Who was W.L. Mendenhall (1873-1933)?

(Update at Bottom)

While researching the California Birth Index for the surname Mendenhall, I came upon some prison records for an W.L. Mendenhall 

He looks like a very sad man! From the card, you can read that his name was W.L. Mendenhall (or John Turner in Illinois??)- was imprisoned in the San Quentin State Prison for arson commited in San Joaquin. He's 44 and a laborer. He's also missing his left hand. The date he entered the prison- 26 Apr 1918. 

I wanted to know more about him and mainly, to find out how I'm related to this Mendenhall.  

First stop- Newspapers. I was able to find one news article about the arson committed to put him in jail-- 

Stockton Daily Evening Record
25 Apr 1918

From the article, W.L. broke into San Quentin and set the prison afire and then confessed to the crime. He was a sick man...suffering from TB and had lost his left hand in a saw mill accident 28 years earlier! From the card above, it looks like W.L. doesn't stay in San Quentin, but dies in Mendocino on 25 Nov 1933. The only evidence I have of this death is stated on the card...not sure how accurate that may or may not be.

Now, to find out how I'm related....

Things I know:

Name: W.L. Mendenhall

Born: abt 1874 in Illinois

I was able to find his full name from his World War I Draft Registration Card he had done while at San Quentin in 1918- Wilbur Lee Mendenhall, born 17 Aug 1873

It also states that his nearest relative is a Mrs. W.F. Adams at 3010 Locust St. in St. Joseph, Missouri. 

Before researching this Mrs. Adams, I wanted to look at the 1880 U.S. Census Record. Since Wilbur was born in 1873, the 1880 census would be the first one he would be listed on. I did find a Wilbur Mendenhall, born abt 1873 in Illinois living in Belle Plain, Illinois but this is a completely different Wilbur...one that is already in my tree. This Wilbur died in 1912 in Iowa so they couldn't have been the same person. 

I tried to look in the newspapers around 1890 for a saw mill accident that took a man's life, but it was just too little information. I have no idea where he was living at the time or what mill he was working at. I know he was jailed in Omaha Nebraska in 1914 (per prison card above), but I couldn't find any information on that jail time. 

Next, I decided to look up this Mrs. W.F. Adams who turns out to be Amanda Melvin Adams ('nee Palmer), daughter of Samuel C. Palmer (1824-1894) & Sarah Jane Lashley (1824-1869). She was married to William Freemont Adams (1864-1942). 

When Wilbur listed Amanda as his nearest relative in 1918, she was living in Saint Joseph, Missouri with her husband. This was April. Amanda died in Nov of the same year. 

Because they were close in age, her being 3 years older, I assumed she might be an older sister or maybe a cousin...

I've searched many family trees and tried several different paths on her family tree but I just can't find the Mendenhall connection! Which is annoying, to say the least.

Below is a picture of Amanda- 

From Ancestry.com

I'm going to keep searching, but I'm going to leave this here in case someone can help! :) 

UPDATE:

After posting the above information, I got some feedback from some people on the Genealogy Squad (Facebook). I am embarrassed to say that I didn't think to check her siblings. Ugg...it happens though. Anyway, Amanda's sister Rebecca Elizabeth Palmer married James T. Mendenhall on 19 Aug 1873 in Adair County, Missouri. (Marriage record on Ancestry.com). Now, there's a few things about this....

1. Rebecca & James were much older than Amanda and her relative Wilbur Mendenhall. 

Rebecca (born 1853), James (born 1847), Amanda (born 1870) & Wilbur (born 1873). It wasn't uncommon in those days to have multiple children and have them span 20 years like Rebecca & Amanda.

2. Rebecca & James married 2 days before Wilbur was born. This makes me wonder if he could be their child and Amanda is Wilbur's aunt. This could be plausible but there is something bugging me about this- Evidence shows that Rebecca and James married 2 days after his birth and they married in Adair County, Missouri. Evidence also shows Wilbur being born in Illinois. Either one of these records is mistaken (more than  likely, it would be Wilbur's birth) or they are not his parents. 

