Charles Eldon LUTHER I (29 Sep 1858-20 Jul 1918) +
Sarah Ann JOHNSON (13 Jun 1864-30 Mar 1914)

Mary A. (13 Jul 1881-19 Jan 1950) — m. F. Herbert Robie on 24 Oct 1897

James I. (17 Dec 1883-20 Mar 1908)

Edwin Damond (19 Dec 1885-1 Jan 1945) — m. Loretta Mary Dorion on 16 Oct 1922

Phoebe N. (18 Dec 1889-22 Nov 1920) — m. John B. LaTulippe on 31 Mar 1914

Charles Eldon II (7 Mar 1891-3 Mar 1977) — m. Flora Hill Brown on 2 Jul 1920

Israel B. (14 Dec 1892-5 Mar 1947)

Walter (Jun 1903-3 Jul 1905)

unnamed (19 Jan 1909-19 Jan 1909)

Charles was born in Hereford, Compton District (now Estrie Region), Quebec, son of Israel B. Luther and Maria Amanda Patterson.

Sarah was the daughter of William Johnson and Margaret Davis, residents of Hereford. She was probably born in Hereford also, but possibly across the border in Canaan, Essex County, Vermont.

Sarah was just 15 or 16 when she married Charles in Canaan on 13 March 1880. The marriage certificate says 18. [There are online accounts of Charles marrying “Lavina” Moulton. This is a confusion with his brother Elbridge, aka Burley.]

The 1881 census for Compton District showed Charles (22) and Sarah (16), with no children yet, 7th Day Adventist, living two census pages away from her family. Ed, their third child, was born in 1885 in Beecher Falls, Vermont, a mile and a half east of Canaan. It’s not clear whether they had actually moved, or had just gone to Beecher Falls for the birth. There are family stories to the effect that they lived near the border so they could move cattle back and forth to hide them from tax assessors of both nations.

The 1891 Canada census listed the family in Paquetteville, Quebec, a few miles north of Hereford, with children Mary (9), James (7), Edwin (5), Phebe (1), and Charles (1 month). Again, they were 7th Day Adventist.

The 1901 Canada census showed them once more in Hereford Township, although the census bureau transcription turned their surname into “Leather”: Charles (42) and Sarah A. (36), plus children James I. (17), Edwin D. (14), Phebe N. (11), Charles E. (10), and Israel B. (8). This census recorded exact dates of birth.

Per Phoebe’s later census report, they returned to the US in 1904 (after Walter was born), settling in Wolcott, Lamoille County, Vermont. In 1905, Walter, age 2, choked to death on a peanut shell. In 1908, James, the oldest of the boys, committed suicide. He was 24. In 1909, an unnamed eighth child was born prematurely to Charles and Sarah, but lived just five hours. A Dr. S. E. Darling was the reporting physician in the latter two cases.

The 1910 US census showed Charles (51) and Sarah (45, born Vermont) living in Wolcott. The household also included son Israel B. Luther (17), nephew Elbridge Luther Jr. (19), son of Charles’s younger brother Burley, and Elbridge Jr.’s wife Pearl (16). Mary had married, Ed had gone out to the West Coast, Charles II and Phoebe had left and were working for other families, and James and little Walter had died.

Sarah died of a cerebral hemorrhage in March 1914. A few months later, her son Israel was committed to the state asylum in Waterbury, where he was to remain for the rest of his life. (See explanation under the Children section below.)

Charles remained in Wolcott until July 1918, when he was hospitalized in Burlington and eventually underwent surgery for a gangrenous appendix. The surgery was unsuccessful, or perhaps just too late. Charles is buried next to Sarah in Fairmount Cemetery, Wolcott, near the top of the hill. The big stone marks the family plot, and Charles lies under a smaller stone next to it. James and Walter are there as well. Sarah’s stone uses her maiden name. Charles’s mother was buried in the same fashion, so maybe it’s a regional or family custom.

