William R. Ozburn Jr.'s WWI Service

In 1918, William R. Ozburn Jr. registered for the draft for World War I. Below is a copy of his draft registration, dated September 12, 1918.

As we can see from the above document, William Jr. was 20 years old in 1918 and as yet unmarried. He lived with his parents in the house on West 38th Street. He was of medium height and build, had brown eyes and brown hair. And apparently, the night before he appeared for his registration, he had broken his arm in an auto accident. I wonder if there was a write-up in the newspaper about that?

We can also see from the registration that he worked as a ship fitter for the Foundation Company in Savannah. According to Wikipedia, a ship fitter might work for either the Navy or a civilian ship builder. If working for a ship builder, then he would be "a worker who 'fits' together the structural portions of a ship by either welding or by riveting." The shipbuilding company William Jr. worked for, the Foundation Company, had operations in four locations: Savannah, New Orleans, Tacoma and Portland, WA. Below is a brief description of the Company:

The Foundation Company was a construction company headed by Franklin Remington, who came from the Remington firearms company and who also started the Remington typewriter business. His war effort was focused on building wooden ships that could provide food for the French, but many were incomplete when the war ended and were scrapped in the 1920s. The Savannah shipyard was located just upstream of downtown Savannah, where the port's facilities are today. (from Ship Building History)

One of the ships built by the Savannah Foundation Company that was sold to the French Navy was Jemmapes, a patrol trawler. Built in April 1919, it ended up as a Merchant Marine fishing trawler named Foam. In 1942 it was sunk after being shelled in the North Atlantic. William Jr. may have worked on that ship.

It's curious that the registration card didn't mention William Jr's previous service in the National Guard. Below is a copy of the WWI Service Card that tells a little bit about that period of service. Note that it says he was declared 25% disabled upon discharge. I wonder what that disability was from?

William Robert Ozburn Jr. - Early Years

Bernadette Vivian Ozburn Sternberg's father, William Robert Ozburn Jr., was born in Fulton County, GA, on 13 July 1898 to William Robert Ozburn Sr and Vivian F. Cline. (See "Three Generations" pedigree chart, in Pages, in the left hand column of this page.) They were married September 7th of the previous year. William Ozburn senior probably worked as a railroad baggage handler at the time, since that was his occupation in 1899, when he lived in Macon, GA. Here is the listing in the Macon City Directory for that year:

Central Georgia Railway is the company he worked for as a "bagmn," probably bag man. The asterisk by his name meant that he was married. This was before the directories started listing the first name of the wife in parentheses next to the man's name.

In the 1900 census, William and his family were living in Atlanta and William was one year old. His father was working for Georgia Central Railway as a baggage master by that time, so it looks like he got a promotion when he moved to Atlanta. The Atlanta City Directory also shows him as being a baggage master in 1900.

The 1910 census has the Ozburn family living in Richmond, GA. William Sr., aged 33, was working as a manager in a beef company. Vivian was aged 29. By this time, William Jr., who was 11, had two siblings: a brother, Forest, age 9; and a sister, Norwood, age 4.

The 1910 Savannah City Directory, however, lists the Ozburns as living in Savannah, as does the 1908 Savannah Directory. So it's not clear why the census would show them living in Richmond county in April of 1910.

By 1916, when William Jr. was 18, William Senior apparently owned a business called W. R. Ozburn & Co. At this time, the Ozburns were living at 217 W 38th St in Savannah. Here is an excerpt from that listing:

And below is a photo of what the house looks like today. It sold last year for $198,000.

According to the real estate listing, it was built in 1910 and currently has 3 bedrooms and 2 baths. I guess that would've been enough room for a family of five back in 1916. The interior is quite attractive now, but whether it looked like that in 1916 is unknown. The below picture came from the Zillow website.

Annie Lamon Sternberg as Wife and Mother: 1920 to Death

Throughout the 1920s, Annie and Jerome lived in Savannah. The city directories show them at various addresses with Jerome holding a variety of jobs. (See the posts about Jerome for some of that information.) Beyond the city directories, though, there are few records documenting Annie's early marriage years.

