ADOPTION OF THE HAGERTY BOYS

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.