The Mysterious Jennie C. Granger

About a year ago, I found an interesting and short blurb in the legal notes of the Chicago Tribune:

Louis E. Granger was ordered to pay alimony to Jennie C. Granger.₁

OK, so who is Jennie C. Granger? Who is Louis E. Granger? It's taken the better part of a year to partially answer these questions.

My great great grand father, Louis Edwin Granger. was living in Chicago at the time - his daughter Gladys was born in Chicago a month earlier.₂ Upon doing a quick search for Louis E. Granger with a wife named Jennie C., I found a marriage record for Beatrice Genieve Granger.₃The maiden name for Jennie Granger is Jennie C. Niles. The births for both parents are listed as United States. 1920 and 1930 Census records indicate Beatrice G. [Granger] Tator's father is from Massachusetts and mother is from New York.₄ Louis Edwin Granger was born in Hardwick, Massachusetts.

Looking through digital papers from New York, I was able to piece together a picture of Jennie C. Granger's family. I knew from her obituary₅ and personal notices around her 1932 death, who her parents were, when and where she was born and who were some members of her family. Here is what I had:

• Jennie's parents were George W. Niles and Lucy Randall.
• Jennie was born in Berlin, Rensselaer county, on May 21, 1859.
• She died March 18, 1932, at the house of her sister, Mrs. Elmer Melio in Round Lake, New York.
• She had lived in Saratoga County, NY for twenty years. She moved in from New York City.
• Her daughter, Beatrice G. Tator, son-in-law, Dr. Tator, and grandson arrived to attend the funeral.
• Her sister, Mary L. N. Curtis, travelled from Florida to attend the funeral.
• At some point she may have been married to a Louis E. Granger from Massachusetts.
• Their daughter Beatrice was born some time in May of 1882.₆
• Jennie or a proxy was in Chicago to sue for alimony.

I still had no indication whether this Louis E. Granger was or was not my great great grand father. I even tried sending a letter to an individual who could be one of Jennie's grandsons. Last month, I tracked down a lead in the Troy Daily Times:

Col. L. E. Granger, late recorder of the United States mint at San Francisco, was married last week to Miss Jennie Miles of Hoosick.₇

Louis Edwin Granger was living in San Francisco starting in about 1877.₈  According to the 1880 census Jennie Niles is living with her mother and step-father in Hoosick.₉ She is listed as a school teacher. So it looks very likely, Jennie C. Niles of Hoosick is the fourth wife of Louis Edwin Granger.

Update 11 February 2015: I found a divorce announcement in the Chicago Inter-Ocean, dated September 16, 1887. Next stop. Cook County Circuit Court Archives.

