Identified! TX - Huntsville, 'Walker County Jane Doe', WhtFem 14-16, 91UFTX, 1 November 1980 - id'd November 2021 - Sherri Ann Jarvis (14)

[paul1980]

If she was a circus/carnival girl, would she even be in a yearbook?

 

[Ibiz]

If she was on the road at age 14, then it's unlikely that she ever went to high school.

 

[Finders]

I hope this is the break we have all been looking for! Now I'm going to search late 70's east texas carnival pics if I can find any!

 

[MelmothTheLost]

If she was a circus/carnival girl, would she even be in a yearbook?

Her father was a carnival worker but that doesn't mean she was on the road with him. If she was 16 rather than 14 then she might have struck out on her own after finishing school. I seem to recall reading that back then far fewer teenagers stayed on at school until they were 18. I guess in those days there were far more jobs that didn't require graduation from high school.

 

[Alleykins]

If this information turns out to be on the up and up, hanging out with unsavory characters may explain why she was heading to the prison.

 

[CADwrest]

This seems like a really plausible lead. A lot of the elements of it look like they fit.

 

[Gardener1850]

On the Who Was Walker County Jane Doe facebook page, I received a series of comments from a long-term resident of Aransas Pass named Theresa. I spoke with Theresa on the phone this morning, and I will summarize the info she provided in the comments of the thread, and during the telephone conversation.

I offer no opinion of the credibility of this information. , but I did forward this information to Detective Bean of the Walker County Sheriff Department.

Here is the information that I posted on the page:
_____________________

Theresa started the comments by saying that a male friend of hers knew the girl. He says her last name is Louis, but he didn’t know her first name. In the subsequent telephone conversation, she said the surname might have been spelled Lewis, and as she recalls, her first name might have been Elaine, or something like that.

The girl's father worked for Theresa's aunt, whose name was Gertrude Kelly. Ms. Kelly owned a concession associated with the Wagner’s Carnival company in Aransas Pass, and passed away some time in the 1980's. Wagner's would run carnivals that operated in the Eastern Texas area surrounding Corpus Christi. There were many drifter types who would travel in and out of the area to work the carnivals and on the shrimp boats. Many of those persons had criminal records.

Mr. Louis/Lewis had an arrest record, she believes for drug related offenses. His job was to set up and take down the carnival rides. He was of medium height & weight, had sandy colored hair and blue eyes, and spoke with a "Louisiana Bayou" or Cajun accent. But he lived in the Rockport area. Theresa said everyone addressed each other by their last names, so she didn’t know his first name

The girl's mother might have been named Sonja (but Theresa wasn't sure). Sonja lived in Rockport and frequented the bars in the area.

Theresa remembers the girl, because she was concerned that the girl was hanging out with the older men who were working the carnival. She asked Mr. Louis about the girl out of concern for her well being, since many of these men were of dubious character. Mr. Louis told Theresa that it was no problem, that she was his daughter.

Hmmmm... I found a couple of Gertrude Kelly's who died in the 1980's in Texas. This one had a child named Louis/Lewis: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/36846829/gertrude-s.-kelly#

(Click on Louis' profile and it says *half-sibling named Lewis but they are the same person with different name spelling because they have the same birth and death date, nickname, etc. Findagrave auto- guesses at relationships until someone corrects it. In this case more than one person has entered him with an alternate name spelling)
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/99431108/louis-lindsay-guffey
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/121792127/lewis-lindsey-guffey

Anyway, is it possible that this Louis/Lewis that worked for Gertrude Kelly in the 1970s was actually her son but Theresa had forgotten or wasn't aware of that? The one in the above profile is buried in a family surname cemetery in Alabama which would fit with someone who has more of a Cajun/Bayou accent. Usually I can find more info on someone who died in 2009 but I'm not finding much about the above Lewis/Louis. Can anyone else find an obituary for him?

*Please remove if not allowed-- I was careful not to post any surnames, only links.

 

[Finders]

Wagners is still in operation. It was founded in 1977. I wonder if we can find Mr. Lewis/Louis using that route.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

Anyway, is it possible that this Louis/Lewis that worked for Gertrude Kelly in the 1970s was actually her son but Theresa had forgotten or wasn't aware of that?

Interesting idea, and the timeline works fairly well.

Gertrude born 1908
A son born around the mid 1930s, married early 1960s.
His daughter born in the mid 1960s would be 14-16 in 1980.

The main argument against is that he was said to have a Cajun accent, and if so I would expect his mother to have one too but nothing has been said about Gertrude having such an accent.

 

[Ibiz]

Could there have been a Louis at one of the prisons she was trying to get to?

