Why did he alienate himself from the family? Why did he not come around? These are questions I can't answer; I can only speculate. I can tell you what happened to Grant and while he ended up in Eastern Pennsylvania, he wasn't buried in Montgomery County.
There are a few things I noticed while researching Grant. While I have not found a record of his birth or a birth announcement, both of his
draft cards have his birthdate as September 12, 1892. Most of the other records corroborate this or are close enough to believe it's an accurate date.
I found a couple articles about Shade Family Reunions that have Bruce and Anna Belle's wedding date. It has their wedding date as November 23, 1895. The Shade's are Bruce's Mother's family. Click the images for the entire article.
Notice Grant is not listed. He would have been the oldest child. I wanted a better confirmation of the wedding date. I was unable to find any church records and the State and Counties were not registering marriages in 1895. So, to the paper! It was in both the local papers about two weeks later on December 5, 1895. The Lewistown Gazette had a typesetting error;
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| The Lewistown Gazette, 5 December 1895 |
But The Lewistown Democrat & Sentinel got it right;
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| The Lewistown Sentinel & Democrat, 5 December 1895 |
I don't really find it unusual there was not an announcement for a child born out of wedlock in this time period. I did find this in the County News section of The Lewistown Gazette on September 16,1892, four days after his birth. Anna Belle did have two younger brothers, James, 12-years-old and Andy, 10-years-old. when Grant was born. Maybe one of them is an 'interesting boy'?
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| The Lewistown Gazette, 16 September 1892 |
We know he was living with at home in 1900. Since the Census Day in 1900 was June 1st, he would have been 7 years old.
According to both Bruce and Anna's obituaries, they moved from Newton Hamilton / Wayne Township, Mifflin County to Altoona, Blair County about 1901. The next record I could find for Grant was the 1910 Census and he had already left home. He was living with another family, the Hoover's, a few miles away in Tyrone, Blair County. He was working as a clerk at a drug store.
So was Grant adopted? Was Bruce not his biological father? Did he feel unwelcome? Maybe one of these reasons or a combination of them is the reason he alienated himself from the family? We'll likely never know.
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