Sorry, folks, have been side-tracked again by chasing rabbits with my Applegates. I will be going to Arkansas soon for a quick day-trip to try and uncover some more information on the murder of Harry Applegate. Hopefully I will find lots of great stuff and will have an awesome blog for ya'll next month (right after I win the Powerball).
I have decided to touch base with my sadly neglected Jahns' side of the family, mainly because I posted a link on my FB page to this blog, and my uncle may look at it, so I need to give him something to read. The last post I wrote on the Jahns was the birthday post for my grandfather, Harold Frederick Jahns, Sr. Now for the technical stuff.
Harold was born on May 23, 1917, in Denver, Colorado, where his father William was a trolley car conductor. He was the third son of what would eventually be four sons (Orville, William, Harold, and Robert) born to William and his wife Loretta Reynolds. In 1920 the family is shown on the Census (see previous post on William) living in Denver; at some point, things must not work out, for on the 1930 Census, William is remarried and living in Detroit, Michigan, and Loretta and the boys are living in East St. Louis, Illinois. I do not know much about my grandfathers' early life and hope to uncover more as I do more research (as in, get my Aunt and Uncle to fill me in...)
I do know that Harold married my grandmother, Cecilia Lorraine Burnier, in 1940 in Missouri. I am not sure where they were living, as I have not found them on the 1940 Census yet (being kinda lazy and waiting for it to be searchable). My Aunt Dottie (Dorothy) was born first, then my dad, Fred (Harold Frederick, Jr.), then my Uncle Bill, (William). Harold and Cecilia divorced, and Harold moved on to Detroit. Cecilia remarried, and due to her new husband being sent to Germany (he was in the Service), the kids then moved to Detroit to live with Harold. I think this was about 1952.
It was at this time that he bought the house that as far as I know is the only one he ever owned. (This would be the house I mentioned in his birthday post). He was a "tile man" by profession. I remember one trip we made to Detroit, we had to go see a new mall that had just opened up (Thousand Oaks??); Grandpa had laid some of the tile in the main areas of the mall and he wanted us to see it. Anyways, Grandpa stayed in that house until the last week of his life. I always thought it was neat that when we went to visit Grandpa, I knew exactly where we were going; my other grandparents moved constantly and when we visited them, it was almost always a new house in a new city. Grandpa was always in that small white house in Detroit; I even knew the directions to there (please do not test that now).
Grandpa passed away on April 1, 1990, of liver cancer. My parents, myself, and my brothers were lucky enough to make a visit to see him in March before he died - when he was still in that house.
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