THIS TO REMEMBER HIM BY?

There is usually some part of an Immortal Nobodies' life that is remembered and handed down through the years.  But through a combination of a man who is a loner in his life, never married or never had kids, along with a lifespan that is finished before any relative thinks to take a photo of him or write down anything about him -- well, it doesn't leave much for a genealogist to work with.

Harrie Uberto McConnell is truly a tough one.....and all the more reason to get SOMETHING down about him.

His mother, Narcissa Frances Wright McConnell, had at least 8 children; only three of them lived to adulthood.  Harrie was the last.child born and the only son to live.  He was the only child to be born in Texas; his older sisters were born in Kentucky where the family had lived for years and years.

His oldest sister was married and out of the house and out of Texas by the time he was 4 years old. His other sister was 8 when he was born.  In 1893 his oldest sister was widowed and the family left Texas for Colorado.  The years from then on until 1917 are blank.  Obviously Harrie Uberto was dragged around by his parents as they went back to Texas, sold the farm, came to Palisade, Colorado, bought a peach orchard, and not finding that satisfactory left again for somewhere.  Dad died in that "somewhere" and we don't know where or how he met his end.  His mom goes to Colorado Springs to be with her daughter, and during that period is when Harrie appears in the northwest, working and living in a boarding house.  ALERT:  A niece said he came "home" when his mother died in 1915, But he remains working in Washington State and Oregon until he dies on Nov. 29, 1943 in Seattle.

What do we know about him?  That same niece was my Aunt Dorothy, and she was the only person alive who even vaguely remembered him.  And the one thing she remembered was that he was blind in one eye from a childhood eye injury.  That was it.

In trying to dig up information on him that maybe Ancestry knew about but the family didn't, I made what I consider an amazing discovery.  There is a World War I Draft Report on file for him that delivers a real surprise.  Under ordinary circumstances it wouldn't be so surprising to me, but the very fact that I know nothing except the one thing my Aunt Dorothy told me about his eye injury --- well, it appears that even that is wrong.  On this Draft Report, he notes he has a CATARACT on his left eye.  He may be blind from that cataract, and I'm sure he did not serve in the military, but he likely did not develop a cataract from a toy he was playing with.

And adding insult to injury, none of the census records allow him to be Harrie.  He is Harry.  Maybe that was his choice, but Harrie Uberto ceased to exist in more ways than one.

What looks like a round black ball at the top of the column is really Harry's dysfunctional eye.  Yes, it is something to remember him by.