This 1883 article in The Marion Star is curious, for it seems to describe the visit of Jane Elizabeth (Cockrell) Beerbower (1857-1930) with her little son John Beerbower. The problem is that all the birth dates I have found for their only known son, Percy John, state that he was born 18 Jan 1885- two years AFTER this news story.
Johnny Beerbower, the popular young clerk in the Post Office, is John Eleazer Beerbower (1858-1929). He did live with his brother Samuel Taylor Beerbower’s family and is enumerated there in the 1880 census on 19 Jun 1880. Johnny was listed as a clerk in the Postmaster’s Office, and Samuel was listed as the Postmaster. (Surely no nepotism here…) So that part of the story fits well.
Sometime in 1880 Johnny moved to Indianapolis from Marion, Ohio, and on 01 May 1881 he married Jane Elizabeth Cockrell, also known as Jennie.
One explanation for the above story might be that the young John that visited was actually a first child named after his father who died young, after this visit. Then son Percy John may have been born on 18 Jan 1885. Another scenario is that little “Johnny” and Percy John are one and the same. I have never seen Percy John called “John” but that is not impossible in German households, where people switched first and middle names back and forth, often throughout their lives. Jane Elizabeth used various names throughout her life too, including Jennie as a young woman, and later Josephine Janis.
It is interesting that the issue of little Johnny never came up in my research before, as I have read quite a lot about this family while searching for sibling information on Edgar Peter Beerbower, my direct ancestor and brother to Johnny Eleazer Beerbower, Jennie’s husband. I have done extensive research on their daughter Elsie Janis, born Elsie Beerbower in 1889, who was a comedienne, actress, singer, impersonator, song and screenplay writer who began her career on the stage as a young child. She was wildly popular and famous at the turn of the twentieth century, and was later known as “The Sweetheart of the A.E.F.” (American Expeditionary Forces, who went to Europe to help fight WWI). Elsie and her mother travelled to Europe during World War I to entertain the troops- there was no support from the military, Elsie put her career on hold, paid for the trips herself, and traveled on ships across the Atlantic that could have been easily sunk by German submarines. See Wishful Wednesday: Elsie Janis for a bit more information about Elsie, and I will have more in upcoming posts about her life.
If anyone out there has more information that could help solve this mystery, please contact us!
Notes, Sources, and References:
1) Mrs. Jennie Beerbower visit: The Marion Daily Star (Marion, OH), volume VI, number 242, page 6, column 2. Posted with kind permission of the newspaper.
2) 1880 US Federal Census for the Samuel T. Beerbower household: Year: 1880; Census Place: Marion, Marion, Ohio; Roll: 1046; Family History Film: 1255046; Page: 197B; Enumeration District: 099; Image: 0720. Accessed 11/5/14 on Ancestry.com.
3) Wishful Wednesday: Elsie Janis: http://heritageramblings.net/2014/08/27/wishful-wednesday-elsie-janis/
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