Children

Mary A. Luther (1881-1950)

Mary married Francis Herbert Robie, Sr. (3 May 1877-4 Jan 1953) in 1897 in Canaan, Vermont. Herbert was born in Farmington, New Hampshire, but by 1880 his family had moved to Clarksville, New Hampshire, just east of Canaan. The children of Mary and Herbert:

Francis Herbert, Jr. (5 Nov 1899-Oct 1979) — m. Winifred G. “Winnie” Sheldon in 192x

Iola May (14 Feb 1904-1997) — m. John J. Green on 4 Oct 1924

Charles Edwin (18 Feb 1906-28 Aug 1974)

Elsie Myrtle (7 Jun 1908-15 Mar 1983) — m. Benjamin D. Shepherd on 18 Aug 1930; m. Frank V. Brown on 24 Apr 1936

From birth records, they were living in New Hampshire in 1899, in Hardwick, Vermont in 1906, and in Wolcott, Vermont in 1908. By the time Herbert registered for the draft in 1918, they were in Ridlonville, a part of Mexico, Oxford County, Maine, and Herbert was employed at the paper mill there. The 1920 census showed them in Mexico with children Iola (15), Charlie (14), and Elsie (11); their son Francis was sharing a place in Mexico with his uncle Charles E. Luther II. The 1930 census doesn’t show Herbert, but lists Charles (24) and Elsie (21) still at home.

In the 1940 census, daughter Elsie (31) and her husband Frank Brown (36) were living with Herbert and Mary in Mexico. Mary died in 1950, and Herbert in 1953. They’re buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Dixfield, Maine.

James I. Luther (1883-1908)

James committed suicide by chloroform in 1908 in Wolcott, and is buried in Fairmount Cemetery with his parents and little brother Walter.

Edwin Damond Luther (1885-1945)

Ed left home before 1910, and went out west. His brother Charles was with him at least part of the time. They joined a traveling rodeo, taking care of the animals and working as rodeo clowns. The 1910 census showed an Edward E. Luther, 24, from Vermont, living in a boarding house in Raymond, Washington and working as a laborer in a lumber camp – probably him.

Ed was in the US Navy from 22 Oct 1917 to 19 Nov 1919, and served aboard the destroyer USS Ingraham (DD-111). In 1920 he was living in Canaan, Vermont, staying with the Haynes family, along with his cousin George Luther (b. 1894), who had married Ruby Haynes. Ed told the census that his family entered the US in 1888, when he was 2. (As previously noted, they moved back and forth across the border multiple times.) He married Canada-born Loretta Mary “Mary” Dorion (25 Jul 1896-22 Jan 1950) on 16 Oct 1922 in Mexico, Maine. They had one foster child:

Marion Reta “Reta” Armstrong (31 May 1930-5 Nov 2003)

Ed and Mary raised Reta as their daughter but were not legally able to adopt her. The 1940 census listed her with them as “lodger”, age 9. A Hercule Dorion (1900-1952), presumably Mary’s younger brother, was living with the family as well in 1930 and in 1940. Ed died in 1945, and Mary in 1950. They’re buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Dixfield, Maine.

Phoebe N. Luther (1889-1920)

In 1910, Phoebe (20) was working as a servant to the Cheney family in Barre, Vermont. She married Burlington-born dairy farmer John Baptiste LaTulippe (26 Sep 1884-12 Feb 1958) in Waterbury, Vermont on 31 Mar 1914, the day after her mother’s death, although it’s possible Phoebe didn’t know that yet. It’s also possible she didn’t know this was John’s third marriage, that he had left his first wife with three children, or that his second marriage had taken place less than five months before. John was the son of French Canadian father John LaTulippe and Vermont-born mother Rose Lashua or Lajoie. He was to have five wives in all – see the “LaTulippes” section at the bottom of this page for links. His 1918 draft record described him as medium height and build, black eyes, black hair, slightly balding. His and Phoebe’s children:

Mary Selina (24 Mar 1915-25 Nov 2003) — m. Clarence C. LaTulippe; m. Stanislaus Batura

Sarah Rose (17 Apr 1916-10 Oct 2001) — m. Harry Waldo Joslin on 16 Jun 1934

John Luther (5 Mar 1919-1 Sep 1941) — m. Juliette Yvonne Meunier on 3 Jun 1939

Charles Alden // Sheldon Edward MILLER (21 Oct 1920-28 Jun 1997) — m. Helen M. Litke on 23 May 1941; m. Margery C. Sabia on 12 Feb 1994

John and Phoebe lived for a time in Lancaster, New Hampshire, where their first two children were born, but moved to Wolcott, Vermont by 1918 if not earlier. Son John was born there. Phoebe suffered from diabetes and other ailments, and her brothers Ed and Charles helped her financially in her last years. In the 1920 census, John (35) and Phoebe (30) were living in Wolcott with children Mary S. (4), Sarah R. (3), and John L. (infant), plus John’s nephew Leland LaTulippe (16). When the last child, Charles, was born in October, Phoebe was residing at 9 North Avenue in Burlington, where the modern Burlington Police Department HQ now stands, while her husband was working out in Windsor.

