The Eleanor Simmons Story

By Thomas Stearns

A true-life genealogical mystery detailing the two-year search to identify the next of kin to a $1M Massachusetts estate. The story tracks the day-by-day efforts of a professional genealogist--an "heir finder"--as she and her crew dig into vital records, neighbors’ memories and, finally, use DNA to prove the identity of a 100-year-old woman who lived in a close community for 80 years and never talked about her family. Includes 22 pictures and newspaper clips.

Will appeal to anybody interested in genealogy or wanting to learn how to locate missing family members. This story, which took place in the early 2000's, raises questions about what people do under stress, the desperate choices they may make, and the consequences.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Stearns
• Release date: Feb 10, 2012
• ISBN: 9781465703347

Thomas Stearns

Thomas H Stearns is a genealogical researcher specializing in telephone interviews and on-line research who was involved in the Simmons investigation. An active Find-a-Grave cemetery hunter he has several hundred memorials to his credit, concentrating on New Hampshire cemeteries. He's the author of the McGraw-Hill textbook entitled Flexible Printed Circuitry and many technical papers and magazine articles in the same field. Hobbies include sailing and sailboat building, photography, high fidelity music reproduction. He lives in southern New Hampshire with his two beloved altho elderly cats.

Book preview

The Eleanor Simmons Story

an M A Boyle Mystery

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Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2009 Thomas H Stearns

Nashua, NH

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Table of Contents

Foreword

The Author

Chapter 1 Eleanor Simmons

Chapter 2 The Town of Westport

Chapter 3 Probate Research; The Second Cycle

Chapter 4 Genealogy; Intestacy

Chapter 5 Birth Dates

Chapter 6 Fruits of the House Crawl

Chapter 7 Interviews and Anecdotes

Chapter 8 Deep Into Conjecture

Chapter 9 A Solution

Chapter 10 The Distribution

Chapter 11 Lessons Learned; the What Ifs

Chapter 12 The Lost Years

Postscript

Foreword

The Eleanor Simmons story is true; everything which follows actually happened as it's described. I worked on this case from early in its course so the story has real grit for me. The organization of the narrative is chronological and will seem strange but it had the erratic course that's described and the ultimate resolution was as surprising to us as it will be to you. There really was a 100-year-old Eleanor Simmons who fell off the back porch to her death on a hot summer day in July, 2001 leaving a million-dollar legacy to unknown heirs.

The only photograph of Eleanor we could find was on her last driver's license which forms the background image of the cover—take a look at it—that's our gal!!

We very gratefully acknowledge permission from the publisher of the South Coast Times and the New Bedford Standard Times to reprint extracts from their publications which chronicle this story at critical stages; the narrative is much improved by these snippets.

The Author

Thomas H Stearns is a genealogical researcher specializing in telephone interviews and on-line research who was involved in the Simmons investigation. An active Find-a-Grave cemetery hunter he has several hundred memorials to his credit, concentrating on New Hampshire cemeteries. He's the author of the McGraw-Hill textbook entitled Flexible Printed Circuitry and many technical papers and magazine articles in the same field. Hobbies include sailing and sailboat building, photography, high fidelity music reproduction. He lives in southern New Hampshire with his two beloved altho elderly cats.

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Chapter 1

Eleanor Simmons

This is the story of a lively and adventurous young woman, a pivotal choice she made early in life and the genealogical puzzle she left at her death. It began almost a century ago with a life-changing event that occurred sometime around 1920. Nobody alive today has any recollection of the 20's and there are no written records of what she did to put the record straight. Nobody involved in the story was important enough, at the time, to draw newspaper attention or to have a personal biographer, a Boswell. But ordinary people watch and take note, comment to each other and share and remember stories which have, taken together, preserved in hand-me-down memory the rough elements of our account. This reconstruction of the unusual story of Eleanor Simmons of Westport, Massachusetts is based on many such memories captured in interviews with neighbors and town officials together with lengthy and involved research thru public records and not a small amount of science. The beginning and the end are well documented; the middle part is anecdotal.

Background

Around 1920, Franklin Palmer, Jr, a carpenter and gentleman farmer of somewhat independent means, was living with his wife, Amanda and son, Oscar, on a small farm just outside Westport, Massachusetts, when he suffered a stroke. For several years thereafter Amanda cared for him at the Adamsville Road farm, one of the oldest farms in Westport. Then, in 1923, no doubt exhausted from the effort, Amanda passed away. Oscar, sole offspring of Franklin and Amanda, struggled on singlehandedly for awhile,attempting to care for his crippled father but soon saw that more help was needed. He then set about finding a live-in nurse. And so, sometime prior to 1930, Eleanor Simmons came to the Adamsville residence to take up her duties.

There are as many stories about where Eleanor came from as there are people to tell them. Perhaps, because of the somewhat scandalous nature of a single young lady living in that isolated farmhouse with Oscar and his father, some said she was a former call girl or a dancing girl or a cigarette girl from Chicago or New York or possibly Boston. She might have been a waitress from the nearby Allen's Clam Shack on Horseneck Beach. But whatever her origin and wherever she came from, Eleanor proved to be a good nurse and housekeeper who took gentle care of Franklin through his last years. Always quiet and respectful, Eleanor did her work day in and day out, uncomplaining and efficiently. Franklin died in September of 1932. In