Effie Day
Status: looking for family!
There is only one thing I love more about this little CDV than the beauty of its subject, and that is that all the details add up.
The labeler of this CDV noted that Effie Day once lived on Broadway in South Boston, perhaps at house number 748 - though apparently they weren't sure, hence the question mark (see photo below).
Sometimes details like this don't amount to anything - families moved all the time and the censuses may not reflect such an address, for example. But not in this case.
Searching for "Effie Day" in Massachusetts in the 1880 census returned a Day family with an 18 year old daughter named Effie living in Boston; the street they lived on? Broadway.
The exact address, however, was 752 Broadway, not 748. But I took that as too much of a coincidence not to be the same Effie Day and her family. This is their story.
Effie was born in 1862 to Leonard Day and Hannah Perkins. Effie first appears in the 1870 census as 'Ella' - perhaps her legal name - in Boston.
Effie married Robert McIntyre, a Canadian man born to Irish parents, on December 3, 1884, but the marriage would not last for long. In around 1890, Robert was diagnosed with general paralysis. Also known as general paresis, or paralytic dementia, general paralysis of the insane (GPI) is a severe neuropsychiatric disorder that leads to cerebral atrophy. Throughout the 19th century and early 20th centuries it was a leading reason for commitment to insane asylums, and one of the most deadly psychiatric diseases. Patients with general paralysis would slowly mentally and physically deteriorate until death. It was caused by a disease common enough at the time to have a nickname: 'the lady's disease', or syphilis.
Robert's death certificate noted that he was held in the Boston Lunatic Hospital, where he eventually was consumed by his disease at the young age of 32.
Robert's death left Effie widowed, and she never remarried. In the 1900 census, Effie and her 13 year old son George are living with Effie's mother Hannah at 752 Broadway in Boston.
Ten years later in the 1910 federal census, Effie and her son George still live together, this time at 615 3rd Street in Boston, just about 6 blocks away from her family's home on Broadway, and just a block away from the Boston Lunatic Asylum.
In 1912, George would marry Poloma Musgrove, and they are listed as living with Effie in the 1920 census. But, just like his mother, George would end up a young widow: he and Effie are living together again, both widows, in the 1930 census.
George would go on to marry again, this time to a woman named Hazel, and he and Hazel are found living next door to Effie in the 1940 census. They don't appear to have had any children, leaving no descendants to return Effie's photo to her family to.
Neither Effie's date of death nor final resting place could be found.