She probably moved to Burlington to be near the hospital there. Phoebe had been in poor health even before Charles was born, and suffered fever and delirium after. Her siblings Mary, Ed, and Charles and sister-in-law Flora came from Maine to look after her for a few days, and she seemed to improve. Three weeks later, she died of chronic endocarditis and heart failure at the Mary Fletcher Hospital, 111 Colchester Avenue, Burlington. That’s the old brick building at the northeast corner of the modern UVM Medical Center Campus. Her siblings returned for the funeral in Wolcott, where Phoebe was buried in Fairmount Cemetery. Brother Ed provided the information for the death certificate, mis-stating Phoebe’s year of birth as 1890.

Six months later, on 26 May 1921 in Burlington, John LaTulippe married Octavia Kate “Katie” Wheelock (30 Aug 1896-7 Jun 1927) from Elmore, Lamoille County, Vermont. He listed this as his second marriage. They moved to Massachusetts by 1925. John and Katie had either one or two children born in Massachusetts, but the record on that is muddled (see the following paragraphs). Katie died in 1927 in Acton, Middlesex County, Massachusetts, cause undetermined.

The 1930 census showed John in Acton and married to wife #5, Alice Gertrude Penley (20 Jun 1900-31 Jan 1968) from Auburn, Maine. With them were three of Phoebe’s four children: Mary (15), Sarah (13), and John (11). Also with them were children Earl Carl Morey (16 Nov 1921-Dec 1936), Harold James LaTulippe (23 Aug 1925-29 Jan 1992), and Franklin Henry Lamont (30 May 1927-22 Jul 2006). Earl was Alice’s son, fathered apparently out of wedlock by Sherwood Prince and born in Lewiston, Maine. Alice had been married in May 1922 to Irving C. Morey (8 Nov 1895-4 Aug 1978) in North Waterford, Maine, from whom Earl took the last name Morey. Harold, born in Massachusetts, was John’s son by Katie Wheelock.

Franklin would seem to have been the son of Frank H. Lamont (~1896-????) from Lyme, New Hampshire and Katherine Theodora Gadapee (7 Feb 1900-1 Jul 1968) from Elmore, Vermont, who married in 1922 – both because of the name and because by 1940 he was living with Katherine Gadapee’s parents Will and Katherine and listed as “grandson”. (He might have been with them in 1930 too, in addition to being listed in Massachusetts that year – the record is messily edited, so I can’t tell for certain whether the Frank Lamont living with the Gadapees in 1930 was the son or the possible father.) But he said in his 1948 wedding record that his parents were John LaTulippe and Katie Wheelock. But then his 2006 death record said Frank Lamont and Katherine Gadapee. So I don’t know what was going on here, or what it signifies that both candidates to be his mother were from the same town. It’s like trying to make sense of a few still frames from a soap opera I’ve never watched.

My best guess: Franklin was the son of John and Katie. Katie died soon after he was born, leaving John with an infant and four other children ranging in age from 12 to not quite 2, and no wife to look after them. Consequently, John allowed a hometown friend of his late wife to adopt the baby, and then took him back after finding a new wife. Franklin felt closer to his adopted family, hence kept the name and returned to them when he was older. That’s mostly speculation, but it fits the available data, and is similar to what happened with Charles LaTulippe in 1920.

The 1935 annual report for Acton listed John LaTulippe as having a dog license. Ah, bureaucracy. In 1940, John (55) and Alice (39) were in Boxborough, Middlesex County, with just John’s son James (15) still at home. In 1942, John registered for the draft from Liberty Square Road, Boxborough. The 1950 census listed him working as a driver for an ice company. He died in 1958 and is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, West Acton, effectively preventing him from marrying again. Alice died in 1968 and is buried with him.

Charles Eldon Luther II (1891-1977)

Charles has his own entry in the family tree.

Israel B. Luther (1893-1947)

Israel was born in Canada and named for his grandfather. He was committed to the Vermont State Hospital for the Insane in Waterbury, Vermont in mid-1914 at age 21, a few months after his mother’s death. According to family recollections, he wasn’t insane by the modern definition; he was mentally retarded. In addition, he had gotten into something on the farm that had either injured him badly or made him very sick. With his mother no longer there to help him, confinement was the only option the family felt they had.

The 1930 and 1940 censuses showed Israel at the asylum. He died of miliary tuberculosis in 1947. The death certificate noted he had been in the asylum for 32 years 10 months 8 days.

Walter Luther (1903-1905)

Walter, age 2, choked to death on a peanut shell in Wolcott, Vermont. He’s buried with his parents in Fairmount Cemetery there.

