The Trahern Chronicles- Margaret Pauline "Bonnie" Adams

I end the blogs on the Trahern's with my great grandmother, Margaret Pauline "Bonnie" Adams.

She was the daughter of Margaret Trahern and Jason Arthur Adams and was born August 30, 1907. I find her in 1910 as Margaret with Jason and Margaret in Chant, Oklahoma. None of the family was in the census of 1920. According to my grandpa, his brother was born Nov 12, 1923. No record of a marriage to the father, who Bertha said was Eugene Tyler has been found. She did marry my great grandfather, Claude Cye Hager in 1924 in Picher, Oklahoma. Her name on the marriage certificate was Polly. In fact, the family knew her as Pauline, or called her that, and never mentioned the Margaret at all.

My grandfather, Claudus Byron Hager was born in 1925. Court records from the trial of his father show that by 1928, Claude was "courting" another woman, who found out he was still married and had nothing more to do with him. By 1930 Bonnie is found as Mrs. Pauline Hager in Hildago, Texas. My grandfather is living with Margaret and Jason. According to my grandfather, he and his brother Eugene were stealing milk bottles for food. Margaret heard about the boys, and came and got them.

Pictures generously given to me by my grandpa's cousin Marilyn show that by the mid 1930's she was using the name Bonnie and was married to a Wesley I cannot find a marriage record. In 1938 she married William Fred Meier as Bonnie Wesley. In 1940 she and Fred are living with Bertha in Tulsa. My grandpa is living with the family who he worked for in Junction, Texas, by then he is using the name Ray Mieirs.

When my grandparents married and moved to Syracuse, New York, Bonnie and Eugene stayed with them for a while. My grandparents only lived in New York from 1949 until 1952 when they moved to Los Angeles, California. At this time, Bonnie was living in I think Chicago. She would send boxes of clothes to my grandma for her granddaughter. My grandma also said she would call drunk. Those were the two things she ever said about her, she was an excellent and talented seamstress, and a drunk. My grandpa would add she slept around a lot. My mother's baby book gives her last name in 1949 as Calloway.

Around 1956 my grandfather found out that his mother had lied to him about his father his entire life. Angry he told her he never wanted to speak to her again. He did not. He did though for years try to find his brother Eugene. Rena died in 1969. Notes from Rena's hand show that the address she had in 1963 (ish) was the same one listed on her death certificate. The Belle Shores Hotel Apartments in Chicago. Sometime between 1951 and 1963 she married Harold Carl Pahl. When Rena died, Bonnie came to the funeral. After that she no longer kept in touch with her sisters or brothers, so that when her brother died in the 1970's, she isn't listed in the obituary.

Thanks to Loren we know that Bonnie died in 1983 in Chicago. I called the funeral home several years ago. There was no obituary and no next of kin listed. The informants were a Dan Oconnor and James Tyler. In 1989 a James Tyler died in Chicago. He lived at a nursing home about 2 miles from where Bonnie lived. His birth date was Nov 12, 1919 and his social security number was issued from Oklahoma. I haven't sent for a copy of the application yet. I suspect that James is Gene, and that they didn't have money for a funeral, so he said he was no relation.

Bonnie Adams Pahl was buried with her husband at Woods National Cemetery in Wisconsin. I was a junior in high school when she died. I only wish I had known her.