By Teresa
Martin Klaiber, April 2019
My
cousins and I adored our Grandmother Page.
Born Clara Page Geer, the daughter of George Page Geer and
Clara Kilbourne[1]. She
was a strong woman born, as they say, before her time. She had divorced my grandfather[2],
but said she would always love him. She worked
for the American Red Cross with enthusiasm during WWII. She was a teacher both in public school and at
home with her grandchildren. She loved
horses and horse races. She loved family
history and took great pride in her early New England heritage. She taught me to love research which would
define and form, not just a hobby, but, a career in genealogy. Just as I adored
her, she would say she had adored her father, as a child.
When
I asked her, at an early age, why we called her Page she would smile and
say, simply that she was named for her father George Page Geer. George Page Geer bore the name of the
American Progenitor George Geer[3].
She did not know why his middle name was Page, but she loved her name
because she loved him. Then her story about her father would unfold.
She
was eight years old when her father had a stroke and she would sit by his
bedside while he told her stories about his brothers, a chair factory, and
Vermont cooking. She remembered letters from a sister (unnamed) in Oregon but
none survived. Her father died before her ninth birthday.
When
asked if there was a picture of her father she replied that the only one had
accidently been torn up. Her most prized
possession was a letter dated April 1905 when he wrote her in Parkersburg,
WV. He had gone to Clarksburg selling
Singer Sewing Machines and preparing to move there. He began the letter “My Dear little Pagie”
and ending with “…thought good bye darling kisses.”
George
Page Geer died 2 February 1913 in Clarksburg, West Virginia, after a
second stroke. Her mother wrote the
death date in the Roswell Kilbourne bible along with their wedding date.
My
grandmother corresponded several times with her uncle Gardner Talmadge Geer’s
family thru the years. Grandmother Page
knew that there was a brother Silas, the sister in Oregon and thru that
correspondence that Gardner Talmadge Geer had “disappeared.” A copy of George Page Geer’s marriage
to Clara Kilbourne stated he was born Plattsburgh, Clinton County, New York the
son of Edmund and Almira Bartlett Geer.
A
good genealogist works from the known to the unknown with documentation. Sounds simple enough. Starting with George Page Geer’s death
date 2 February 1913 I searched for a death certificate in West Virginia. To date no death certificate has been
located. The Clarksburg Daily Telegram did publish his death stating that the body
would be taken to Ashland, Kentucky for burial.
As a researcher I checked Kentucky for a death certificate without
success. During that time frame if a body
was removed from one state to another there should be a Burial Transfer Form. I
found those in mass disarray in the basement of the Boyd County Board of
Health. Spending hours of sorting and looking at each one – no Burial Transfer Form
survives, if there was one. The Ashland
Cemetery Records show that the burial took place 5 February 1913. As a child my grandmother and I visited the family
plot together many times.
George
Page Geer was 46 years old, (born 18 July 1855, Plattsburg) when he
married and told the officials it was his first marriage. Besides giving his
parent’s names, at the time of marriage in 1902, George Page Geer also
stated that he was residing in Parkersburg and a carpenter. From research I know that Parkersburg Chair Company was in
business during the time he lived there but to date have found no employment
records. The first city directory we
find shows George Page Geer as assistant manager for Singer Sewing
Company. Singer Sewing Company has no
records either.
Using
every conceivable method and sound-x George Page Geer, G. P. Geer, etc. cannot
be located on the 1900 census in the United States. Neither does his brother Gardner Talmadge
Geer, whose family states he disappeared and is living in Duluth, Minnesota. Brother Silas, a carpenter is also missing
from the census in 1900 but shows up in Michigan with his wife by 1910. Without going into research detail, I was
able to locate The Oregon sister, Mary Elizabeth Geer Heaton living in Douglas
County, Oregon in 1900.
Prior
to his marriage to my great grandmother, George Page Geer’s life is a complete
mystery. His parents appear on the 1850
Saranac, Clinton County, New York Census.
There are no existing birth records for Plattsburg or Saranac for
1855. George Page Geer’s parents
show up in Shefford, Canada in the 1861 Canadian Census along with Gardner age
15, Silas 13, Tapher 8, Mary 4 and Philip 2. George Page Geer has been left
out of the census. Tapher[4]
and Philip do not live to adulthood.
Brother
Silas was the first to move back to the United States showing up in Afton,
Minnesota in 1870. Father Edmund Geer
sold his land in 1868 in Shefford, Canada and by 1872 has a homestead in
Morrison County, Minnesota. By then
George Page Geer is 17 years of age and could well be out in the world
on his own. His father states that he
has four children in 1872 which would include George Page Geer, but not
by name. George Page Geer does
not appear on the 1875 Minnesota state census. In fact, he does not appear in
any census located to date. A mysterious
life for 46 years.
I
have been able to document Edmund Geer’s life in Canada and his pedigree. A descendent of George Geer first mentioned in
this article, Edmund’s grandmother Sarah “Sally” Swan Geer’s own grandmother
was Mary Page Woods daughter of Jonathan Page born 24 June 1677
in Watertown, British America[5]
and grandson of John Page born in 1586 in Essex England. Page came to
America with Winthrop’s Fleet.
While
Grandmother Page cherished her April 1905 letter, I can only imagine
what she would have thought of the discovery of a letter dated November 1630
when John Rogers wrote John Winthrop, Jr. that John Page of Dedham, his
wife and two children were starving “entreating you for Gods sake to provide
such a barrell of meale as this money will reach…”[6]
My
grandmother, Clara Page Geer Martin died in 1998 extremely proud of her
New England Kilbourne and Geer heritage but never knowing her own name honored another
American progenitor, John Page. As
she taught me, I will not give up. I
will continue to research her father and his brothers trying to unravel the
mysteries.
[1]
Clara “Callie” Kilbourne b. 19 Jan. 1870 Lawrence Co., OH m George Page Geer 11
June 1902, Ashland, Boyd, KY
[2]
Clara Page Geer m. Henry Kautz Martin 27 Dec 1922, Portsmouth, Scioto, OH.
Divorced 6 Jan. 1944.
[4]
Named for her grandmother Tapher Thomas Bartlett.
[5]
Son of John Page and Faith Dunster.
[6]
Massachusetts Historical Society. Papers of the Winthrop Family, Volume 2.
