In today’s Black Sheep Sunday entry, we’re going to take a look at my fourth cousin 3 times removed, Loren William Crews, and his marriage to Hazel R. Crews. Loren was born 1 July 1885 in Lynnville, Iowa; he was the son of James Benjamin and Sarah W. (Meredith) Crews. Sarah was the great-great-granddaughter of Moses Sweeney, subject of an earlier post here.
I’m still trying to wrap my head around all the details of this story, but here’s what I’ve been able to piece together. In the 1900 census, Loren appears in Richland, Jasper County, Iowa, with his parents, James and Sarah; sister Emma, 18; and a boarder named Harvey Downer. James and Sarah are listed as having been married for 19 years at the time.1
The next household to be enumerated by the census-taker was that of John and Lilly Crews, with their children Robert, 9; Iva May, 7; Glynn Leroy, 6; Benjamin, 3; and Doratha, 1. What is not clear from this is that John was the half-brother of James. John was the son of James Benjamin Crews and his first wife, Henrietta Stultz and was born 3 January 1868 in Indiana.2 In 1910, John and “Lillie” were enumerated in Dallas, Iowa; completing the household now were Robert, 19; Iva, 17; Glen, 15; Benjamin, 12; Dorthy, 11; and Hazel, 9.3
But back to Loren. On 15 April 1905 in Lynnville, he married Essie May Beason; he was 19, and she was 17.4 Together they had 5 children: Clifford Lyle, born in 1907; Audrey Leon, 1910; Beryl Louis, 1912; Gerald Gordon, 1915; and Lucille Ardean, 1917. Sometime after Lucille’s birth, Loren and Essie divorced. Essie would remarry in 1921. On 15 September 1919 at Lancaster, Missouri, a Loren Crews married Jessie McKeag; whether or not this is our Loren Crews, I am not sure.5 If so, that marriage does not appear to have lasted.
On 8 March 1921, Loren married again. But who was the happy bride this time? Hazel Crews, daughter of Loren’s brother John. So yes, Loren’s niece. They were married in Savanna, Illinois; Uncle Loren was 35 (though later reports listed him as 33), and Hazel was about 17(ish). After they were married, the newlyweds moved to Iowa. Hazel’s family, understandably, was not happy about these developments, and at some point legal actions were initiated.
On 8 April 1922, the Waterloo, Iowa Courier reported that a sheriff from Dallas County (Iowa) had arrested Loren after a lengthy search including investigations into Loren’s numerous aliases. Loren and Hazel were found living at 1005 1-2 Commercial Street along with their infant son. They had been in Waterloo for two months, and the newspaper describes Hazel and her son as being left “destitute…friendless and alone.”6
Two weeks later, according to the Iowa Consecutive Registers of Convicts, Loren was convicted of incest and sentenced to a maximum of 25 years in prison. He entered the penitentiary at Fort Madison on 22 April. The record lists him as 33 years old and a native of Iowa, “temperate” and with a poor education. For someone who could have served a quarter-century behind bars, Loren was lucky. The “Disposition” column on his record reads “4-18-24 Paroled.”7
Before that happened, though, sadly, Loren and Hazel’s small son died. Leonard Crews, 6 days shy of his first birthday, died at the Iowa City Hospital on 29 October 1922. His death certificate indicates his cause of death was “very likely tuberculosis.”8 Leonard’s brief obituary notes that “The parents are the only survivors,” without mentioning that one of the said parents was currently incarcerated.9
Had baby Leonard been the only thing linking Hazel to Loren, or did Hazel find she could not make it on her own? Whatever the reason, it appears that in spite of not including her parents as survivors of Leonard, after his death she returned home to them. In the 5 December 1923 Rock Island Argus, we learn that Hazel and Loren’s marriage was deemed illegal. The couple’s marriage was annulled and/or they were divorced; the article names both outcomes,10 though The Dispatch of Moline, Illinois, on 27 December 1923, lists them as having their divorce granted.11
What became of our ne’er-do-well cousin after his son’s death, his divorce from Hazel, and his parole? Apparently he married for a third time, though thankfully not to another niece. This wife was Lenore “Nora” Thomas; when the couple married on 1 June 1926 in Oskaloosa, Iowa, Loren was 40 and Nora was 28. It does not appear they had any children of their own; they moved to Mountain View, California, sometime around 1948, and he worked as a janitor for the Mackay Radio and Telegraph Company of Palo Alto for five years before his death in 1958. He was survived by four of the five children he had had with first wife Essie;12 sadly, their daughter Audrey had been killed in 1951 when a train struck the car in which she had been riding during a rainstorm.13
And Hazel? She would marry again also. On 28 January 1926 in Morrison, Illinois, she married Dewey Johnston. They engaged in farming in the “Perry, Dawson, and Redfield area.” Though they also do not appear to have had any children of their own, they raised a nephew, Tom Johnson (“Johnston”?). Dewey died in 1971. Hazel lived until 25 July 1984, dying at age 84.
- Year: 1900; Census Place: Richland, Jasper, Iowa; Roll: 439; Page: 3; Enumeration District: 0034 ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- Year: 1910; Census Place: Benton, Beaver, Oklahoma; Roll: T624_1242; Page: 8b; Enumeration District: 0017; FHL microfilm: 1375255 ↩︎
- Iowa Department of Public Health; Des Moines, Iowa; Iowa Marriage Records, 1880–1922; Record Type: Marriage ↩︎
- The Excelsior [Lancaster, Missouri], 18 September 1919, pg. 2 ↩︎
- The Courier [Waterloo, Iowa], 8 April 1922, pg. 8. ↩︎
- Ancestry.com. Iowa, U.S., Consecutive Registers of Convicts, 1867-1970 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015. This collection was indexed by Ancestry World Archives Project contributors. ↩︎
- State Historical Society of Iowa; Des Moines, IA, USA; Iowa Death Records, 1921-1940 ↩︎
- The Rock Island [Illinois] Argus, 31 October 1922, pg. 20. ↩︎
- The Rock Island [Illinois] Argus, 5 December 1923, pg. 10. ↩︎
- The Dispatch [Moline, Illinois], 27 December 1923, pg. 3. ↩︎
- The Peninsula Times Tribune [Palo Alto, California], 8 January 1958, pg. 4. ↩︎
- “Beryl Crews, 2840 Alta,” death, National City Star-News, 9 November 1951, notice of death of Beryl Crews’s sister Audrey; online images, Newspapers.com (www.newspapers.com : online 13 December 2021). ↩︎