Notes:
In Carol Cramer's "L.D. Miles" she relates a story from the Miles lore about Wesley leaving home at the age of 14. She later found Wesley listed in the U.S. Census of 1850 as being 15 years old, living at his parents home in Sharon Twps, Richland Co., OH and working as a mailcarrier. In 1873 he was a master of shipping on a freight boat on Lake Michigan.
In addition to the fourteen children of Wesley and Elizabeth listed here, in 1887 and 1889 they had two additional girls born to them who lived only briefly or not at all.
William Henry Harrison Fleming
Notes:
Sarah Naomi Curran and her husband William had nine children.
Notes:
"Joseph withdrew his savings from a bank in Chicago and sailed for South Haven, MI, on a boat owned by Jim Smith. As first reported, Joseph drowned in Lake Michigan during this sailing but it was later determined that he had been murdered by Jim Smith who was found guilty and hanged."
The above remark has been a part of Curran family lore for many years. However, in February of 2004 two ladies who are close to this Curran line began an effort to trace the origins of the story.
At this writing, Lee Mae Strong and Shirley (Burke) Avera have established that the story is surely a myth because they found Joseph Jefferson Curran in the 1870 census living with his brother Wesley and again in the 1880 census (his name mispelled Currin) living in South Haven, Van Buren Co., MI, with his wife Ida. Thus, he died after 1880.
The marriage between Joseph Jefferson Curran and his first wife Julia Ann Arter broke up, for some unknown reason, resulting in their two infant children being placed for adoption. Nellie Maud Curran, grandmother of Shirley (Burke) Avera, told Shirley that JJC's wife had left for California to make a new life for herself.
Because her husband was believed to have been murdered, it has been also believed that it was Julia who placed the children for adoption. Recent information reveals that this is probably the opposite of what happened. What now seems the more likely is that the family was abandoned by Julia leaving the children with her husband who, being a sailor, was forced to place the children for adoption.
Our new information establishes that JJC never left the area of his home town and never dropped out of sight from his extended family. He was a sailor when his brother Wesley was a sailor and in 1870 he had become a drayman working for his brother Wesley who had established a draying business. So what about the villain Jim Smith whom we are to believe was hanged for the murder of JJC?
Shirley (Burke) Avera initiated a search of Chicago and South Haven newspaper archives and nothing could be found as a basis for the story - No drowning at sea, no hanging of a Jim Smith. Shirley regards the story as a fabrication. All this being so, how might the story of JJC's murder and the hanging of Jim Smith have come about?
I speculate that the drowning/murder story was fabricated as a way to explain to JJC's children why they were adopted and why they would not be seeing their father again. Nellie Maud Curran, grandmother of Shirley (Burke) Avera, told Shirley that the Curran family kept close track of one of the children, Amy, and this might the avenue by which the story filtered into other members of the extended Curran family.
So now we probably have a whole new rather ordinary story to tell of Joseph Jefferson Curran and Julia Ann Arter. Julia ran away from the difficulties of raising two infants with a husband most often gone to sea. Joseph, finding it impossible to both pursue his work and raise his two infant children, placed them for adoption.
Joseph's daughter Clara (1869- ? ) was placed in the care of an aunt who went to northern Michigan. Clara was eventually to marry Charles Foland and they had a child named Madge who married "Bud" Kuykendall. Joseph's daughter Amy Elizabeth (1868-1928) was adopted at age 2yrs. by the Elihu Vreeland family and raised in Schoolcraft, MI. She married Alfred Bett Osterhout (an organ builder and one of the original settlers of Portage, Michigan, where there is still a road named for him.) Amy and Alfred had a daughter named Arleene who married Harry Riley Strong. Arleene and Harry had four children, Harry Jr. ("Skip"), m. Marianne Lett; Paul m. (1)Catherine Warner, (2) Janice Hutchins; Amy m. Phillip Smith, and John m. Letha Kuiper. Paul Strong and Catherine Warner had eight children, one of whom, Nanette Marie (Strong) Schuur is also a source of information for this line.~ Nanette Schurr
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