"Charlotte's" Web

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Photo: Spider web with morning dew by Ivicabrlic, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

The children's book Charlotte's Web came to mind this month, as more and more obituaries appeared in my hints, each adding to the web of information which solved mysteries, one tiny bit of information at a time. In that wonderful story, Charlotte has to work hard to create her web, even learning to read and spell in her effort to help the children save their pet pig. 

Sometimes I see a family as a jigsaw puzzle, with really oddly shaped pieces, like a puzzle with a few missing bits. But  weaving a web better describes the work: find and snag the image of the obituary or news article, transcribe and link all the people named, then figure out who was NOT named and why. It's also interesting to see what facts are missing, such as previous marriages and divorce. The author of each obit worked as hard as a politician's speechwriter, stressing what they want remembered, while glossing over what they prefer not to mention; all this while dealing with the loss of a family member. 

This past week I was working with a collateral family; one daughter, Jane "Jenny," seemed to have disappeared after her brief marriage ended in divorce. There was even a possible listing of her as a death by suicide. 

However, there were other sisters to fit into the puzzle, every tiny detail from each record added to their timelines. Fortunately there were notices in the social pages when they visited one another, along with obituaries of their parents and other relatives. All of that web-spinning yielded this:


"Mrs. Hovey (Jane) was a daughter of Mr. and Mrs. T. D. Cain of Cainsville, and was a sister of Mrs. Stephen J. Lincoln of Cainsville, Miss Eunice Cain of Bethany, Mrs. Aanos Schultz of Portland, Ore., and Mrs. Grace Biddington of Sherman Oaks, Calif. Mrs. Hovey is survived by her husband. Cremation is being made at Daytona Beach, and interment of ashes will be in Alameda. Miss Cain and Mrs. Lincoln left Saturday for Daytona Beach.


- Bethany Republican-Clipper, Bethany, Missouri, Wednesday 11 June 1952, page 1, column 6, Jane Cain Hovey obituary; Newspapers.com : accessed 23 June 2026.

 Those relationships are everything. Once the name of the  husband was revealed, all of Jane's records opened up. She did leave Missouri for California as a divorced women; worked as a saleswoman in San Francisco while living in a large rooming house. Once married, to a salesman, they  both continued working and living in rooming houses around California, until her death. It feels wonderful that she is part of the web of her family again. 


Valorie Zimmerman

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Send your stories to m.strickland@skcgs.org





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