I wish I knew the
entire story. Today I’m sharing what I do know in the hope that one of you may have
information that will help me complete the research on this family.
This is an
interesting tale of sadness and joy, of love and sacrifice, a few lingering
questions, and a portion of the Linn family.
Roy Oscar Hagerty
was born on December 14, 1890; brother George Cleveland Hagerty followed on June 10, 1893; and
John Henry Hagerty on May 21, 1895. They were born to Harry Hagerty and his wife Josephine
Dorothy Wretling Hagerty. Josephine was born Thea Josefina Wretling in Frotuna,
Stockholm, Sweden and came to the United States with her family in 1880 when
she was just 9 years old. Her family eventually settled in Kansas where she met
and married Harry Hagerty, a naturalized citizen from England or Ireland.
Roy, George, and
John were all under the age of 10 when, on December 26, 1899, their parents
surrendered them to the Christian Children’s Home in Holdrege, Nebraska. This
home had opened in 1888 under the care of a pastor in that town. You can read
more about the history of this home at the following site:
Christian Children's Home
From the accounts
I’ve read, the Christian Children’s Home was clean, orderly, and disciplined,
but not cruel or abusive. The three Hagerty boys would have attended school and
church activities and had a group of other young children to play with.
Below is the first
page of the intake papers for the 3 Hagerty boys in which we see that the
parents have been counseled and believe “that it is for the best interest of
the children that said adoption be made”.
We don’t know the
complete reasons the Hagertys placed their 3 young sons in the Christian
Children’s home, or how they came to select a place in the middle of Nebraska
when they had been living in Oklahoma. But we can speculate that perhaps their
marriage was troubled, it was too difficult to provide for a family of 5, there
was abuse, or even that the parents were ill-equipped to be good parents.
Whatever the reason, the day after Christmas in 1899, Roy, George and John
Hagerty became the wards of the home. And in 1902, the mother Josephine
remarries.
It wasn’t long after
the boys were placed in the Christian Children’s Home that the eldest, Roy
Oscar Hagerty, was adopted. His new family was William Rinquist and his wife,
Charlotte Linn Rinquist. Charlotte (Lottie) was the daughter of John and Sarah
Linn, thus our Linn connection to this story.
William Rinquist was
born in Sweden in 1847 and came to the United States in 1871. Lottie, we know,
was born in Iowa to John and Sarah on January 29, 1857. The couple married on
July 3, 1884, in Denver, Colorado and moved to Kansas. They had two children,
but only one survived.
We see in the 1900
US Federal Census for Diamond Valley, Kansas, William Rinquist, a farmer, his
wife Lottie, and their two children Maria Edna Rinquist, born in July of 1890
in Kansas, and adopted son Roy Oscar Rinquist, born in December 1890. He and
Maria were the same age. The census also states that Lottie had given birth to
two children but one had died. I have no record of that other child.
We also see in the 1900 US Federal Census the
listing for the 2 younger brothers, George and John Hagerty, listed as “inmates”
at the Christian Children’s Home in Nebraska:
These two Hagerty
boys didn’t have much longer to live at the Christian Children’s Home. In 1901,
they were adopted by Carl and Betty Hord. In the 1910 US Federal Census, John
is 14 and living with his adoptive parents in Plumgrove, Nebraska. George is
listed as a 16-year-old hired hand on a farm in Union, Pottawatomie County,
Kansas.
The boys’ biological
mother, Josephine, remarried in 1902 to William Quilliam who became a captain
in the Salvation Army until he was investigated for embezzling money from the
organization. It appears that Josephine didn’t have great success with her
husbands!
Several interesting
facts surround these 3 young men as they grew up. From the article below, you
can see that they all had contact with their birth mother. She knew where they
were and additional articles show her visits with at least one of her sons.
I’ve tried to find
additional info on the biological father, Henry Hagerty, but I’ve been unsuccessful.
John Henry, the
youngest, used the last name Hoard/Hord as far as the 1910 census when he was
14 years old living with Carl and Betty Hord, but by the 1920 census, he had
returned to using his birth name again, John Henry Hagerty; and he used that
last name the rest of his life.
When William
Rinquist died in Fresno, California in 1912, his will stipulated that his
adopted son Roy Oscar would receive $50; his biological daughter Mary received
$3,000.
Were there
difficulties in the homes where these young men were raised? At the time, would
there normally be a difference of money given either to men and women in a will
or to an adopted child? I have no way of knowing as only facts are generally
available to the family historian. But it does make me curious about the warmth
and contact the 3 had with their birth mother, Josephine, the use of the
original last name by one of the boys, and Roy Oscar Rinquist remaining in
Kansas while the rest of his family moved to Fresno, perhaps leading to a
breakdown in that family and a nominal inheritance.
Our Linn relative,
Roy Oscar Hagerty Rinquist, served in World War I, enlisting on December 14, 1917,
and discharged on October 3, 1919. Before entering service, he was a streetcar
conductor in Kansas City. He was in the Aviation Corps, served in France and, on October 5, 1918, Roy was admitted to the hospital in Lorient, France, for a short
stay and was dismissed on October 28 and sent to USN Base #19.
When he returned to
the United States, Roy married in 1919 to Olivia Nordenberg and continued his
work as a conductor. In 1927, the couple made an ocean trip back to Sweden,
coming back through New York on September 5 of that year.
Sometime after the
1940 US Federal Census, the couple moved to Miami, Florida, where Olivia died
in 1969. Roy remarried in 1971 to Hilda Nelson; and he died in April 1974. Roy
had no children with either woman.
Roy and his brothers
are not close relatives, second cousins twice removed. But their story is
interesting to me; and at this point in my research, I’m much more interested
in the life stories than in collecting more and more names and dates. These
stories, I hope, show the humanity, the problems and joys, the lives of those
who came before us.
