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| Thomas A Putman, privately held by Diana Fancher, Toronto, Canada. |
Every summer I send off for several
death certificates from the State of Arkansas. I started with my
great-grandparents, then my 2nd great-grandparents, and now I have
moved up to my 3rd great-grandparents as many of them didn’t die
until after the time from which the State of Arkansas started requiring death
certificates be filed. This summer, I ordered the death certificates of my 2nd
great-grandmother Rosalie Putman Lasiter and her parents, Thomas Adolphus
Putman and Martha Ann Ward Putman.
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| Thomas Adolphus Putnam's Death Certificate, obtained by Ginger R. Smith, from the Arkansas Department of Health, Vital Records Section, Little Rock, Arkansas, 27 August 2012 |
I saw some interesting information
on the death certificate of my 3rd great-grandfather, Thomas
Adolphus Putman who died in 1918. His headstone lists his date of death as 21
November 1918. His obituary, which was published in the Southwest American newspaper
in Fort Smith, Arkansas on 22 November 1918, says he also died 21
November 1918.
Here is a snippet of his obituary from the Southwest American newspaper (Fort Smith, Arkansas), 22 November, 1918, copied from microfilm at the Fort Smith Public Library.
Here is a snippet of his obituary from the Southwest American newspaper (Fort Smith, Arkansas), 22 November, 1918, copied from microfilm at the Fort Smith Public Library.
However, Thomas Adolphus Putman’s death certificate lists his date of death as 27 November 1918,
a whole six days later than what the obituary said! Normally I would just write
this off as a mistake or with the rationale that he died on the 21st,
but his family waited a week before filing the death certificate on the 27th.
This was often the case for families who lived in rural areas.
A physician testified that he had attended
to Thomas from the 26th of November to the 27th of
November when he last saw him alive. Death occurred at 8 pm. Although this
information was filled in on the death certificate, no physician actually
signed it. The cause of death was “paralysis” which usually meant he had a
stroke, probably due to old age.
I’ve never really fretted over this next item that much because it’s pretty common to reside in one area and die in another, especially while visiting family or friends or working someplace else. But something about it just isn’t sitting well with me. Thomas Putman lived on Park Avenue in Fort Smith, Sebastian County, Arkansas when he died (see obituary). In fact, this land (he had 220 acres at the time) remained in the family up until the 60s or 70s I believe. And my great-grandmother, Louise Lasiter, lived down the street from this tract of land. Thomas’ death certificate says he died in Bloomer, Arkansas which is not too far from Fort Smith, just outside the city limits, about 20 miles away. At that time, Fort Smith had about 30,000 people and Bloomer (population less than 1000 today) had maybe 20 families, if that, living there. So I’m not sure what Thomas would have been doing in Bloomer when his wife and children were living in Fort Smith. And I certainly don’t think there would have been any hospitals or doctors around in Bloomer, he would have gone back to Fort Smith to seek medical attention unless the town doctor came to the house he was staying in in Bloomer and tended to him there.
Other red flags about this death
certificate include the name of Thomas’ father. My genealogy paper trail has
Thomas’ father as Berry Barton Putman from Georgia. This is backed up with
census reports listing a son by the name of Adolphus in Berry’s household. His death
certificate says his father was William Putnam, also from Georgia.
The informant was also someone
unknown to the family. It was a woman by the name of Georgia Card. I have not
started looking for her yet. Thomas and Martha Putman had 4 daughters. One
daughter named Rosalie, married James Lasiter and they had one son. Rosalie
lived with her parents off and on when her son was young and they eventually
moved a block down the road from Thomas and Martha. The oldest daughter, Nona
Putman, never married and she lived in the home with Thomas and Martha until
they died. Another daughter Annie married Aubrey Rhyne and they lived in the
house after Thomas’ death with her mother Martha for a while and then I believe
they eventually built a house on the same block. The youngest daughter, Pearl
married Mr. Edward Fancher and they too remained on the block and eventually
took ownership of the house and land where they stayed until the 70s when they
sold the land. I guess if he really did die in Bloomer, maybe while visiting
some family, then this Georgia Card might have been a distant relative.
Another discrepancy between the
obituary and the death certificate lies within Thomas’ date of birth. His
obituary says he was 73 years old when he died which would put his date of
birth in 1845. His death certificate says he was 80 years old which would put
his date of birth around 1838. The genealogy paper trail I have on him has his
date of birth as April 26 1845 (headstone and county history book). The birth
year of 1845 is supported by both the census reports with him living in the
household of his father Berry Barton Putman and living as an adult.
When I presented these
discrepancies on my Facebook page I got some feedback from fellow genealogist Michele
Simmons Lewis of the Ask A
Genealogist Blog who suggested that since the death certificate was not
signed by the physician (and a date of removal/ burial was also not provided)
that maybe the form was filled out by the physician’s assistant and he made the
mistake on the date of death. So far, even with the obituary, headstone, death
certificate, death index and census reports, it looks as if I need more
evidence to confidently conclude that 1) the Thomas A Putman of the obituary of
22 November 1918 is the same man as the Thomas Adolphus Putnam of the death
certificate of 27 Nov 1918 and 2) my 3rd great-grandfather Thomas
Adolphus Putman died on the 21st of November 1918. It also looks as if
I need to find out who this informant, Georgia Card is before I go any further.
Here is the matrix I created to keep track of the information I gathered and where it came from. I can use it to get a glance of what sources had what information.
If you have any suggestions about the data I have presented here, please do not hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ginger.reney [at] gmail.com. Also, please check back often for updates to this post. I intend to follow up on who this Georgia Card was and why Thomas was in Bloomer when he died. I also need to find out if Thomas still owned the farm in Bloomer and if so, was he in Bloomer to check up on it or was he visiting relatives? When I looked back at my genie software to see where his siblings might have settled, I realized that I did not have any information on them. It would be prudent of me to track their whereabouts as well to see if any of them stayed behind in Bloomer or were maybe tending to Thomas' farm in his absence.