 

[Gardener1850]

Interesting idea, and the timeline works fairly well.

Gertrude born 1908
A son born around the mid 1930s, married early 1960s.
His daughter born in the mid 1960s would be 14-16 in 1980.

The main argument against is that he was said to have a Cajun accent, and if so I would expect his mother to have one too but nothing has been said about Gertrude having such an accent.

It appears that the one I found above mostly lived with his father/father's family in Alabama while his mother lived in Texas. Not growing up in his mother's home would account for a different accent, the different first name spellings by different sides of the family who have entered him twice on findagrave.com AND could also explain why Theresa might have been unaware this was Gertrude's son when he worked at the carnival concession. That is, of course, if I have found the correct Gertrude Kelly. There are many people by that name in the US and at least 3 I found so far that died in Texas in the 1980's. I found another GK on Ancestry who had very close to the same birth and death dates and died in Aransas Pass-- she is not the same one as the one listed above on findagrave, however. I suspect the one who died in Aransas Pass listed in Ancestry is the correct one for Theresa's story. However Louis/Lewis could still be the son of the one in Aransas Pass. Since findagrave is created by people doing genealogy (usually family), someone may have linked to the wrong Gertrude Kelly. Especially as it looks like his part of the family became estranged somehow by a Texas/Alabama split. This is all just speculation by me based on over 20 years of genealogy research experience.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

It appears that the one I found above mostly lived with his father/father's family in Alabama while his mother lived in Texas. Not growing up in his mother's home would account for a different accent, the different first name spellings by different sides of the family who have entered him twice on findagrave.com AND could also explain why Theresa might have been unaware this was Gertrude's son when he worked at the carnival concession.

Yes, that's plausible. Divorce was so unusual and shocking in the UK up until around 1960 that I'd not considered that as a possibility in the US.

 

[CADwrest]

It appears that the one I found above mostly lived with his father/father's family in Alabama while his mother lived in Texas. Not growing up in his mother's home would account for a different accent, the different first name spellings by different sides of the family who have entered him twice on findagrave.com AND could also explain why Theresa might have been unaware this was Gertrude's son when he worked at the carnival concession.

I thought Gertrude Kelly was Theresa's aunt, though? Wouldn't she have known it if Louis/Lewis was her cousin?

 

[Gardener1850]

I thought Gertrude Kelly was Theresa's aunt, though? Wouldn't she have known it if Louis/Lewis was her cousin?

Not necessarily-- and especially if he wasn't raised by her aunt. The one I found appears to have mostly lived with his dad's side of the family in another state. Back in that era it would not have been unusual if he went to work for his mom later in life but they just never mentioned to the rest of her family who he was. Or the rest of the family (adults) knew but Theresa was never told/aware of it. Depending on her age, she might not have been told. I know this is all just speculation though and the only way to find out would be to ask Theresa if she recognizes the surname of the Lewis/Louis I found. Or if she has any other relatives she can ask. Lewis/Louis is a common enough name that this whole thing might be a wild goose chase. I have gone down many a genealogy rabbit holes tracing the wrong family line before because of bad info from a family member. Mis-information on cousins is not at all uncommon, especially when they lived in different states before the age of computers.

 

[Gardener1850]

Yes, that's plausible. Divorce was so unusual and shocking in the UK up until around 1960 that I'd not considered that as a possibility in the US.

Divorce or a child out of wedlock. I'm not sure which it is in this case without digging deeper. Both circumstances would not have been openly talked about in most families, although they did occur frequently enough here to be plausible. JMO.

 

[Finders]

I found a different Gertrude Kelley that passed away in 1987 in San Patricio (Aransas Pass). I can find her on family search but can't locate her grave. Maybe she wasn't buried.

 

[carbuff]

It would not have been uncommon back then for a woman to pass a child off as a cousin, niece/nephew, etc. rather than admit she'd had a child out of wedlock, or for a pregnant woman to have given a child to a female relative to raise as her own. (That happened in my own family.) Often by the time the younger generation comes around, the older generation has forgotten the details and lets it fade into the past.

And yes, in 1980 it was still fairly common for people to drop out of school at 16, especially if they had a family business or other job waiting for them. It wouldn't have been uncommon to leave school to get married.

Lots of things about this story seem to fit.

 

[BayouGypsy]

There is a woman on one of the FB posts who is supposed to be one of Gertrude's granddaughters. I was poking around her page but don't really see anything connecting her to Texas other than a couple pictures that mention "Texas".

 

[Finders]

I reached out to the Carnival company. I'll provide a update with anything that I hear back from them.

 

[Finders]

I haven't heard back from them. I don't know why. I sent an email and left a VM.