Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Trudging Along


Well I found George Chase in the Missouri Penitentiary in 1920. Whether or not he is Vivian's George Chase is the question. I wrote the archives to see if I could get some information. Hopefully they have intake papers and a mugshot. It will take them 8 weeks to get back to me. It would be great if it turned out to be Mr. George M. Chase.

I also think I have found the right Vivian Davis. 18 years old in 1920 living in Kansas City working as a waitress. Rooming in a household of older men. Yes that sounds like Vivian. The marriage certificate states that she is from KC and 19 years old. The date of the certificate is April 1921.

When she was arrested in 1923 Vivian gave her place of birth as Springfield, MO.; I don't know. Births prior to 1910 in Missouri are harder to trace. Not impossible though.

I guess the only thing for certain is that Vivian is a product of Missouri and Kansas during Prohibition. It would have been so much easier if she had been from Chicago. There's loads of information on Chicago. It's so funny so much happened all over the country but historians typically focused on New York and Chicago so if you go looking for information on who, what & where for some other area you have to cross your fingers and hope.