Grandchildren

Francis Herbert Robie, Jr. (1899-1979)

Francis registered for the WWI draft in Stratton, Franklin County, Maine. The notice described him as a woodsman of medium height and build with red hair and brown eyes. In 1920 he was sharing a place in Mexico, Maine with his uncle Charles Luther II. In probably the mid-1920s he married English-born Winifred G. “Winnie” Sheldon (~1905-17 Jul 1961), daughter of Violet Sheldon, who had emigrated to Hartford, Connecticut in 1910. They had two children:

Joan Patricia (4 Aug 1927-16 Jan 2009) — m. John J. Cappello

Carol E. (8 Aug 1930-21 Jun 2009) — m. John A. Donnelly

The 1930 census showed Francis (29), Winifred (25), and daughter Joan (2) in East Hartford, Connecticut. The 1940 census showed them with Joan (12) and Carol (9).

Francis sometimes visited his younger sister Elsie in Mexico, Maine. Unlike most of the Robies, he liked to joke around. He used to tease Flora Brown Luther, his aunt by marriage, with comments such as, “When I get to be your age...” She was 3 months older.

Winnie died in 1961, and is buried in Cedar Hill Cemetery in Hartford. Francis died in Bloomfield, Connecticut in 1979, and is buried with Winnie.

Caution: In Westbrook, Cumberland County, Maine, there was a Frank H. Robie who married Maud Wentzell, and his son Frank Jr. who married Irene Landry, but they were no relation to our Francis.

Iola May Robie (1904-1997)

Iola married John Joseph Green (8 Oct 1892-5 Aug 1962) in Mexico, Maine in 1924. John was from Fall River, Massachusetts, and came with three daughters born in Maine to John’s first wife, Gladys Blanchard: Dorothy May (~1918-????; m. James G. Keene on 1 Feb 1936; poss. m. Albert J. Matthews, Jr. on 11 Sep 1948), Irene H. (14 Aug 1920-Sep 1970; m. Merle M. Hunt on 21 Aug 1938), and Frances M. (7 Mar 1922-????; m. Wilfred J. Arsenault on 12 Jul 1952). John and Iola lived in Mexico, and had one child:

John Joseph, Jr. (~1930-6 Nov 1964)

Iola died in 1997 and is buried with husband John and son John, Jr. in Greenwood Cemetery, Dixfield, Maine.

Charles Edwin Robie (1906-1974)

Charlie was named for two of his uncles. I don’t know where he lived after 1930, or whether he ever married. He lost both his legs in an accident that involved alcohol, lighter fluid, and a cigarette. He died in 1974, apparently in Portland, although there are death records for him from both Maine and Massachusetts. He is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Dixfield.

Elsie Myrtle Robie (1908-1983)

Elsie married Canada-born Benjamin D. “Benjy” Shepherd (~1898-193x) on 18 Aug 1930 in Mexico, Maine. He died in a car crash in the early 1930s. Elsie married Frank V. Brown (13 Feb 1904-19 Sep 1993), half-brother of her uncle Charles’s wife, on 24 Apr 1936 in Mexico. In 1940 they were living with her parents. They were unable to have children because of a childhood accident Elsie suffered. They lived in Mexico near Frank’s half-sister Flora until Elsie’s death on 15 March 1983. Elsie is buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Dixfield with Frank and her parents.

Marion Reta “Reta” Armstrong (1930-2003)

Ed’s foster daughter Reta was the youngest of four children born to Guy G. Armstrong (~1897-????) from Canada and Mary Ida Hall (9 Apr 1904-1931) of Dixfield, Maine. Her siblings were John W. (1924-21 Jan 1973, m. Clara M. Blanchard on 1 Jan 1949), Eleanor E. (23 Jul 1925-2009), and Norah M. (1928-28 Sep 1997, m. Bobby Roberts). The 1930 census captured a snapshot of this family in Dixfield the year before it shattered: Mary died, and Guy abandoned the children and went back to Canada.

John and the two older girls went to their mother’s parents, William C. “Will” Hall (1879-1951) of Dixfield and Ella M. Whittemore (1882-1956) from Canton, Maine. However, the grandparents didn’t feel up to taking care of a baby as well. I don’t know how Ed and Mary Luther entered the picture, but they became Reta’s foster parents.

Ed and Mary tried to legally adopt Reta. Guy refused to grant permission. After Ed and Mary died in 1945 and 1950 respectively, Reta lived with Charles and Flora Luther, who angered some of their relatives by supporting Reta’s right to inherit property that Ed and Mary had left her.

