1920. James I Decker age 36 lives in New Freedom with Nora 33, Ethel F 16, Pauline M 14 and Lydia 80.

1930. James I Decker age 51 lives in New Freedom with Nora 45, Pauline M 24 and Lydia 90.

1930. Ethel is no doubt the Ethel Koller living in New Freedom with husband Charles O Koller.

1940. James Decker age 61 lives in New Freedom with Nora 55 and Ethel 36. Ethel is said to be divorced.

I would guess Lydia is the mother of James. She said her father was born in England. The ages of James and Nora are somewhat discrepant between the two Census listings, but Nora was born in about 1885-1887. I remember her living with C LeRoy and Ethel in the 1950’s. But I remember her as quite ederly, she really was only in her 60’s.

On LDS Film 22205, I found a membership roll of Trinity Methodist Episcopal Church in New Freedom, probably from the 1940’s sometime. In addition to the family of C Leroy Curry -- including Mrs. Lida, Margaret (her transfer to Sunbury noted), Roxie, Mervin and Virginia (her marriage to Guy Leader Jr. noted) -- there is also the family of James Decker -- including Mrs. Nora and Ethel (single).

Becky wrote: “Did you know that Grandma Ethel's first husband was a Koller?  We were in Westminster last fall and I got a copy of the marriage application for Ethel Decker and Carl LeRoy Curry.

C. Leroy and Ethel F. Decker were married by Rev. Mellott at St. Johns' Methodist Church in Hampstead, Md. on 4 Dec. 1950. Rev. Mellott had been the minister at Trinity Methodist in New Freedom. Ethel said that she had been divorced in York, PA on June 18, 1934. Ethel was the daughter of James I. and Nora Roystson Decker. Ethel died Novem 13, 1987.

Grandpa Curry married again, about a year-and-a-half after Lida died. His second wife, Ethel Decker, had been an antique dealer. She had been married previously and divorced 18 Jun 1934. Her first husband was Charles O Koller, great-grandson of Peter Koller by his second wife Eve Klinefelter. Grandpa Curry and Charles Koller were (half) second cousins. Ethel survived Carl LeRoy by 35 years and was living at a retirement home in York when she died.

So, Ethel, who had married twice, lived to be 84 -- but was only actually married less than 11 of those years.

One of the things I pay close attention to for all of our ancestors is whether I can prove who their parents were. Typically, the more generations back they were in our family tree, the more careful I am. For recent ancestors, it is usually pretty easy to find people in Census with their parents plus there is also the fact that people I knew lived during the life span of the parents, even if I myself didn’t. So the facts are just well known. So, I’m not always as careful with our grandparents and their parents to find that documentation.

But it occurred to me at some point that I really didn’t have any proof that James Thomas Curry was C LeRoy’s father. I had no reason to doubt it but I had no proof.

It is curious, but explainable, that Carl LeRoy Curry was never found in Census living with his parents. He was born in 1883 and no doubt was listed with his parents in the 1890 Census -- but that is the one that was totally lost. By 1900, at age 17, he lived, apart from his parents, with Nelson Norris who ran the store Grandpa was working for.

But we can still use Census as one form of proof that Carl LeRoy was the son of James T and Margaret Curry by observing that Carl LeRoy’s known brother and sisters were at various times reported as living with their parents. For example, Bettie, who married James Farnum and was the mother of our mother’s cousin Jimmy, lived with her parents in 1900 and 1910.

Strangely, the first document I ever saw that established the relationship beyond a doubt was a newspaper article. In the Baltimore Sun dated 21 Oct 1909, there was a report on the wedding yesterday of Carl LeRoy Curry of Buffalo City, NC and Lida Slade Hoshall. It said he was the son of Mr. and Mrs. James T Curry of Whitehall and she the daughter of C M Hoshall.

But then I found the baptism record of both Carl LeRoy and Uncle Irving. They were baptized on the same day at the First Methodist United Church in 1884 in Hanover, Pennsylvania.

I had always just thought I knew that Carl LeRoy was born in Maryland and then after living in NC then MD again was the first Curry to come to New Freedom. But that has proven untrue in several respects. For one thing, his father had moved to New Freedom, Third Street in fact, some years prior to LeRoy’s move there.

But even more interesting, the marriage application for Mom and Dad, signed by (and I suspect for the most part completed by) C LeRoy Curry, Justice of the Peace, said he was born in Iron Ridge, PA. We know, from the 1880 Census taken before C L was born, his father was living with his married sister in Heidelberg, York County while his mother was living with her father in Maryland. Apparently, they both then lived in Pennsylvania in the early 1880’s.

So he is hard to pin down. He was born in Pennsylvania and lived there the latter half of his life. He lived several places in North Carolina including Fayetteville where our Mother was born. But to me, he was, originaly, a Marylander.

Carl LeRoy clearly moved around a good bit as a young man prior to settling permanently in New Freedom. He worked for a number of different stores starting with the Norris store by age 17. Then, a newspaper article from the Stewartstown News, datelined Locust Vale, found by Becky Curry reported on February 17, 1905 "Mr. LeRoy Curry, manager for the store of J C Hollingsworth, Wheel Co., at Wheel, MD visited his parents, Mr. and Mrs. J T Curry, last Saturday and Sunday at Gorsuch."

