NOTE: On some browsers in some operating systems, this post doesn’t render properly. If you’re having a problem, please read the two part version, with part 1 here and part 2 here… and my apologies. I simply can’t find the error that’s causing the problem… Sigh…

All that isn’t known of a lifetime

Just who was Mattie Lee (Cottrell) Berens… and what was she like?

The Legal Genealogist would love to have a really good answer to those questions… but there’s an awful lot about this cousin that we may never know.

Starting with who her maternal grandparents were, and exactly what happened to her mother, and why she ended up buried with her family while her husband ended up buried with his, and…

Sigh…

What we do know is that John W. Cottrell, my grandfather’s oldest brother, married Emelia Beitelspacher, in July 1908 in Java, Walworth County, South Dakota. John was shown as American-born, age 28, and Emelia as 18, and Russian. The marriage was performed by the pastor of the Lutheran Church in Java.¹

Their child, my first cousin once removed Mattie Lee, was born 110 years ago tomorrow — 24 May 1910 — in Walworth County, South Dakota.² It’s probably a safe bet that she was born in Mobridge since that’s where she was enumerated with her parents on the U.S. census on 4 June 1910.³

She was not quite three years old when her mother died. The stone for Emma, “wife of J.W. Cottrell,” born 13 June 1890 and died 6 April 1913, stands in the Mobridge City Cemetery.⁴

There’s no record we’ve found of the mother’s death so, at this point, we don’t know just what happened to her. She was not quite 23 years old, so was it illness? Childbirth? We simply don’t know. And who were her parents, Mattie’s maternal grandparents? You’d think it would be easy to find Beitelspachers in South Dakota or that general part of the country in the 1900 and 1910 censuses, and Emelia/Emma would have been just 10 years old in 1900. But alas… despite some hints, nothing that definitively puts this young mother into the right family that I’ve stumbled across as yet.

John remarried in 1914, to Abigail Claymore. He was a 32-year-old widower living in Mobridge; she was age 27, not before married.⁵ And in 1920, their one child — a son, Phillip — was born.⁶

There are scattered records for Mattie over the years:

• She was enumerated as a five-year-old living in Trail City, Corson County, in the South Dakota state census in 1915.⁷

• She was enumerated as a nine-year-old schoolgirl in Trail City, by then Dewey County, in the federal census in 1920.⁸

• She was enumerated as a 14-year-old schoolgirl living in Trail City in the South Dakota state census in 1925. She was shown as white, Catholic, able to read and write and with a ninth grade education. Her father’s birthplace was recorded as Texas; her mother’s as South Dakota.⁹

• At age 17, she was on the school records of Mobridge, Walworth County, along with her brother Philip, shown as age eight in one undated record and age nine in another. That would put those two records somewhere around 1928-29.¹⁰ On another, for the school year beginning May 1, 1930, only Philip was shown, as age nine.¹¹

• In 1930, Mattie was enumerated in the federal census as a 19-year-old cashier in a restaurant in Mobridge and lodging with her stepmother’s brother and sister-in-law, William and Emma Claymore.¹²

We know from a lot of sources that Mattie married John Berens. Her father John’s obituary in 1951 listed “a daughter, Mrs. Johnny Berens of Mobridge,” as a survivor.¹³ Abigail’s 1965 obituary says she was survived by Mrs. Mattie Berens, Mobridge.¹⁴ Mattie’s own obituary says she married John Berens and “lived in Selby for several years before returning to Mobridge.”¹⁵ John Berens’ obituary in 1990 identifies his wife Mattie, and says the marriage was in Eureka, which is McPherson County.¹⁶

Exactly when Mattie married isn’t clear. There is, of course, no entry for the marriage in the searchable South Dakota marriage indexes — and I haven’t yet gone card by card through the entries to see if one got missed. From the 1930 census, we can figure that she was still single then. But by 1932, her brother Philip was recorded as attending school in Selby with John Berens recorded as “parent or guardian.”¹⁷ So it’s pretty likely she was married by then. And when the Berens family was recorded in the South Dakota state census in Selby in 1935, the cards for Mattie and John say the marriage was in 1930.¹⁸

And if that’s all correct, then Mattie had one son: Robert John Berens, shown as age two on that 1935 state census¹⁹ and as age seven on the 1940 federal census.²⁰

The reason why I add the “if that’s all correct” part is that the child was not named as a survivor in any of John Cottrell’s obituaries in 1951… and attempts to contact him (if he’s still living) haven’t been productive. Sigh…

And nothing I’ve recorded so far begins to explain why Mattie was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Mobridge,²¹ along with her father, stepmother and brother, while John Berens was buried — according to his obituary — at the Mobridge City Cemetery,²² which would put him with his parents — and not his wife.

And even going through every bit of this… all I have are names and dates and places.

I don’t know what Mattie looked like, what her voice sounded like, what she liked and disliked. I don’t know if she was happy or sad, by nature an optimist or pessimist. I don’t even know if she ever met her cousins — my mother and her siblings for example, or the children of any of my grandfather’s other brothers and sisters.

It’s painful to have to end this the way I began: just who was Mattie Lee (Cottrell) Berens… and what was she like? But there’s still an awful lot about this cousin that we may never know.

Cite/link to this post: Judy G. Russell, “The enigma of a cousin,” The Legal Genealogist (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : posted 23 May 2020).

SOURCES

Image: South Dakota state census, 1935, FamilySearch.org.