Van Evera connections

Archie, or A.K., Van Evera isn't actually an ancestor of mine but he is certainly well connected to the family, with him and two of his daughters marrying into the Wade family.

Some of these connections are very easy.  In 1915 (Bibb county marriage records), he married Annie Wade Fryer, a second marriage for both of them.  He already had 3 daughters from his first marriage to Daisy Owens, who had died on 19 January 1914 (obituary).  He remained married to Annie until his own death in 1927.

The other easy one is his oldest daughter Marion Gladys  who married Annie's brother John Henderson Wade on 27 September 1915.  John adopted Marion's daughter and he and Marion remained married until his death in 1956. 

The slightly more complicated connection is the youngest daughter, Julia Blanch.  A 1919 Macon Telegraph article talks about the marriage of Julia Van Evera and Walter Wade.  Since Annie and John had a nephew Walter, this was logically him, but Walter Wade is not a unique name and the article stated that they would be settling in Macon.  My Walter is found in the 1920 census living with his parents in Thomas County, GA.  There is a Julia in the family, the right age to be Julia Van Evera, but she is listed as a granddaughter.  Everyone in the family is listed as black, but the names and ages of the parents and childrens indicate it is definitely the right family.  Walter's grandmother was mulatto and it was possible that the census taker made an independent judgment that the family was black.  On the other hand, this could just be a mistake in recording the information.  

In December 1928, Walter married Minnie Alice Harper.  In the 1930 census, he and Minnie are still in Bibb, shown with 3 daughters, two of whom were born in 1920 and 1923 respectively.  The third one was a baby. This fits in well with him having been previously married.  Minnie's "age at first marriage" is consistent with the 1928 date but there is no such age for Walter.  He is, in fact, the only married person on that page or the ones on either side without an age at first marriage, indicating either that the person giving the information knew he'd been married before but didn't know how old he was or that he didn't want to admit to the previous marriage. 

With all these bits together, I have to conclude that Walter Wade (son of William and Camilla) was in fact the Walter married to Julia Blanch Van Evera, even though they are never clearly together as husband and wife, in the census or later records.  

I had long assumed that Julia had died between 1923 and 1928, even though no death record had been found.  However, recently I found her in California records, so they must have divorced.  She applied for social security under the name Julia Blanch Stokes, but by the time she died in 1980, her surname was Sorg.