Meanwhile...I'm still trying to find "Lucy"!

She was the very first ancestor I found without my mother's assistance.  We knew she should be there, in Crown Point, Indiana.  We had a census roll (on microfilm) sent to our local public library.  I sat by myself, in a dark room going page by page, searching for Lucy.  When I found her, I was so excited!!! I think I squealed out loud, because the librarian came running into the room!  

Since then (more than 35 years later) I've learned a lot more about my great, great grandmother.  Lucy McAuley/McColley was born in November of 1857 in Illinois (probably in DeKalb County).  Her parents were James "Nelson" McColley/McAuley and Mary Ann Jones.  They had 5 children, and Lucy was the youngest.  Poor little Lucy was only 4 years old when her mother died in 1861.  Later that year, "Nelson" was married to a woman who was 34 years younger than himself.  Within a few years the family relocated to Crown Point, Lake County, Indiana.  But not before they married off little Lucy.  

Lucy was married in 1866.  If the earliest census records are correct, she would have only been 9 years old.  Later census info gives her birth year as 1851 making her 15 at the time of the marriage.  I find either to be appalling!  Her husband, Jeremiah McColley, was 13-16 years older...And he was her first cousin.  Her father gave consent to the marriage.  By age 20 (or 26) she had given birth to 5 children.  


By April of 1883, Lucy's husband divorced her.  The papers claim that she had "committed adultery with Henry Smith in the fall of 1881, with Harrison Post in the Fall of 1882, and with an 'unknown man' as well as with 'persons unknown'."  (By the way, Jeremiah went on to marry and divorce at least one more wife by using the same grounds.  And Henry Smith was the father of Lucy's daughter's future husband.)  Two of Lucy's sons ended up having trouble as teens and ended up in a juvenile home within a few months of the divorce. One of them died there a year later from tetanus. And Lucy appears to have fled back to  Northern Illinois, where she married again in July of 1883.  Perhaps she went to her sister Sarah who remained there?  

My heart still resides with Lucy.  I wish I knew the real story.  I believe that she was only a child at the time of her first marriage.  I don't know how she could have left her children behind, but perhaps she had little choice.  Perhaps she was a very troubled young lady...and who could blame her?  She died in the "County Asylum" in Lake County, Indiana at the age of  59.  So she did come back.  Nothing was said of her to my aunts and uncle, to my knowledge.  Jeremiah "Jerry", was talked about, but not Lucy.  I "side" with Lucy, who I believe was a victim of child abuse, and perhaps even spousal abuse. 

I'm not done...I want to know more.  I will always be searching for Lucy.