Page 340 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

50, is recorded as marrying Harriett Soothill, aged 46, on 31 December 1918. This would make Fred as being born around 1868 – perhaps another son of Joseph conceived some time after his return from the Civil War. Fred Holroyd Soothill is recorded as dying on 24 December 1954. In fact, Harriet(t) seems to be Harriet Dell (1873-1939) who was born in Wisconsin and died in McHenry, Illinois.
I do not know what ‘H’ stands for in John H. Soothill, but Fred is clearly Fred Holroyd Soothill. Perhaps Holroyd is their mother’s maiden name and that seems worth a try. While Holroyd is an unusual name and hence provides scope for mistakes, there is, for instance, Mary Ann Holroyd who was born in DeKalb, Illinois, in about 1830. Perhaps Joseph met up with Mary Ann after his arrival in the States in 1856, but that all sounds a bit of a long shot.
Of the 6 entries in the 1900 census, four were born in Illinois and two were born in Nebraska. John H. Soothill (1861-1923) who was born in Harvard, Illinois, seems a pivotal figure in the development of the Illinois grouping. Both of John’s parents were born in England. John married Mrs Fannie A. Vasey Gorton on 28 August 1884 in McHenry, Illinois. Fannie was born in July 1857 in Illinois and so seems to have been about four years older than John. John and Fannie seem to have had four children although Jennie V. (born about 1882) seems to have been born out of wedlock. Jennie appears in the 1900 census as living in Shasta, California. Jennie is presumably the Jennie Soothill Wood who is recorded in the Obituary Index of the Belvedere Newspapers (Boone County Illinois) on 25 August 1909 – shown as Colorado or Poplar Grove – and thus will have died at the young age of around 27 years.
John and Fannie’s second child is shown as Jay W. and I assume that this is Jay Henry Soothill who wrote a book with Charles David Kepner, The Banana Republic: A Case Study of Economic Imperialism (published in 1935). The book is dedicated to Enriqueta Chamberlain Soothill. In the Preface it is stated that Jay Henry Soothill held important posts with the United Fruit Company in Costa Rica and Panama. In the 1900, 1910 and 1930 censuses, Jay is shown as being born in
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