A Child Lost ~ Freddie Lavine

From the July 1, 1883 issue of the Chicago Tribune, page 10, "LAVINE- Freddie Lavine, beloved son of Nellie Lavine, June 30, aged 1 month and 29 days. Funeral Sunday at 2 o'clock from 1088 West Madison-st. to Waldheim Cemetery."

I started at FamilySearch and clicked on USA, Canada, and Mexico under Browse by Collection. The 1,431,659 records in the Illinois, Cook County Deaths 1878-1922 database looks promising. I clicked on that and chose Advanced Search. I entered Lavine in the last name field; and death, Chicago, and 1883 on the next line. Freddie's was the first record in the search results:

Although his death certificate doesn't include Freddie's parents' names, the place of death (1088 W Madison Street) matches the address in his obituary.

Since the obituary mentions only Freddie's mother, I went to Ancestry in search of a census record. The results were interesting:

Nellie's husband is John W Lavine, a 45 year old cigar manufactor. John Jr can't be Nellie's son, she's only nine years older than him. I wondered how long John and Nellie had been married. Back to FamilySearch. This time I started with the Illinois, Cook County Marriages, 1871-1920 database.

The subjects of the first three records were members of this family. Here's what I learned; Nellie McLaughlin and John W Lavine were married by a Catholic priest in November of 1878:

John Jr. married a few years after the 1880 census was taken and Nellie remarried after her husband died:

Of course I don't really know that Nellie's first husband died. Perhaps they were divorced. Let's check death records to be sure. Back to that first database (Illinois, Cook County Deaths 1878-1922) at FamilySearch. I put John W Lavine into the the first fields and Chicago on the second line. Once again, the record I need is the first one. But when I clicked on it and then on View Image, I saw this:

I've had this experience on FamilySearch before. It's a little frustrating, but fortunately there is a work-around.  See the image number? It says image 1517 of 1773. I changed the image number to 1518 and learned the cause of John W Lavine's death.

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John's occupation is cigar manufactor, the same occupation that appears on the 1880 census. I didn't have much luck finding him in the 1900 census. If this was my family, I'd look in the newspaper to see if there is any mention of the shooting. The death certificate doesn't mention a coroner's report, and I don't see one listed for the right date, but I'd also look into that.

I located John Jr's mother in the 1870 census. I wonder if the English-born woman on this page is John Sr's sister?

As for Freddie's mother Nellie, there are too many possibilities to determine which is the "real" Nellie. Even the 1910 census made me wonder. Lavine and Campbell together and Walter's birthplace seems like a good match:

My belief that Walter is Freddie's older brother increased when I found his birth record:

Where do we go from here? There are many steps I'd take if this was my family; limited time prevents me from investigating further. I added Freddie and John Sr to Find A Grave. I hope that one of my readers will know where Nellie is buried and share the information. I'd like to reunite Nellie and Freddie, wouldn't you?

Note: I have no connection to this child. As I said in A Child Lost ~ Introduction, my goal is to reunite children with their parents.  If you are a LaVine descendant, I hope you'll give Freddie a special place in your family tree.

My own family tree work-in-progress is online at Living in the Past Lane.