Relay – A Family History Blog

When I first began researching the Schwartz/Swartz family over 25 years ago I came across a record in the Clark County, Indiana probate records that puzzled me.

January term 1867 Clark County, Indiana Probate records, John F. Swartz request to be appointed guardian of Mary Foster Swartz, child of Telitha Swartz, deceased.¹

This was puzzling because Telitha, as far as I knew, was unmarried and had been alive as recently as 6 months earlier when she quit-claimed inherited land to her only surviving full brother John Franklin Swartz. And yet now we’ve got a five year old apparently illegitimate orphan. And, apparently, a disputed guardianship. John F. Swartz, the uncle of the orphan, petitioned the court to be appointed to her guardianship but there was a challenge to his guardianship. At the next term of the court the dispute was resolved and John was appointed guardian of his five year old niece.²

And yet the puzzles continue. Between 1868 and 1871 John F. doesn’t appear to have provided the court with the normal annual updates regarding his guardianship and Mary Foster Swartz does not appear in the household of John F. Swartz in 1870. She doesn’t appear anywhere in Clark County or possible counties in Illinois where she had relatives. Quite possibly she died in the interim. Young children did. But in 1872, John F. is back in court providing an accounting of his guardianship and the estate of Mary Foster Swartz. And after stating that her estate consists of 3 acres in Utica township inherited from her mother and providing receipts for his expenses for the past year, John asks to be dismissed from his guardianship.³

Well ok. John F. Swartz is about to move his growing family to Iowa and perhaps there is tension over having this 10 year old live with his family (and his life is another story that I’ll tell in the Swartz genealogy on my McLeland-Wieser Family blog.) In his place John G. Smith is appointed guardian. No relationship is given but there are plenty of Smith cousins around since John F. Swartz’s aunt Mary Ann married a James Smith. In 1873 John G. Smith comes in to court and states that he is living in Louisville, Jefferson County, Kentucky and that Mary Foster Swartz resides with him. He states that she is 10 years old and that it has cost him $50 to cloth, feed and educate her in the past year and that she has nothing except the real estate to cover the costs. So he is given permission to sell the real estate.⁴. And then just a couple of months later he is in court asking to relinquish his guardianship – which is done and a new guardian is appointed who immediately sells the land at public auction (to the Trustees of the New Chapel Methodist Church which adjoins the land) and then returns the guardianship to John G. Smith who informs the Clark County Court that he has been appointed guardian of Mary in Kentucky courts since she now resides there with him.⁵. The Clark County court closes the guardianship file of Mary F. Swartz in January 1874.⁶

And that is all I can find for Mary. I cannot find a guardianship record for her in Jefferson County, Kentucky even though papers were presented to the Clark County, Indiana court. She doesn’t appear on the 1870 or 1880 census in any recognizable form – not Mary F. Swartz/Schwartz or Mary F. Smith or Mary Foster. She doesn’t appear to have married in either Clark County, Indiana or Jefferson County Kentucky before 1880 – she would only have been 17-19 in 1880 so a marriage is possible but by no means certain. There is no John G. Smith that I can recognize in Louisville, Jefferson County, KY or Clark County, IN in 1880 or 1870 (there are many John Smith’s of course but no household has a daughter or foster child or niece Mary of anywhere close to the right age.) I have been unable to establish a FAN group for John G. Smith in Clark County or Jefferson County.  None of Telitha’s Swartz half siblings nor her Stewart half-siblings appear to have Mary in their households in 1870 or 1880.

Mary appears to be illegitimate – there is no marriage record for Telitha Swartz that I have been able to discover and she was clearly single in the mid-1860s when she was engaging in land transactions with her sibilings. I have speculated that Mary’s father was surnamed Foster , perhaps he was killed during the Civil War and that she ended up with his family household at least part of the time but that is purely speculation because I do not know ANYTHING about her father. I didn’t even know Mary existed until I found the first petition for guardianship. Basically Mary Foster Swartz enters the record in 1867 at the age of 5 and leaves the records in 1874 at the age of 12. And that appears to be the end of things.