Stewart VanVliet

Yes you read it right - can't complain about the Irish with this one.  Stewart is one of my wife's ancestors who lived in Shrewsbury, NJ and is my father-in-law's (second?) cousin.  I would have to start a whole blog to cover my wife's family - especially on her father's side.  They consist of numerous West Pointers, including at least two generals and three burials in Arlington National Cemetery that I know of.  But this was kind of a local story that I happened upon by accident the other day.  I thought it was interesting - so I'm throwing it into the mix.

On Wednesday, I was working in the Shrewsbury area, and needed to use a rest room.  So I went to the Shrewsbury municipal building to use the facility.  When I walked through the lobby, I noticed two or three plaques on the wall put up by the local Boy Scout Troop.  The plaque had names of Eagle Scouts in the local Troop.  On my way out, I was looking through the names and when I got to the first name on the first plaque, I was surprised to see Stewart VanVliet and the date Aug 16, 1935.  So apparently he was the first Eagle Scout in Troop 50:

It's tough to see, so I took another picture:

There - that's better.  Top left on the plaque.  So I called my wife to tell her about  my find.  She really doesn't get as excited about this kind of stuff as I do - but actually there are very few people that get as excited as I do about this stuff.

When I got home, I went on Ancestry to check and see how old he was, where he lived in Shrewsbury, and who his father was, etc... Turns out that he is a junior, his father is also Stewart. Our Eagle Scout was born in 1920 - so he was only 15 when he made Eagle Scout, which is impressive (I think) maybe it was different back then.  So I checked my family tree program and saw that he died in 1950, and I was actually saddened by that - thinking of the promising future  that he never had.  It was at this point that I vaguely remembered my father-in-law telling me about a relative who was killed in a train wreck.  So my wife gets interested and goes on her ipad and searches for fatal train wrecks in 1950.  The response she gets is a train wreck - which is actually the third worst wreck in the country in terms of lives lost and injuries - in Woodbridge in 1951.  The wreck occurred on 6 Feb 1951, I checked my database again, and I had that Stewart died on 6 Feb 1950.  So I said to her that maybe my info was off by one year, after all that is quite a coincidence.  So I go on my ipad - so now we have dueling ipads going, and I search for the same criteria and I get the same train wreck on a different website.  The website is GenDisasters.com and I find out about this horrific train wreck on 6 Feb 1951 which resulted in 82 deaths and 500 injuries.  I read through the story and at the end is a list of Casualties.  Among the dead is listed Stewart VanVliet, age 30, Sycamore Ave. Shrewsbury, NJ - Holy Cow that's him.  In 2001, New Jersey Transit placed at plaque at the Woodbridge Station:

This is a link to the website and story with some photos and casualty list:  http://www3.gendisasters.com/new-jersey/2163/woodbridge%2C-nj-commuter-train-plunges-trestle%2C-feb-1951

Now for my Paul Harvey imitation: "Now here's the rest of the story"  The day that I found all of this stuff was 6 Feb 2013 - exactly 62 years after his death.  I told the story to my sister, and she asked if I thought it was spooky.  So I told her "No, they call it genealogical serendipity" so she asked if that is really what I would call it.  I told her "No, I call it creepy - but that's what some genealogists would call it."

Arthur J Valleau

I' gonna go back to the Valleaus for this post, I recently got two comments from people searching for Valleaus, so I gonna cast in this pond one more time.

While doing research for my last two blog entries about the Valleaus in my family, I noticed that there was another occupant of the house in Tenafly in the 1920 Census.  Besides Charles and Mary, and their daughter Gertrude, was Charles’ mother Susie, and an Arthur J Valleau, whom I assumed to be their son.  Until I noticed that the entire family was born in New York and New Jersey, except for Arthur.  He was born in Omaha, Nebraska – wow, I didn’t see that coming.  It was then that I noticed his relationship to head of household – Nephew, and he is 10 years old.  In next census, he is listed as – Adopted Son.  So I assumed that he must be the son of a brother of Charles (because they have the same surname, and Arthur is listed as nephew).  But what happened to Arthur’s parents?  Hmmm, there has got to be a blog in here somewhere.  I am always searching for blog fodder, and lately the Valleaus have been a rich source.

A check of the 1900 census in Bayonne, reveals that Charles is living with his family, which includes a brother George P.  After obtaining his brother’s name, I checked the 1910 census for Omaha NE.  This census show George Valleau as 26 years old, employed as a plumber, married for one year to Bessie, age 18, from Iowa, and their five month old son, Arthur.  The census was taken on 28 Apr 1910, which means Arthur was probably born in November 1909.  I should probably mention that spelling counts when searching a census index.  The name was spelled "Vallean", but who ever read it thought the "u" was an "n", probably an easy mistake.  So when I searched ancestry.com I listed the last name as "Vall* "  The * is considered a wild card and the results will show names starting with Vall.  Just thought that may come in handy some time.

My next move was to check Omaha Nebraska newspapers for the time range of about 1908 to 1912, and see if there is any mention of George P. Valleau.  So I went on GenealogyBank and entered the search criteria.  I got back two results which referred to our man.  The first was a small article in the Omaha World Herald, dated 31 Jan 1909 and it listed people applying for marriage licenses in Omaha.  Listed there is George P. Valleau and Bess Hubbard, this is the right time frame, since Arthur is apparently born in November.

The second article was a small paragraph in the Omaha World Herald evening of 15 Aug 1911, saying that the United States Supply Company had attached the stock belonging to George P. Valleau, plumber who has left home suddenly last week and has not returned.  It goes on to say that he runs a plumbing establishment at Fortieth and Cumings Sts and has a wife and baby in Omaha.  It is only a small paragraph, but gives a lot of information.  That was the last that I found of George P. Valleau - so far.

Now is when Arthur shows up in New Jersey with his Uncle Charles and Aunt Mary, as well as, his cousin Gertrude (the subject of a previous blog).  So now, I find an entry in the Social Security Death Index, which says that Arthur was born 11 Nov 1909 (ten months after the marriage license) and died 20 Dec 1999 at age 90, in Flemington, NJ.

Then I found Arthur's obit in the Bergen Record 21 Dec 1999

This is obviously not the obit from the newspaper, but I found it on Genealogybank.  I had read something before about him being a tree expert, but I did not know that he was in the US Army Air Corps during WWII - just like my dad's two brothers.

Next move was to call Barrett Funeral home in Tenafly.  A very nice woman said that she would pull the file and call me back, which she did.  She had his parents listed as George P and Elizabeth Valleau, but she also had a wife listed in the file as Ruth Webb.  The last item that I got from her was that his daughter made the arrangements.  I have recently located a phone number and address for her, and I am debating how to contact her.  I also contacted the cemetery that the funeral home gave me as his place of burial - The Westwood Cemetery on Kenderkamack Rd in, you guessed it, Westwood, NJ in Bergen County.  I got a call back from them and apparently Arthur is buried with his wife in the Webb family plot - No George or Elizabeth Valleau.

The last thing is that I have also been in contact with the Bergen County Surrogates Office in reference to obtaining the adoption file - if there is one.  I would love to see what happened to his parents George and Bess, and how he came to live with Charles and Mary.  I wonder if there was a formal adoption or if Charles and Mary just cared for him as though he was their own son.  Since he is not really a blood relation, I am debating how much time to put into this.  Anyway, I thought it was a good story and I enjoyed investigating it.  That is - after all - the fun part, and there is more to this story to find out.