The 1930 census shows them with their two children, Jerome Jr. and Ida. Below is an excerpt from the census record.

You can see (in the column to the right of Race) that Jerome is 40 and Annie is 27. Two columns over from that is their age at first marriage--16 for Annie and 31 for Jerome. But as I have pointed out earlier, that means that Annie's first marriage was not to Jerome, because when she was 16, he would have been 29 and still unmarried. So whom did she marry when she was 16? And was she divorced or widowed when she married Jerome? And did that marriage have something to do with her living at the convent? There is no record I can find of Annie's earlier marriage or divorce, if there was one. So, that must remain a mystery, for now.

In 1940, according to the census, the Sternbergs were 10 years older and still living in Savannah. Below is a segment of that census. (We don't see Jerome listed because he's at the bottom of the previous page.)

One item of interest in this census record is the "Highest Grade of School Completed," in column 14. Her children were currently attending high school. (Ida had completed 3 years and Jerome Jr. had completed one year.) But Annie said she completed only grade 7. That makes me wonder how long she was at the convent school--was it only a few months? Or maybe the two girls were boarders but not students. We know that the convent was still operating as a school in 1941, so presumably it would have been a school in 1920. Were they just that far behind in their education? Another mystery, to be sure.

At any rate, Annie's children would soon lose their mother. The 1940 census was taken April 15, 1940, and in September of that year, Annie died. I have not been able to find the cause of her death, but it should be listed on her death certificate which can be obtained from Georgia. Below is the death index record for Annie Sternberg with the certificate number listed.

That certificate may also show where Annie was buried. I have not been able to find a record of her grave site. Jerome is buried at Laurel Grove, but it's not clear whether Annie was buried with him.

Anna and Nettie at the Ursuline Convent

In 1920, the two Lamon girls, Anna and Nettie, were living at what I have learned was the Ursuline Convent, at 1505 Assembly Street in Columbia, SC. It was also a school where students could board, though in 1920 only three girls were living there, Annie and Nettie and a third girl, Frances Sensusky.

The Ursuline Convent had a long history in Columbia. Below is a short description of the school, taken from a Works Progress publication, South Carolina: A Guide to the Palmetto State, published in 1941.

The URSULINE CONVENT, 1505 Assembly St., is a red brick building erected in 1891; it adjoins St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church. As the Academy of the Immaculate Conception it was established in 1852 by the Sisters of Mercy. They were succeeded by the Ursuline Nuns, who came to Columbia from Black Rock, Ireland, in 1858. After the first building, corner Main and Blanding Streets, was burned in 1865, the convent occupied several others before its present quarters were built. The curriculum includes a high school for girls and parochial school for girls and boys.  (235)

The site is marked with this historical marker:

The first convent building, burned in 1865, was one of those destroyed by General Sherman in his march through South Carolina during the Civil War. There are some first hand accounts of this event, and in fact, the Lowcountry Digital Library has a nice digital collection of letters about the Ursuline sisters in Columbia; if you are interested in reading more, click on this link: Ursulines.

So somehow the Lamon sisters were allowed to board at this famous institution and, presumably, to continue their education.

1910-1920: A Sad Decade for Anna & Her Family

The decade of 1910-1920 was not a happy one for the Lamons. Anna Lamon was eight years old when her mother, Ann Nora Jacobs Lamon, died on 18 May 1911, from "shock following hysterectomy for cancer of uterus," according to the death record. She was 38 years old. Less than a year later, on 12 February 1912, Anna's father, John E. Lamon, died from "congestion of the brain." Researching that cause of death, I learned that it referred to a swelling of the brain that could result from a variety of causes, all of them some kind of damage to the brain, such as a blow to the head, an infection, or an ischemic stroke. It's not clear from the record what injury John Lamon suffered, but his death must have been sudden and no doubt devastating to his family.

Of the children who were left, four were under the age of 18: Anna, Nettie, Leroy, and Walter. Walter was 17, but the others weren't old enough to go out on their own just yet.