Reta worked at the Diamond Match factory in Peru, Oxford County as a machine operator for more than 35 years. After Charles and Flora died, Reta continued to live at their house at 47 Whitman Street, Mexico, Maine until her own death of a ruptured aortic aneurysm in 2003. She’s buried with Ed and Mary Luther in Greenwood Cemetery, Dixfield. There’s also a marker with her name next to her mother’s grave in Riverside Cemetery, Dixfield, next to similar markers for her two sisters.

Mary Selina LaTulippe (1915-2003)

Mary, born in Lancaster, New Hampshire, married Clarence Cyrus LaTulippe (~1909-7 Sep 1961) from Vergennes, Vermont, son of George LaTulippe and Melinda LaValley. They lived in Hudson, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire. They had four children:

Helen Bernadette (26 Oct 1933-7 Feb 2011) — m. Jesse Perle Richardson on 1 Jan 1954

Roger C. (1940) — m. Rosita “Deedee” Lee

Paul Sheldon (3 Oct 1944-13 Oct 1944)

Sonjie (195x) — m. Arthur Thomas

Sometime after Clarence’s death in 1961, Mary married Stanislaus “Stanley” Batura (11 Jun 1914-15 Apr 1993) of Hudson. Stanley died in 1993, and is buried with his parents in St. Stanislaus Cemetery, Nashua. Mary died in 2003, and is buried in Saint Patrick’s Cemetery, Hudson.

Sarah Rose LaTulippe (1916-2001)

Sarah, born in Lancaster, New Hampshire, married Harry Waldo Joslin (15 Nov 1910-3 Oct 1991) from Bennington, Vermont in 1934 in Acton, Massachusetts. Their children:

John Thomas (4 Mar 1937-6 Sep 2017) — m. Kay Francis ???

Patricia Ann (2 Oct 1939-18 Aug 2020) — m. Leo A. Desrosiers on 5 Aug 1961

Joye Lorraine (1948)

In 1940, they were living in Hudson, New Hampshire. Harry died in Florida in 1991. Sarah died in 2001 in Irvine, California.

John Luther LaTulippe (1919-1941)

John was born in Wolcott, Vermont. He moved with his father and stepmother to Massachusetts by 1925. He moved to Nashua, New Hampshire about 1937. On 1 Sep 1939, he married Juliette Yvonne Meunier (9 Jul 1914-18 Sep 1997) from New Hampshire. They had two children:

Gloria Ida (23 Jul 1940-16 Jan 1993) — m. Philip R. Dubois, Sr.

John N. (?15 Mar? 1942-????)

The 1940 census showed them living in Nashua. John was working as a chauffeur for the Maine Manufacturing Company. He died in 1941 at a Nashua hospital, cause unspecified, and is buried with his wife’s family in Saint Francis Xavier Catholic Cemetery, Nashua.

The 1950 census showed Juliette, widowed, living with the two children in Dunstable, Hillsborough County. She married George C. Titus (30 Oct 1899-29 Oct 1961) on 28 Jun 1958. She died in 1997, and is buried with George in Edgewood Cemetery, Nashua.

Charles Alden LaTulippe // Sheldon Edward Miller (1920-1997)

Charles’s original middle name was probably Eldon after his grandfather or uncle, but Phoebe’s death when he was about a month old rendered the point moot, since he was adopted and renamed by a Vermont couple, Edward C. Miller (28 Dec 1888-13 Jan 1967) and Abbie M. LaTulippe (17 Sep 1900-1 Jul 1984). Abbie was John LaTulippe’s niece, hence Charles’s/Sheldon’s cousin. She and Edward had married on 3 Apr 1916, and had no other children. They and Abbie’s parents moved to Avon, Hartford County, Connecticut, where the 1930 and 1940 censuses showed them. In 1941, Sheldon married Helen M. Litke (17 Dec 1918-14 Dec 1990). He and Helen had four children:

Ronald S. (1944) — m. Mary ???

Donna M. (1947) — m. Edward B. Pelletier on 9 Dec 1967

Robert (195x) — m. Sandy ???

David (195x) — m. Diana ???

They lived at first in Torrington, Litchfield County. In 1944, Sheldon was drafted into the US Army, and served as a technical specialist in the Philippines and post-war Japan. In 1946, he returned to Connecticut, where he and Helen bought a house in Harwinton, Litchfield County. Sheldon worked as a farm manager and fence installer, owned and operated a power equipment business for about ten years, and later worked as a truck driver.

Helen died in 1990. Sheldon married Margery C. Sabia in Plymouth, Connecticut in 1994. He died in 1997, and is buried in West Avon Cemetery, Avon, the same place as his parents.

Links

Armstrongs

LaTulippes et al