The slang phrase "hard times" is defined, according to dictionary.com, "If you’ve fallen on hard times, you’re experiencing a period of great difficulty, especially financially. It can also refer to challenging circumstances more generally, like with personal or health struggles. Hard time, in the singular, is a long prison sentence or giving someone some flak."
This phrase met the criteria, unfortunately, for many ancestors. This week I'll share about Joseph Atherton, Grandma Rita Foxall Vos' maternal grandfather.
One thing I remember Rita saying her grandfather Atherton was one word: a shyster. And the more research I do about this man, the more fitting this description becomes.
Joseph Aaron Atherton was born September 3, 1889, in McDonough Co., Illinois, the youngest and only son of William Barney and Amelia C. Atherton Atherton. (Yes, you read that right, an Atherton married an Atherton). W.B. was a successful farmer, ten years older than Amelia. She wed W.B. at the tender age of 14 (yes, you read that number correctly). The legend goes that her family was forced out of their town of Jackson, near Cape Giredau, Missouri during the Civil War and they had to escape by foot to Illinois.
Hard times, indeed.
Amelia and W.B. had six children but only two survived to adulthood.
Hard times, indeed.
Amelia's life was cut short when she died of liver cancer at the age of 48, leaving W.B. to raise his 12-year-son, Joseph.
Hard times, indeed.
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| Amelia Atherton (colorized photo) |
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| Barney Atherton (colorized photo) |
Joseph, named after his paternal grandfather, wed Catherine "Kitty" Wolfe the day after his 21st birthday, September 1910. They quickly started a family with Mary Catherine "Kate" born August 14, 1911 and Laura Mae (Grandma Rita's mom) born May 1, 1915. The family lived in Macomb, Illinois where Joseph worked in a store selling radios in the 1910s and early 1920s.
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| Kate & Laura Atherton, circa 1917 |
But then Joseph was arrested and then charged with burgarly and larcency in the spring of 1927, when he and a group of two other men and two women accused of theft of clover seed from multiple grain elevators. In July 1927, another warrant was out for Joseph's arrest for theft of $700 radio sets, which occurred six months earlier. I don't know if the theft occurred at the same business in which he was employed. Atherton then jumped his $5,000 bond. It took the authorities two years before he was located in Minneapolis, Minnesota and brought back to Macomb. In April 1929, he first pled not guilty but later changing it to guilty for theft. He served 10 years at the Illinois State Penitary, spending most of the time during the Great Depression in jail, serving hard time.
Hard time, indeed.
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| "The Bardolph News", Bardolph, Illinois, June 13, 1929 |
After he served his time, he returned back to Minneapolis, Minnesota. He married for a second time and died in 1972.
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