We know that Mom was born in Fayetteville, NC and the obvious story -- even Aunt Ginny believed it -- is that Carl LeRoy and Lida moved from Maryland to Fayetteville and that he was a storekeeper there.

But that story seems to leave out one stop. Aunt Ginny gave me some pictures that showed some scenes from the life of Carl LeRoy Curry in Buffalo City, NC in the "Little Dismal Swamp". Aunt Ginny said it was near Fayetteville, NC and she thought it had to do with his life after his marriage. On the back of a picture of some barges loaded with wood had been written "barges towing 40 card loads each of timber from Buffalo to Elizabeth City -- 60 miles, 14 hours." Another picture showed a man standing in front of the Dareforest Store.

Thus there were several clues that this was not Fayetteville. First, Elizabeth City is in Northeastern North Carolina and is way more than 60 miles from Fayetteville, even by land. Second, the Dismal Swamp is at the VA-NC line, so it would seem the Little Dismal might be nearby. And third, the name "Dareforest Store" brings Dare County to mind, which is also found in Northeastern North Carolina.

So I went on the Internet and found Buffalo City “An extinct village on the mainland east of East Lake on Rt 64, Post Office opened 11 October 1889 and closed 15 August 1903, then re-opened 29 February 1908 and closed 11 June 1947. The village was a lumbering camp, wood cut here, then ferried or rafted to Elizabeth City.”

Later, Becky Curry asked me if I could explain why the return address given by Carl LeRoy on his marriage application said Elizabeth City, which of course by then I could. And the newspaper article about his marriage said he was of Buffalo City, NC.

So, it seems clear that Carl LeRoy must have worked at this lumber camp in Buffalo City, NC between his time in Wheel and his marriage in 1909 and that is confirmed by another newspaper article Becky found, dated 15 Feb 1907, that C L Curry had lately left for North Carolina to be a bookkeeper at the Coharie Lumber Company.

By 1917, they had moved to somewhere in Maryland and Carl LeRoy operated a store there when Aunt Roxie was born. Then by 1921, when Mervin was born, they all had moved to Trump, MD where Carl LeRoy operated another store. By 1922, when Aunt Ginny was born, they had moved to New Freedom, PA and Carl LeRoy opened a bank. The bank soon closed and Carl LeRoy became Purchasing Manager at The American Insulator, a job he held then until he retired.

He was born in 1883, the 1890 Census when we would have found him with his parents was totally lost. By 1900, at age 17, Carl LeRoy was apparently off working somewhere and no longer living at home. In 1910 and 1920, he lived in a different place than his parents. Finally, in 1930, Carl LeRoy and his parents lived near each other, they were neighbors in New Freedom.

In 1900, he was indexed as Ray Arms and what was ED #6 of Bal County was mistakenly included by Ancestry as if part of Bal City. But he was living with Nelson Norris who ran a General Store and Roy worked for that store.

In 1910, he was head of household in Fayetteville, Mom had not yet been born.

In 1920, he was back in Baltimore County and in 1930 in New Freedom -- with our Mother present in both cases.

I have in my possession a letter written by Carl LeRoy to his daughter Margaret on Huske Hardware House (of Fayetteville, NC) letterhead which starts out: "I walked back to the store tonight to write you and Momma this letter...". The letter is not dated but from the tone he is writing his young daughter and I would assume it was written in the 1915-1917 period when Mom was 4 or 5 or 6 and Carl LeRoy was still in Fayetteville. It sounds like Mom and Grandma had gone off on a little vacation.

I believe this is a strong clue that he may have worked for Huske Hardware House and so I did some research and learned that it was indeed a thriving downtown hardware store at 405 Hay Street around the turn of the century and it was located one street over and a couple of blocks up from where Carl LeRoy was living at the time of the 1910 Census. Today the Huske Hardware House still operates at that same downtown location but it has come back as a micro-brewpub and lunch place, quite nicely redone.

Carl LeRoy died when his gun went off while he was out in his garage in New Freedom. I’m certain Mom told me it was an accident that he had been cleaning his gun and it went off, but somewhere I got in my head that it had been suicide. I asked Aunt Ginny and she shrugged her shoulders as if to say -- no one knows. So I sent off for the coroner’s report from the York County Archives and it says “suicide by shooting”.

This story gets even more curious, though, because after Aunt Ginny died, Amy Leader gave me some old papers and photos that were moreso “our family” than “Leader”. And among those papers, I found a note written to Guy Leader by Grandpa three days before he shot himself stating that he had a financial setback of some kind and asking Guy if he could repay some of the principal on the loan outstanding between them.

What could that possibly have been about? What kind of financial reversal could it have been? How much money did Grandpa need? He was living, after all, at Ethel’s house. What kind of financial arrangement did he and Ethel have? Grandpa may or may not have had some kind of pension from American Insulator so I went looking for any record of some change in that company’s fortunes or involving the New Freedom plant at about that time. I can find nothing. I would also have thought Grandpa would have received Social Security but as he was not listed on their death index, I’m not sure about that. It is all very curious.