In 1911, before all this happened, the Lamons were living in Savannah. Below is the Savannah Directory listing for that year.

As you can see, John E. and Nora were still alive, living at Montgomery Street. John was still the proprietor of the Palace Pool Room, apparently with a partner, F.J. Ciucevich. John Jr. lived with his parents and was working as a printer at the Savannah Morning News. Walter was also living with John and Nora, working as a clerk and traffic officer for the Central Railway of Georgia.

Leroy, however, was at that time living at 1701 Ogeechee Avenue, which was where his maternal grandmother, Sarah Royal Jacobs, was living. It's not known why he was not living at home, as he was only 12.

In 1913, a year after their father died, Anna and Nettie Lamon became wards of their grandmother, Sarah. Below is a segment of the document that gave her guardianship of the two girls, who would have been 10 and 11 years old at that time.

In 1915, Leroy Lamon was living in Atlanta, working as a clerk for H E Boynton. I haven't been able to learn what kind of company that was. Below is the listing from the Atlanta City Directory.

On August 16 of that year, Leroy Lamon died, and his was another sudden death. The death record describes the cause as "fractured cervical vertebrae"--in other words, a broken neck. There's no record of how he was injured, but he died in Jesup, GA, not Atlanta. Why he was in Jesup is also unknown. Was he murdered? Did he get in a fight? Was he in an accident? Maybe there was a piece in the newspaper of the time that explains. That might be worth looking into.

In any case, another member of the Lamon family died. It's not clear if the two girls were living with their grandmother at this time, but in 1917, Walter, one of the other brothers. claimed he was responsible for them on his WWI draft registration card. Though he was then living in New York City as an engineer with Army transport, he was probably sending money home to care for his sisters.

By 1920, the two girls were no longer living with their grandmother but were boarders in a convent in South Carolina, according to the census record. Why they ended up there is unknown. But not long after that, Anna married Jerome Sternberg and began her life as a wife and mother.

Anna Lamon Sternberg: Early Years

Anna Lamon, wife of Jerome Sternberg Sr, was born 3 June 1903 in Savannah, Georgia, to John Evans Lamon and Ann Nora Jacobs. She was the youngest of six children who survived infancy; there were two others who were born after Anna (in 1906 and 1907) but who did not survive. One died immediately at birth; the other lived three days before dying. Neither were named. A sibling born in 1898, Fred, lived only a year. All are buried in the Laurel Grove Cemetery in Savannah along with their parents and four other siblings.

In 1910, the Lamons lived at 530 Montgomery Street. (That building no longer exists.) All six children were at home, and according to this census, they were the only six left of 16 children born to Anna Nora Jacobs Lamon, Annie's mother. We can only speculate how Annie's mother lost 10 of her children. It seems unimaginable. The number may have been erroneously recorded, but one would have to look elsewhere for confirmation. Below is a segment of the Savannah census record for 1910.

From this source you can see that Anna's father, John was 42, his wife Nora was 38 and they had been married for 20 years. Next to Nora's name are the numbers 16 and 6; the first column is #children born to this woman and the second column is #children living. And you can see the six surviving children: John, Walter, Harry, Leroy, Anna, and Nettie.

Nettie and Anna are listed as the same age here as well as in 1920, but I don't think they were twins. There is a discrepancy in their ages in two places; though they are the same age in both early census records, Anna was listed as 27 in the 1930 census and 37 in 1940 when she died. Someone else's family tree on ancestry.com shows her birth date as 3 June 1903. I have no records that support that date, but perhaps her death certificate would show it. That could possibly be obtained in Savannah.

Another part of the census record shows the occupation of the people in the house.

You will note that John Lamon works in a pool room and that John Jr. and Walter Lamon are both clerks for a railroad. That railroad may have been the Central Georgia Railway. the one that John Sr. worked for at this time, according to the Savannah City Directory.  Therefore, the pool room was not his only occupation. In fact, the directory names him as proprietor of that business.

From this record you can also see that the Lamons had a live-in servant, Rosa B. Johnson, a 20 year-old black woman (race is "B") who is married but has no children. She is listed as their cook.