My given name is Hartford Cheney Inlow, II (“II” because I’m named after my father, Hartford Inlow I). I’ve always been known as “Hart.” My father was “Hartford.”
I like my name, but it has not always been easy…especially when introducing myself to someone for the first time. The quizzical expression on the other persons face…having to spell it out for them…watching them labor over what I’m trying to communicate to them. I’m reminded of Ralphie in “A Christmas Story” as he labored to decipher the coded Little Orphan Annie message (What!! You say you’ve never seen “A Christmas Story”!! plan now to set your DVR next Christmas Day when it once again airs for 24 straight hours on one of the cable networks!)
Anyway…at those moments my wife will often come to my rescue, explaining: “He has three last names.” Hearing that they will usually nod their heads as if it’s now perfectly clear…but I’m rarely convinced it actually makes sense to them.
However, it IS the truth. I have three last names.
Inlow, my surname. Though there are several different spellings, the name is well documented and traced to the same Dutch immigrant, Hendricks Enloes. It’s a name filled with loads of wonderful history…it is through this surname I proved my first Sons of the American Revolution patriot. More about that another time.
Cheney is my grandmother’s surname…the first immigrant of this name appears to be William Cheney who was living in Roxbury, Massachusetts, no later than 1639. It is through this line I proved my first of several General Association of Mayflower Descendants ancestors…none other than Governor William Bradford. I’ve already written a bit about that.
Finally there is that most unusual given name, “Hartford.” Where did that come from? And this is where the pandemic connection begins.
I’d always been told – by my father – that my grandmother named him after her doctor – Dr. Hartford. Interesting. And, knowing my grandmother, not totally out of the realm of possibility. But why? Why would my grandmother – Mabel Lora Cheney Inlow — name her newborn son after her doctor, of all people? I mean…who does that (other than my grandmother, of course!).
My dad explained it happened during the Spanish Flu epidemic when my grandmother was pregnant with him…that people in Oklahoma City were dying left and right…that pregnant mothers and their babies were especially vulnerable. She was over 40…already at great risk. But nonetheless, her doctor managed to get my grandmother safely through the pregnancy and deliver a strong healthy baby boy – my father. So my grandmother – in typical Mabel Cheney style – named her new baby boy after her doctor: Dr. Hartford. My father (and subsequently I) became Hartford.
It sounded a bit, shall we say, unlikely. But my grandmother, from what I remember and have learned of her (she died when I was about 16, and I do have some very vivid memories of her)…well, she did tend to live life according to her own rules. However, how could such a thing ever be proven (or disproven, for that matter)?
The first clues, of course, were in my father’s account of what happened. But things like that can easily be ‘mis-remembered.’
Next came some serendipitous discoveries while searching online Oklahoma City, OK, city directories for information about my family members between about 1900 and 1940. I know I was looking for clues about my grandfather’s and great-grandfather’s employment…also when, exactly, my grandfather abandoned his family (we will get into that later, I’m sure!)…and other tidbits. I can’t recall what exact search terms I had entered, but I was very surprised to stumble across listings for Dr. J. S. Hartford, medical doctor! Could he have been my grandmother’s physician? Could that be evidence the story had some truth to it?
In subsequent months I researched the Spanish Flu epidemic, and especially how it affected Oklahoma City. I discovered some pretty bleak information. The first reported case in Oklahoma City occurred September 28, 1918. Three days later, October 1, there were over 1000 reported cases in Oklahoma City, Two days later the number had climbed to over 2000 cases…it was spreading like wildfire.
I did some quick math…my grandmother would have been about six months pregnant with my father (born February 4, 1919) when the Oklahoma City outbreak started. Wow…could it be true?
On the Oklahoma Historical Society website (a tremendous resource for Oklahoma history: www.okhistory.org) I found the transcript of an interview with a man who had lived through the following months (the audio recording is there, as well…what a find!). He said, “…they all had very little care, and they just died like flies.”
There was virtually no place on earth the epidemic did not reach. Some estimates said over 100 million people died world-wide. World War 1 was going on at the time…more soldiers died from the flu than from the War, it has been reported.
In Oklahoma City, where my grandparents lived, things were bad and growing worse.
John Kirkpatrick, ten years old at the time, reported: “We lived at 415 W 10th, and our house was on the way between the mortuary and the cemetery.” Kirkpatrick continued, “I remember a constant parade of horse-drawn hearses. It was a horrible epidemic.”
Every public school, theater and church in Oklahoma City closed Oct. 6, 1918, and public meetings were forbidden. Sporting events were canceled. The order stayed in place for several weeks, and preachers were warned that they would be prosecuted if they held church services (sounds strangely familiar, doesn’t it? I first researched this information about two years ago…it never occurred to me I, my children and grandchildren, might live through such a time ourselves)
The Oklahoman – the daily newspaper – reported the main streets of the city were deserted.
Oklahomans, along with the world, were doing everything they knew to survive. Nearly 7500 Oklahomans lost their lives from the flu (and keep in mind, Oklahoma was not highly populated then…it achieved statehood only in 1907).
I remember thinking about my 41 year-old grandmother going through this, seven…eight… nine months pregnant with my father. But she also had the rest of her family: Willa Maud who was in her late teens at the time; the twins Dub and Babe, about eight; her aging father, Albert Cheney, lived with the family; her husband, Willie, and others.
The final puzzle piece fell into place one day as I was looking over certificates – birth, death, marriage – scanning for clues I might have missed. I had my father’s birth certificate in front of me. I’d looked at it a dozen times before…I’m not sure how I could have missed seeing this. At first I thought my eyes were playing a trick…a name seemed out of place. I looked again…studying it…initially not understanding what I was seeing. It appeared my father’s name was written in the wrong place on the certificate. But no, it wasn’t my father’s name….
It was a rushed signature, but still very clear: “J. S. Hartford”! And it was written in the space, “Attending Physician.”
So it was true…it really was true.
My grandmother actually did name my father after the physician who cared for her during the Spanish flu epidemic, and who delivered a healthy boy child on February 4, 1919.
Since then I’ve discovered one other unexpected tidbit of information. My grandmother, it appears, enjoyed having dinner parties in her home. And it seems she also enjoyed sending reports to the local newspaper about those gatherings. I’ve literally found dozens of clippings about those dinner parties. The guests were usually family, friends, fellow church members, and other folks of that sort. But on at least two occasions the oddly familiar names of another couple are listed among the guests: “Dr. J. S. Hartford and his wife.”
That sounds just like something my grandmother would do!
Thank you, Lord, for opening my eyes to what had been there all along. Thank you for helping me piece these things together.
Thank you, Lord, most of all for protecting my grandmother, her other children (later to become my aunts and uncles), and my father.
