One (Not) For the Book

 Hello, cousins!

I had an unexpected snow day, so I thought I'd share some of what I'm working on at the moment.

While I'm focusing primarily on the big task of editing the First Draft of the Callin Family History (see: all the other posts from the last few months), I occasionally find myself down a rabbit hole, researching a really interesting story or family which probably won't find its way into the final edition. This week, I've found one such rabbit hole, and I thought I'd give you a glimpse into the Life of "Little Miss Myrtle."

Here's the bio that is most likely going to end up in the final book:

433.  Myrtle Picker (Emma A Reed-5, Elizabeth Belle Ferguson-4, Eliza Callin-3, John-2, James "1st"-1) was born abt 1900 in Illinois. “Little Miss Myrtle” was a popular local celebrity in Fort Wayne as a child, and when she was old enough, she joined the touring company of a vaudeville show. On tour, she met and married singer, choreographer,  and producer Al Garbelle (1895-1956) on 30 Aug 1917 in Toronto.

After living briefly in New York City, they divorced and Emma brought Myrtle back to  Fort Wayne, where she lived with her mother and step-father in 1920. She was named in her mother's 1934 obituary as "Miss Myrtle Bowman" living in Fort Wayne, but it is not clear what happened to her after that.  

There is little information available about her childhood. Her mother and father appeared on the 1900 Census listed at 19 Cedar Street in Union, De Kalb County, Indiana (which erroneously listed Emma as being born in Ireland). Myrtle appears in the 1910 and 1920 Census. By 1910, Charles and Emma had divorced, and Emma and Myrtle lived with Emma's brother, Charles Albert Reed (1871-1927).

Local newspapers describe Myrtle's early performance career. Miss Myrtle Picker was billed with two solos in the celebration of George Washington's 177th birthday on 22 Feb 1909, accompanied by the Forester's Orchestra. She was described as something of a sensation in the amateur theater community in Fort Wayne. In July of that year, "Myrtle Picker, in character songs, made a very favorable impression. This is a new line for Miss Picker, who is becoming a favorite with the Gaiety patrons."

Emma and Myrtle Picker are listed in the Fort Wayne city directory in 1914, living at 116 Highland. Myrtle worked as a hairdresser for Inez Kieffer. Emma remarried in 1916, her second husband being the lawyer, David Daniel Moody. 

Myrtle began a professional career soon after that and went on tour with the "Pretty Baby" company. 

"Mrs. D.D. Moody, of 2026 Reidmiller avenue, announces the marriage of her daughter, Miss Myrtle Pickard Moody to Mr. Al Garbelle at Toronto, Canada, last evening. Mr. Garbelle is producer of the Pretty Baby company which recently played an engagement in this city and Miss Moody joined the company at that time. After a tour of the better houses of southern Canada, the company will go to New York, thence south for the remainder of the season. The bride is quite will known in theatrical circles, having toured in vaudeville for a season or two and she has many local friends."

Al Garbelle and Myrtle Picker Moody were only married for a short time. In 1919, Emma traveled to New York City to visit her daughter, and the following year, Myrtle appeared in the 1920 Census under her married name, but listed as "divorced". Mr. Moody died in May 1920, and Emma married Charles Wesley Bowman (1882–1947) on 30 Dec 1926. When Emma died in 1934, her obituary listed Charles and Myrtle among her survivors:

"Surviving are the husband, Chas. W. Bowman; a daughter, Miss Myrtle Bowman, at home; an adopted daughter, Miss Myrtle Jones of Hollywood, Calif."

That is the last information we have about Myrtle, despite looking for her under the names "Picker," "Moody," "Garbelle," or "Bowman". 

Al Garbelle has an interesting background, which took some effort to tease out. Since he and Myrtle were married for so short a time, and they appear to have not had any children, his part in our family history is very small, but here is what I have learned about him.

As near as I can tell from all of the records I found, the Garbell family fled in 1898 from what was then the Russian Empire and arrived in Canada, where they lived in Montreal. They were from a village called Vyekshnya, now Viekšniai, which is located in modern Lithuania. The family was ethnically German, were Jewish, and spoke Yiddish as their native language. 

Al was the youngest of seven children born to Gordon and Gertrude (Isaacman) Garbell. They were all born before 1898 when the family moved to Canada, and most of them gave Canada as their place of birth on their official documents, but it seems reasonable to assume that they were all born in what one of Samuel's records called "Veksna, Russia." The seven Garbell children were:

• i. Ida (Garbel) Moses (1881–1906)
• ii. Tillie (Garbelle) Spellman (1883–1946)
• iii. Hattie (Garbelle) Craft (1884–1953)
• iv. Samuel Garbell (1886–1965)
• v. Max Garbell (1889–1952)
• vi. Myer (or Michael) Garbelle (1894–1977)
• vii. Albert (or Abraham) Garbelle (1895–1956)

Gordon Garbell was named in the obituary of his son, Max, but died before the 1901 Canadian Census, when widowed Gertrude (who was listed as "Ida") appeared with the children in Montreal. It is unclear whether Gordon died in Canada or in Russia before the rest of his family moved to Canada. We know that Gertrude's maiden name was Isaacman due to Albert's California death index record.

Al was still a Canadian citizen when he married Myrtle, but he became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1927. He was touring the U.S. during 1925 and 1926 with another vaudeville show called "Silks and Satins." His naturalization papers named his ex-wife, Myrtle, and certified that he had no children. The document also states that he lived in the United States continuously beginning on 10 Aug 1905. 

As you can see, I found a lot of information - but not a lot of it is very useful for telling Myrtle's story. To find out who Al was, I started with the Newspapers.com searches to find out about his career and managed to find obituaries for his sister, Hattie Craft, and his brother, Sam, which named him and placed him in California. As I worked to confirm that they were, in fact, his siblings, I kept finding more siblings and more records, but couldn't see any evidence to prove that Albert/Abraham Garbell was definitely the same person as "Al Garbelle" the vaudeville performer - until I found that last U.S. naturalization record!

Fortunately for me, not every cousin requires this much effort just to nail down the basic details of their life story. And when it does require this much effort, there is usually some justification to put all of that extra detail into the biography.

In the case of "Miss Myrtle," though, once she left show business, she didn't leave behind much of a story for me to tell. At least, not in the book.