Charlotte (?)
Charlotte
This was, most likely, the name of the mother of Goodwin George. A young man named Goodwin lives with an adult woman named Charlotte in the 1860 and 1870 federal census records in Saint Louis, Missouri. She was born in Massachusetts in roughly 1815. Goodwin would have named his daughter Charlotte George after her.
Her married name would have been Charlotte George, but her maiden name may have been Charlotte Rogers. This would be a possible explanation for her grand-daughter Charlotte George's first name Charlotte and her mysterious but attested middle name / claimed maiden name Rogers.
Her Birthplace
Her birthplace is given as Ohio in Goodwin's 1880 census entry, but it is given as Massachusetts in her two preceding census entries, and in her own 1880 census entry. Her death report lists her birth places as Charlestown, Massachusetts.
Census entries
In her 1860 and 1870 census entries she lives with her children in Saint Louis, Missouri. In her 1880 census entry she is living in Fremont County, Hamburg, Iowa, as the mother-in-law to an H. B. Blood. (According to the Saint Louis city records, Helen C. George married Henry B. Blood on June 5, 1866 at the First Congregational Church.)
Chicago
The letter from Charlotte George's grandmother (at right) to Izetta George is from a woman Charlotte George called "Mama George" when she was two years old. This may I suppose be Goodwin George's mother, this woman. She writes to Izetta describing meeting Charlotte and Goodwin at the train, and her son calling "Mama George". Is the son in question Goodwin?
If this indeed her in this letter, she must have been alive in 1890, and presumably living in Chicago.
Her Death
Consider this death entry, the only record I have of a middle initial:
GEORGE, CHARLOTTE R 12/25/1896 CHICAGO 88 YR U 00006665 COOK
I have obtained a copy of this death report. The woman in question is reported to have been born in Charleston, Massachusetts. It is striking that she is reported as being buried in St. Louis, MO after having lived in Illinois for 18 years, ie since 1878. This would match well her son's departure from Missouri prior to 1880. Massachusetts is also the birth place of Goodwin's mother as reported in the 1860 and 1870 census records. However, her approximate birth-year in this death record is rather different from the approximate birth-year in those census records.
I have found online in the Saint Louis, Missouri, death records a Chicago Department of Health Transit Permit to move her body to Saint Louis. She lived at 2118 Indiana Avenue in Chicago and died of "degeneration of heart and kidneys due to old age."
She is buried at the Bellefontaine Cemetery, Saint Louis, block 322/332 lot 3828, buried December 28, 1896.
Research Notes
The Bellefontaine lot was owned by Jason Crawford Somerville. It holds ten graves, several unmarked, for people with surnames Somerville, Thum, and George. Since census records show the Georges and the Thums living together, I might guess them to be related by marriage. By elimination, I might then guess that Charlotte belongs on the Somerville plot because she is herself a Somerville.
