In researching my own family, I have delved into a sweet resource- school census records. At the end of last year, I stated that one of my goals for 2012 was to learn more about my great-grandmother’s family, my great-grandmother being Edith Cleo (HUBBARD) DRAKE. So on this post today, I want to review a school census record that pertains to her father. Just for clarity, allow me a moment to introduce the “players” in today’s post. My great-great-grandfather (father of Edith Cleo HUBBARD DRAKE) was Alford Allen HUBBARD. He was married to my great-great-grandmother, Laura A. BUTLER HUBBARD. My great-grandfather, Mark DRAKE, who was Edith HUBBARD DRAKE’s husband, had a brother named Jess DRAKE and Jess was the census enumerator for this particular census record. Only two of my great-great-grandparents’ children were enumerated in this record and they are Raymond HUBBARD and Deloris HUBBARD.
The record in question is my great-great-grandmother’s entry from 1933 in the Scholastic School Census for Delaware County, Oklahoma. Their local school was Poynor School. In 1933 Poynor School was School District No. 77.
I am unable to post an image here on my blog, so here is an abstract of the record:
Page: 18
Name of Parent: Mrs. A. A. Hubbard
Post Office: SWC MO
Name of Township or Street: 23
Section or Street No.: 10
Name of Tribe: White
Name of Child: Raymond Hubbard
Color: W
Sex: Boy
Date of Birth- Month, Day, Year: May 16 1912
Age: 20
Deaf, Dumb, Blind, Feeble Minded, and Crippled (write which): X
Name of Child: Deloris Hubbard
Color: W
Sex: Girl
Date of Birth- Month, Day, Year: Aug 1 1919
Age: 13
Deaf, Dumb, Blind, Feeble Minded, and Crippled (write which): [blank]
[Text of oath is written on the record but not included here. “Mrs. A. A. Hubbard” signed the document as parent/guardian (in this case, I know her to be the parent)].
Subscribed and sworn to before me this the 19 day of January, 1933.
Jess Drake [signature] Enumerator
[End of abstract]
This record allows me to say certainly that my HUBBARD family was in Oklahoma on this particular date- 19 Jan 1933. Since I’m uncertain of exactly when they came to Oklahoma, this information is very helpful in placing them in a particular place at a particular time. In the previous and subsequent years’ censuses, Alford HUBBARD was the one who talked with the enumerator and signed the census record. I am uncertain why Laura did it on this particular year.
From the record, I can see that although they resided in Oklahoma they received mail with a Missouri address (“SWC MO”). Because I grew up in this area I know that this makes sense. The area where they lived sits very close to the state lines of Oklahoma and Missouri. The abbreviation for the mailing city- “SWC MO”- stands for South West City, Missouri.
I have not had time to research this, but I believe that the address given- “23” and “10”- refer to Township and Range numbers. This should be easy enough to verify once I obtain a Township Range map for Delaware County, but for today I don’t have access to that map.
In regard to Alford and Laura’s children, I have knowledge of their having six children. As always I have to consider that there may be others of whom I am unaware. By 1933, most of the children were grown and had moved out of Alford and Laura’s home. Their child, Anna, was close in age to Raymond and Deloris (who are shown in this school census record). Anna appears in the 1920 census with Alford and Laura and is only 5 months old at that time. Anna does not appear in the household in the 1930 census nor in this 1933 school census. She also does not appear in 1932 or 1934 school census records with the family. What little information I have about Anna indicates that she lived long after 1933. Unfortunately, that is verbal information from a now-deceased family member. It looks like a future point of research will be to find out what happened to Anna.
Another issue I noticed was that Raymond appears to have been marked as “deaf, dumb, blind, feeble minded, and crippled”. To my knowledge, he was not. In the previous school census year, this column was not ticked off for him and in the subsequent year he was not listed on the school census at all. Perhaps this will be added to my research list in terms of information to learn about the family. I was told that he married a woman named Lillie THOMPSON. The only other thing I know about Raymond is that his first name was John and his middle name was Raymond.
Even though Alford and Laura’s daughter Edith (my great-grandmother) is not listed on this school census record, I feel these records are still important and useful in learning about her family. I now have potential research goals of looking into whether Raymond was handicapped (if he really was “feeble minded”, could there be court records?) and of finding out what happened to Edith’s youngest sister, Anna. I know very little about the HUBBARD family and perhaps finding Anna will lead me to discoveries about the family that I might otherwise not make.
I’m looking forward to this future research and I thoroughly enjoyed digging around in Delaware County, Oklahoma’s school census records. Many thanks to the women at Delaware County Courthouse for their patience and help. I hope this helps my fellow HUBBARD family researchers in some way and hope it encourages everyone to seek out school census records for their own families!