3. I thought it plausable that Wilbur could be James' brother but they are 26 years apart in age and I find this super unlikely. Also, I still can't find much about James anyways, so even though I have a possible brother or father, I still can't trace back the linage, which is SUPER frustrating. 

My Search for Ruth Eileen Mendenhall

*Update towards end-- 5/28/20

Happy Sunday!

Since 2014, I have been researching my great-aunt Ruth Eileen Mendenhall. She is a mystery and it's taken years and years to dig up what I have been able to find about her. 

So, this post is sort of a compilation of all of those previous posts I have already written, dating back to 2014. 

~In June 2014, this is what I knew of Ruth:

Ruth Eileen Mendenhall

born: 16 Jan 1927 in Dayton, Ohio

died: Unknown (rumored- California), age- unknown

Parents: Earl Dwight Mendenhall (1894-1972) & 

             Edna Grace Miles (1894-1934)

Siblings: Harold Earl Mendenhall (1916-1989) (my grandfather)

         Robert Eugene Mendenhall (1919-1993)

So, back then, the rumor in the family was that Ruth was 14 when the family disowned her. My mother always said that she thought she had gotten pregnant and kicked out of the house. Her family supposedly trashed all of her possessions and pictures of her. One picture was found- it had fallen behind a dresser. 

Ruth in her 3rd grade picture, 1935 at Shiloh Springs School in Dayton Ohio. 
Ruth is the girl in the middle row, 4th one from the left.
Look at that mischievous face!! 
(Shiloh Springs School- 5816 North Main Street in Dayton Ohio. It was demolished in Aug 2012)

In the 70's, after Ruth's parents had passed, her brothers tried looking for her. They hired a private investigator who found her living in California, married to a doctor. She didn't want any contact so that was that.

Update of Ruth Eileen Mendenhall

On June 23, 2014, I wrote a blog post about my great-aunt Ruth Mendenhall. You can read that post by Here, but for the short-version, all I really knew about her was that she was disowned around the age of 14 because of a pregnancy. There were rumors of her ending up in California, married to a doctor and she didn't want anything to do with the family.

It was hard to find anything on Ruth, but I finally found her in Dec 2016. Again, here is the original blog post that you can read  Here, but for the shorter version, I found that she died on 08 Mar 2002 in Scottsdale, Arizona. She had been married to a man named Jack V. Breckenridge (1921-2011), a veteran. There appeared to be no children in the picture.

Recently, I decided to try and find more on Ruth. I decided to focus on her husband and his family. Jacks middle name is Victor and he had 3 siblings- Janet Louise (1918-2007), James Harold (1925-2011) and Richard A. (1928-2016). I did find living relatives for all of these siblings and messaged them on Facebook, hoping to find some answers- maybe some of them knew about Ruth, but this was on May 13 and nobody has responded (Can't say I blame them, they don't know me). I also found a picture of Jack--

 Recently, Newspapers.com had a "free" weekend and I decided to research Ruth in the papers, see if anything came up. My thought was, maybe she didn't leave Ohio for California...let's search that. AND I found more!

I found a couple of newspaper articles about a Ruth, same age, same address as her parents. They were dated September, 1945-- she would have been 19 years old. She had broken her parole. When she was 19, she had been arrested for forgery and, since breaking her parole, she was being sent to  jail for 1-20 years!

Here are the articles:

With the name, age, and address all matching, I just don't see how this COULDN'T be my great-aunt Ruth. This would make sense...for even though she wasn't 14 at the time, she was still a young woman who was sent to prison. After finding this information, I talked to my Aunt Nancy who confirmed it- she remembers her mother talking about when she was younger about Ruth being in prison. Apparently, my mother didn't know about this. :)

So...NOW, the next step is getting Ruth's prison records to see how much time she served...all out of pure curiosity! Wish me luck!