Notes:
¹"Legal Notes", Chicago Daily Tribune (1872-1922); Feb 11, 1890; ProQuest Historical Newspapers: Chicago Tribune (1849-1990) pg. 9, accessed 17 March 2014
²See "Illinois, Cook County Birth Certificates, 1878-1938," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/NQT9-JJC : accessed 4 February 2015), Gladys Granger, 10 Jan 1890; citing Chicago, Cook, Illinois, United States, reference/certificate 3424, Cook County Courthouse, Chicago; FHL microfilm 1,287,896. and "Illinois, Cook County Birth Registers, 1871-1915," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/N7QQ-SM9 : accessed 4 February 2015), Gladys Granger, 10 Jan 1890; citing v 21 p 82, Chicago, Cook, Illinois, Cook County Courthouse, Chicago; FHL microfilm 1,287,734.
³"New York, County Marriages, 1908-1935," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/V6HP-QYL : accessed 4 February 2015), Arthur Earl Tator and Beatrice Genieve Grauger, 08 Jun 1911; citing , New York, United States, county offices, New York; FHL microfilm 1,287,480. and "New York, County Marriages, 1908-1935," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/FFT4-2BT : accessed 4 February 2015), Arthur Earl Tator and Beatrice Genieveve Granger, 14 Jun 1911; citing Saratoga, New York, United States, county offices, New York; FHL microfilm 1,287,474.
⁴See "United States Census, 1920," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/M4YR-NZ6 : accessed 4 February 2015), Beatrice Tater in household of Dr. A E Tater, Summit Ward 1, Union, New Jersey, United States; citing sheet 12B, family 245, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 1,821,072. and "United States Census, 1930," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X4NX-FS4 : accessed 4 February 2015), Beatrice G Tator in household of Arthur E Tator, Summit, Union, New Jersey, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 0153, sheet 2A, family 30, line 50, NARA microfilm publication T626 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 2002), roll 1389; FHL microfilm 2,341,124.The 1900 census lists both parents from New York. At that time Beatrice was living with her Aunt, Mary Curtis.
⁵"Round Lake", Ballston Spa Daily Journal; April 2, 1932; Old Fulton County Postcards (http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html accessed 30 May 2014) pg. 3. "Round Lake News", The Saratogian; April 1, 1932; Old Fulton County Postcards (http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html accessed 30 May 2014) pg. 9. "Village shocked by two deaths", The Saratogian; March 29, 1932; Old Fulton County Postcards (http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html accessed 30 May 2014), pg. 10. "Round Lake", The Troy Times; March 29, 1932; Old Fulton County Postcards (http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html accessed 30 May 2014) pg. 2.
⁶Beatrice birthdate is something of a mystery. I don't currently have a birth certificate, but census records and her marriage record indicate May 1882 as the best guess for her birth. May 1882 is the date given on the 1900 Census, and she is 28 when she marries Arthur Earl Tator in April 1911. Later she would claim birth dates in 1884 and 1886. She consistently lists her birthplace as New York City.
⁷Troy Daily Times; October 4, 1880; Old Fulton County Postcards (http://www.fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html accessed 30 May 2014) n. p.
⁸Louis registered to vote 31 July 1877 in San Francisco. See California State Library, California History Section; Great Registers, 1866-1898; Collection Number: 4 - 2A; CSL Roll Number: 44; FHL Roll Number: 977100
⁹"United States Census, 1880," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MZF8-PYH : accessed 30 May 2014), Jennie C Niles in household of Marshall Haynes, Hoosick, Rensselaer, New York, United States; citing enumeration district 160, sheet 254D, NARA microfilm publication T9 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.), roll 0922; FHL microfilm 1,254,922.

Sustainable Academic Publishing

Sustainable has become the buzzword for libraries lately: sustainable buildings, sustainable collections, sustainable instruction. We think about  budgets, the environment, and services. At some level there is an anxiety that libraries can't keep doing things the way we are doing them. There is an equal anxiety that libraries are not doing what we should.

There are four problems that keep activities from being sustainable:₁

• Creating more waste than natural cycles can handle - the "horse manure" problem₂
• Extracting more materials from the earth than natural cycles can handle - the "heavy metal poisoning" problem
• Using resources faster than they can be generated - the "clear cut" problem
• Inhibiting people from accessing basic needs - the "everyone wants to eat" problem

Sustainable academic publishing would addressed all these problems. Right now, in my opinion the biggest problem keeping academic publish from being sustainable is "every one wants to eat". Academic publishing requires a distinct set of services: creation, peer-review, copy editing, distribution and preservation. At each step of the way, the people providing these services need to be able to meet needs. The scholars, excepting those with non-academic day jobs or large estates, want paid academic positions as either teachers or researchers. Publishers coordinating peer-review, copy editing, and distribution have a host of employees and owners, unless heavily subsidized, need to at least meet costs and possibly turn a profit for the owners. Librarians coordinating distribution and preservation want to live free from poverty and have time to spend with their families.

None of the models - not open green, not open gold, not membership, not traditional publishing, address preserving meaningful work and ensuring all the people in the value stream have the means to support themselves. One possible solution would be to change publishing business models back to individual subscriptions only. Libraries would have the responsibility to archive materials. This would function as a de facto embargo - materials wouldn't be freely available until they were sold to libraries for archive purposes. It's not a great solution, but it is workable, given agreement between all of the players.

¹Sustainability Illustrated, 4 Root Causes of Unsustainability, accessed 16 January 2015
²Horses were a real pollution problem in 19th Century Cities. For example, see: When Horses Posed a Public Health Hazard, City Room Blogging from the Five Boroughs, New York Times, 9 June 2008, accessed 19 January 2015