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Old 28-05-19, 14:16
Lorraine Karen Lorraine Karen is offline
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Default Who do you think you are - jessie almer/ruth jezard

Hello Genealogists Forum

Ruth Thrasher later known as Ruth Jezard/Ruby Jezard is described with her family in this post.
http://www.genealogistsforum.co.uk/f...ad.php?t=27750

Jessie Almer sailed to America in 1897 (need to look up Ruth Jezard & Jessie Almer is found just above Ruth on the UK outward bound passenger list travelling with a group of theatricals to America with their manager Charles Hedersley).

UK Outward Bound Passenger List
Name: Miss Ruth Jezard
Birth Date: abt 1876
Departure Date: 7 Aug 1897
Port of Departure: Southampton, England
Destination Port: New York, USA
Ship Name: Paris

This makes sense as according to the programme Jessie Almer left her daughter Beatrice at Nazareth House on 29 July 1897.

http://www.genealogistsforum.co.uk/F...ad.php?t=14969

Samantha Womack visited Nazareth House and was shown the Children's Admission Register which showed that Beatrice's parents were Peter Garraud and Jessie Ryder (Jessie Almer) and that she was received on the 29th July 1897 and taken away by her grandparents in May 1902.

This also makes sense as Jessie Almer is reported in the New York Times on 15 August 1897.

"Cynthia Harris, manager of the New Jersey Room, had done research on Samantha Womack’s great-grandmother prior to the video shoot. In an August 15, 1897 article in the Theater section of The New York Times, reference was made to her great-grandmother, by maiden name, “Miss Jessie Almer has been over to America before, as the clown in Barnum’s Circus, and by right of larger experience, she was much respected by the other members of the group. They met at the pier, however, by a representative of the Academy of Music, who took care that none of them should stray away. Once he lost his count.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academ...(New_York_City)

Travelling with Jessie Almer and Ruth Jezard was their manager Charles Hedersley and they are cast for performing as The Coryphees in 'Nature' at the Academy Of Music an extremely lavish production that bankrupted the financier Benjamin Cohen of Coney Island and owner of the Albemarle Hotel and sent the stage producer William E De Verna to an early grave
https://newspaperarchive.com/new-yor...g-15-1897-p-8/
New York Times
15 August 1897

American Musical Theater: A Chronicle
By Gerald Bordman
Page 174 describes Nature
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=...20york&f=false

Benjamin Cohen the promoter of Nature lost $50,000 - $1.5 million in today’s money and by 1899 he was bankrupt
http://www.in2013dollars.com/1897-do...7?amount=50000
However, the cast are paid in full
https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030...7,0.185,0.16,0

A History Of The New York Stage
Page 13 William E De Verna and James Schonberg produced the show Nature
William spent years trying to bring Nature to the stage and tragically died a few days before the first performance, although he had seen the cast practising
http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/digi...864656_002.pdf

William E De Verna produced Nature and Benjamin Cohen helped finance
https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/tim.../101107950.pdf

Advert & article about Nature
Image 7 of New York journal and advertiser (New York [N.Y.]), August 27, 1897
https://www.loc.gov/resource/sn83030...,0.373,0.321,0

Benjamin Cohen owned the Albemarle Hotel
https://www.heartofconeyisland.com/w...d-history.html

Barnum's circus came to England in 1897 and Ruth’s family lived in Earl’s Court near Olympia at that time, did Ruth perform with Jessie Almer in the circus, the circus had various water based entertainments that Ruth performed in 1917 as a Diving Belle
https://www.gettyimages.co.uk/detail...hoto/498836617

"Most outstanding of the foreign tours was the five-year stay of the Barnum & Bailey Circus in European countries from the fall of 1897 through the 1902 season. The circus was transported to England at the close of the tenting season in America in 1897 and played an indoor winter engagement at the Olympia in London.

Ruth performed with Dan Leno & Herbert Campbell in the lavish Drury Lane Theatre pantomimes in 1898 & 1899 and is remembered in Whimsical Walker's memoirs From Sawdust To Windsor Castle.
https://archive.org/stream/fromsawdu...0walk_djvu.txt

http://www.its-behind-you.com/gallery634.html

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=X...ed=0CDQQ6AEwAA

Victoria & Albert Museum/Theatre Collection has photograph of Ruth Jezard as Columbine in production of The Forty Thieves which was printed in The Sketch on Jan 25th 1899.

Victoria & Albert Museum/Theatre Collection have programmes of the pantomimes Ruth performed in listed as playing Columbine:
1898: The Forty Thieves at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane
1899: Jack and the Beanstalk at the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane

Charlie Chaplin would watch these pantomimes honing his comic skills from Dan Leno - as Ruth emigrated to America we wonder if she knew Charlie Chaplin & also became involved with silent movies.

