Abandoned First Families

I don’t remember ever meeting any of my grandfather’s first family. Before he met my grandmother, he had been married and had two young kids when he just up and left. I don’t even know why he left them or exactly when. He left sometime around 1920.

Carrie Montgomery Whitney and Emmett Leroy Whitney with son Emmett Leroy “Bob” Whitney, Jr and Anna Marie Whitney about 1918 in East St Louis, Illinois

Sadly, I never met my grandmother’s first family either. Shortly after her first husband died in December 1918, she abandoned her 3 (or 4) little girls somewhere in Nebraska. By 1920, three of the girls had been adopted out. It was said she had four daughters with one dying in the 1918 flu pandemic but so far that’s just family talk with no actual records of a fourth child being found.

Arthur A Huff, And Fanny Susanne Roberts Huff with daughters Berniece Huff and Pauline (?) Huff about 1914.

By 1921, Emmett and Fanny met, married and had their first of five sons. Out of their total of 10 (or 11) children I only knew my dad and his brother David.