User talk:107.123.53.12

I started the discussion on Romaine earlier today. My mind is not good but I wanted to provide what I recalled about my research on him over earlier decades. After writing and submitting I pulled up my old computer files and figured I should update some things that were maybe erroneous. I can't see my earlier writing and have to work on a cell phone so I'm really handicapped. But here goes:

Romaine's birth name was William Grant Blandin. Grant was the given name of his birth mother's father (Grant Bacon). Romaines birth mother was 12 when Chester John, who was 19, conceived. I thought that William's father was a minister but I don't see that in my files. Maybe it's just my brain fading away.

Almeda 'Meda' Phoebe Bacon was born in July 1853. Chester John Blandin was born on 23 May 1848 in Wisconsin. They married on 7 Dec 1867 in Caledonia, MN but divorced (formally or informally) very soon afterward. I have that William Grant Blandin was born in October 1867. This was before the marriage so I must be wrong that someone made the young couple have a shotgun marriage before the birth.

William was found living with his mother in 1870 but I'm not substantiating that in my records. That's just what I recall. Chester remarried on 16 Nov 1869 in Delaware County, IA to Nancy Jane Tate but then remarried again to Sarah Emily 'Emma' Harlow in 1875. Meda remarried on 27 Sep 1876 to John A Evans in Winnebago, MN. Meda died in 1928.

Chester John Blandin recorded a birth of a boy on 22 May 1875 in Albert Lea, MN. My conclusion was that he had kidnapped William Grant Blandin from his mother, possibly because his ex-wife was indicating that she was going to remarry and wanted her new husband to adopt the kid. This is just a thought I had though. I wonder if her new husband did NOT want the kid and William Grant Blandin was hastily dumped oh Chester John Blandin without the benefit of a birth record. That may be a stretch though. I don't know. I don't have copies of any document from Albert Lea (although I thought I did) so I don't have what the kid was called or if it had the mother's name on it.

Then I see that I have him listed as born on 22 May 1879 in Washington, IA. No copy of a record though. That may have been the date that Romanzo Poe Blandin was born. Somehow I have his birth as Nov 1879. I'm not sure where I got that but in this family people really started making up "facts" like it was a game. I don't think I found the death record of Romanzo but it appears that it was about 1883. (Poe was Emma's mom's maiden surname.)

Chester and Emma had Burdette Blandin on 4 Jun 1878 in Washington, IA. Burdette also played games with facts during his life. He used middle initials of B. F. which seemed legit but then went on to use names of Robert and Alonzo. I was reading a blog about Romaine today online that said that Romaine's brother Robert Blandin contacted Romaine in AZ or NM while Romaine was filming there. That didn't sound familiar to me but when I opened my database I saw that Burdette had used the name Robert at some point. So it must have been him.

Burdette was just as weird as William/Romaine. I was interested in him because I thought he was the connection to the lady who originally contacted me. As I recall Burdette, William/Romaine, and Chester John Blandin worked in a "power plant" fabrication place or factory. William joined the Marines as I recall but Burdette became something like a field startup guy for the big engines (usually with big generators). They were power - big power, for factories, mines, quarries, and whatever else needed that stuff. So he went to Sacramento County, CA to a project, met a girl (Josephine 'Josie' E. Jones) there, and apparently married her about 1895. They had a daughter (Thelma E) in CA 18 Apr 1897 and returned to MN where they had a son Hiram 'Herman' (later 'Howard') St. Clair Blandin 24 Mar 1899.

Burdette was like Romaine. He disappeared from records off and on for decades. In the article I read today Romaine was surprised when he popped up in AZ. The article said that Romaine thought that he died in a quarry landslide in Mexico 15 years earlier. (I forget the dates that I read today but it must have been in the mid 1910s making the last contact between the brothers somewhere around 1900. Josie listed herself as a widow around 1901 and lived in Portland, OR. Burdette married Alberta Lea Fitch in Kansas City on 12 Aug 1902. (Notice how Alberta Lea is similar to Albert Lee which is a town in MN.) They divorced within a couple years.

On 18 Jan 1910 he worked 10 days as a switchman around Pasco, WA but quit on "short notice". He tried to reapply in March but I don't think they picked him up. On 5 Mar 1910 he was living in a hotel with 'Lena' who he married (Helena 'Helen' 'Lena' Mary) in Walla Walla County on 7 June 1911. (He used Harlow as his surname and faked his parents names but it was certainly him. He was just lying.)

Then in November 1914 he was arrested for stealing a car from the filming location of his brother Romaine Fielding in Colorado Springs, CO. The woman with him was M. Spohr. The newspaper article said that she WAS his wife but were then divorced. So I figure she was Helena Mary, but I haven't verified. They did a jail house wedding in the Colorado Springs jail, I suppose to allow her to not testify against Burdette. It didn't work and he was convicted of grand theft auto on 19 December 1914. I found no record of him afterward until today when that blog said that he was working in that quarry or mine that Romaine used as a film set to spend time with his brother.

William (using various aliases) married first to Genevieve Icylene 'Icy' Richards in 1891, presumably in Minneapolis. He then joined the army on 2 Aug 1893. (I had thought it was the Marines, but I recalled wrong.) He was discharged for "possible epilepsy" at Fort Smelling on 15 Aug 1894. He applied for a military pension a week later.

He was listed as Royal A. Blandin as a student in 1895 and under that name enlisted in the Marines on 25 Jul 1896 in Brooklyn, NY. In October he got orders to report to "the hospital" in Washington, DC and on 16 Nov 1896 he was reported there in the "hospital survey." I expect "the hospital" was Walter Reed. Originally I figured that he died there because I found no other record of Royal A. Blandin until I found a memoriam in a CA newspaper by Royal and Burdette around 1900 when their mother/stepmother died.

Chester John Blandin remarried after Emma Harlow died. He married Sarah Salinda 'Lenna' Phillips on 29 Dec 1903 in Des Moines, IA. They apparently moved to Kansas City soon afterward and had a son Chester there who died on 9 Aug 1906. Chester John Blandin died on 13 Aug 1906 in Kansas City.

Around 1897 he apparently went to the Yukon Gold Rush. I've done research on others who went there and hung out with the same group of people but I can't smooth out things. In my other research I found they moved down to the Dakota territory to search gold there. Don't know who was in the group but same names (Jack London, etc.) show up. Just haven't and won't investigate further.

In 1900 he was living as a son-in-law with 'Icy' and her parents in Fall River, KS. I don't find the census in my files so don't have record to clarify. (Just my notes that he was listed as son-in-law to someone there.)

In 1907 he was listed in an ad for Auditorium Drug Co. in Kansas City as Romanzo A. Blinding, clerk and physician.

He married Florence Mabel Van Valken (as Romanzo A. Blinding) in Chicago on 30 July 1907. 'Icy' married Elmore (or Elmer) Connor Dyer in 1908. I don't have any divorce date. Oh, Florence listed she was born in Tipton, IN.

Romaine and "Mabel" were in the 1910 census as "actor" and "actress" in "show business" living in a hotel in Minneapolis. They note that this was their first marriage, although it wasn't. They note that they were born in Minnesota, which I know he was. By 1912 he was in Prescott, AZ and in May 1913 in Silver City, NM. He's all over the SW making movies.

I'll have to finish later.

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