Forrester in St. Louis. In 1910 C. W. was working as a shirt salesman, still in St. Louis. The same year, Jack Chambliss, the hero of this story, was working on a farm in Linn, Missouri, not far from Mexico, Missouri. Did I mention that at least one online tree has this family hooked up with Mexico? The nation Mexico. Possibly they could blame ancestry.com's autofill feature.

Between 1905 and 1916, then again in 1925 and in 1933, our 2nd Charles H. Chambliss was admitted to five different veteran's homes in five different states with a variety of disabilities. This person, "CHC2", was a First Sergeant in Co. B, 5th infantry of Missouri during the Spanish-American War. He served from May 4, 1898 to Nov. 9, 1898. He was a farmer but spent so much time in the homes for disabled veterans that he ended up working there as an attendant. So we have five hospital records to compare for the same person and more than one of these records states that upon release from the hospital, he planned to live with his brother W. J. Chambliss of Jefferson City, Missouri. One of the hospital records mentions that he's divorced, some say he's married to a "Tillie" (who would have to be the wife after Maud) and some say he's single. One even says that he seems to be of sound mind. But it's obviously the same person in each case.

Like CHC2, our Bob did in fact have a brother named W. J. His brother is on the Paris, Missouri census from 1880. W. J. was born in Alabama around 1860 and can be found in Jeff City in 1900. His occupation on the census that year is overwritten by some scribbling, but the words "clerk sec of state" can be clearly made out.

Here's a quote from the previously-mentioned 2nd marriage report from the Sedalia Democrat of Nov. 29, 1895, page 1. First the article misidentifies the officiater at the wedding, J. E. Chambliss, as Bob's father (J. E. was Bob's uncle), but then this:

"C. H. Chambliss... brother of W. J. Chambliss, of Secretary of State Lesueur's office at Jefferson City..." remarried to Fannie Rixey etc. etc.

So can we stop saying that Bob Chambliss might have died during the Spanish American War? He died on September 30, 1948 and is buried next to an Irish lady who liked him well enough to spend her life with him. Their grave is at the Fairview Cemetery in Bluffton, Wells County, Indiana.

The Irish lady who spent her life with Bob Chambliss was Matilda Jane(?) "Tillie" Doragh. They were married on April 3, 1918 in Grant County, Indiana where one of the homes for disabled veterans was located. According to her Find-a-grave memorial, which may or may not be accurate, Tillie was born September 12, 1875 and died June 18, 1964. The online family tree which gives her middle name "Jane" also gives her husband's middle name as "Hartwell" not "Hardy". With no primary source for either Hardy or Hartwell, there's no reason to say it's anything but "H."

Young Cecil Hartwell Chambliss, known as Jack, is the hero of our story. He died at age 27-1/2 in a hospital in Nitro, West Virginia where the doctor who filled out his death certificate didn't even know where he was from, so I wanted to tell his story as best I could.

I can't do any more research till this corona virus plague runs out of steam as the internet connection can't be maintained here right now, where I live in the Philippines.

[Uncle Buddy]

One online tree gives the middle name of Charles as "Hartwell", same as the name Cecil gave on his draft registration. I'd have to say that the middle name of both Cecil and Charles are unproven.