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Friday, August 23, 2013

The Bailey Girls

William Judkins (1880-1955) and Lilly Manson (Bradley) Bailey (1884-1949) had eight children of which three were girls -- Elizabeth Lucille (1912-1971), Sylvia Ruth (1915-2000) and Joanna (1921-2010. According to her brother, Maxwell, Joanna changed her name to Joan Evelyn in a special birth certificate issued by then Secretary of State, Cordell Hull. She was my Aunt Joan.

Elizabeth was her parents' fourth child and first daughter. She was born on the family farm in Saline, Michigan.  Sylvia was born three year later also in Saline.  In 1918 the family moved to Anderson, Indiana, where their father likely attended the Anderson Bible School and Seminary Training School. Anderson was also the headquarters of the Church of God's Missionary Board. William Bailey wanted to become a missionary and go to Africa.

In 1920 they drove to New York, and boarded the Cunard Line's RMS Aquitania. The family arrived in Southampton England on 3 Sep. They traveled by ferry to France and by train to Marseilles, crossing the Mediterranean by boat to Cairo and then onto Africa. The family landed in Mombasa and took a train to the Kenyan highlands where William Bailey began his missionary work in then British East Africa.  Joan was born at the Kijabe Mission Station in 1921.

The parents, Elizabeth, Sylvia, Thomas, Maxwell and Joan traveled back to the U.S. in 1929 via India, Singapore, Hong Kong, Japan, and Vancouver, arriving in Seattle, Washington, on 6 Nov 1929 aboard the cargo ship S/S Paris Maru. Maxwell said the journey took approximately six months.

Osaka Line's cargo ship S/S Paris Maru 

In 1930 the family was living in Troy Township, Ohio. In 1932, William and Lilly Bailey went to Africa again. Another family was asked to move in with the children, but they soon moved away, leaving Elizabeth in charge of her younger brothers and sisters.  Their parents returned in 1934 and divorced soon after.

Elizabeth married later in life to Ted Clayton Glatfelder and moved to Palmer Alaska in the early 1950s.  She ran an orphanage there and Ted worked as a sanitation engineer at Ft Richardson. In 1971 there was a terrible flood in Palmer, and Evelyn and Ted worked hard for days on end to clean up the debris. 

Matanuska River Flood, Palmer, Alaska, 1971. Photo courtesy of the University of Alaska Anchorage

Elizabeth had high blood pressure and got a nose bleed that wouldn't stop.  She died six days later in Providence Hospital in Anchorage.  She is buried at Valley Memorial Park in Palmer.  Ted later married Kathreen Estelle Gibson. She came to Alaska in the late 1930s, was 29 years older than Ted and lived to be 100 years old.  He was her third husband. He then married Tiodora Rodriguez and died in 1995. He is also buried in Valley Memorial Park.

Sylvia left Troy, Ohio between 1935 and by 1940 was married to Raymond Speake. They lived in Marbury, Maryland, all their adult lives. Raymond worked at a powder factory, which I assume is the nearby Naval Surface Warfare Center in Indian Head, Maryland. In the 1940s, it was known as the Naval Powder Factory.  In 1949, Sylvia's mother came to live with them.  She died a few weeks later.  All three are buried in Park Hill Cemetery in Marbury.

Joan attended Strayer Business College before marrying Arnold Richard Lange in 1942. 

Arnold and Joan Evelyn (Bailey) Lange, 1942

They lived in Washington, DC and had a daughter.  Then they moved to Lawrence, Kansas. Arnold worked for the Hercules Powder Company's Sunflower Ordnance Works in Sunflower. Hercules was a major producer of smokeless powder for warfare.

Hercules Power Company's Sunflower Ordnance Works in 1945. Photo courtesy of the Kansas Historical Society.

By 1950 they were back on the East Coast and built a home on Arnold's parents' farm. They had a son the same year. Arnold retired from the Naval Research Laboratory in 1987. By 1990, Arnold and Joan were living in New Oxford, Pennsylvania. Arnold died on Christmas Day 2003 and Joan died on 27 Jul 2010. Both donated their bodies to science.

I wrote this post because I got interested in the family history due to the differences in what the documentation said and family stories. I wrote about that here and here. I wrote about the Baily sons here and will be writing a future post about the parents.

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