When Ruth and Albert Edward Court marry in 1900 Albert is a private secretary (possibly a theatre private secretary to The Empress Theatre in Lillie Road, as this where Ruth and Albert are living in the 1901 census), their wedding witnesses are Arthur Brooks comedian and later a recording gramophone pioneer, Albert Kingsley artist, along with Mrs Ellen Seymour.

Arthur Henry Brooks recording gramophone pioneer and comedy actor
http://www.exacteditions.com/read/gr...929-34848/23/2
http://www.recordingpioneers.com/RP_BROOKS1.html#Life

The Court family are known to have worked in the theatrical and entertainment businesses and their family history is lodged at the British Museum.

Ruth and Albert (known as Ruby and Edward) have a daughter Pearl Ruby Court in 1902 who tragically dies of an abdominal tumour removal complicated by measles and pneumonia in early 1904 and their son Edward Leslie Court is born in late 1904, Ruth emigrates to America from 1905/1912 and forms a common law marriage with married Edward Warren Congdon.

1912 THE PLAYER
http://idnc.library.illinois.edu/cgi...19120105.2.149
Bert Levey, the San Francisco vaudeville agent, has moved into his magnificent new offices in the Alcazar Theatre building on O’Farrel Street, between Powell and Mason. He has leased all the front rooms on the first floor directly over the lobby of the theater, forming an elegant suite of five beautiful rooms fitted out for the comfort of the manager, artist and agent. Mr Levey went to considerable expense in fitting up such spacious quarters, and he can safely boast of having the finest vaudeville agency offices this side of Chicago.

Edward Warren Congdon worked for Bert Levey as a theatre manager at the Alcazar Theatre in his 1917 US WWI draft registration cards and calls Ruth Jezzard Congdon his wife.

Edward’s wife Jennie F Congdon (Montena/Montine) bigamously marries Walter Guy Shannon in 1917 having called herself Edward’s widow and Walter is found in prison during the 1920’s. Jennie’s brother Albert had previously died in terrible circumstances running across a railway line and falling under a train trying to escape from the crimes he committed.

Which ‘wife’ would receive Edward’s World War One pension or any other pension as sadly he died in 1919 from war wounds/flu pandemic/other unknown.

Ruth's husband Albert Edward Court is still alive in England in 1916 according to his WWI soldiers records working at Brook Green Skating Rink - rollerskating was a popular pastime in Victorian/Edwardian times with entertainment and music provided alongside - Albert had been working as a rink manager in the 1911 UK census

1917 DIVING BELLES, CASINO THEATRE, SAN FRANSISCO
http://fultonhistory.com/Newspaper%2...20-%202301.pdf

Ruth Jezard performing with the Diving Belles at the Casino, San Fransisco, Bert Levey, Edward Congdon’s boss is on the same page, along with the Alcazar Theatre where Edward and Bert worked, so Ruth and Edward are known to each other working on the same circuit.

Ruth is running the Sentinel Hotel, Eddy Street by 1930 in San Fransisco.

Horace Thrasher/Horace Courtenay was the son of Ruth’s sister Alice Thrasher/Grace Courtenay and so was Ruth’s nephew. Horace’s son Michael Courtenay born 1934 couldn’t believe this story at first but then later remembered as a young five-year old boy regularly visiting an Uncle Percy (Percy Frederick Atkins) who was in his 80’s by then and had been married to Ruth's sister Louisa - and also remembered the family talking of a cousin Leslie (Edward Leslie Court) who was Ruth’s son and so Horace’s cousin. Michael’s family however knew nothing of this theatrical connection or of Alice’s sisters, Eliza, Louisa and Ruth or Eliza’s daughter Violet. Louisa died young and Percy remarried but Eliza, Violet and Edward made another life somewhere, probably with completely new names again so we have been unable to trace them any further, only a DNA match might help now we think.

Last edited by Lorraine Karen; 28-05-19 at 14:40.
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Old 28-05-19, 18:22
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Did Edward Warren Congdon definitely serve in WW1, or just register for the draft? Not sure whether there would be a pension from him working at a theatre.
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Old 28-05-19, 19:05
Lorraine Karen Lorraine Karen is offline
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Oh I didn't realise, I thought he was a soldier, particularly as he died in 1919 - so would he have been entertaining the troops for morale.

So he might not have died of wounds, could have died in the flu pandemic - will need to order his death certificate to be certain could be another reason altogether.

His soldier's details have the stamp at the bottom:

Local Exemption Board
Division No.12
City & County Of San Francisco
236 City Hall
Stamp Of Local Board
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Old 28-05-19, 19:09
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Yes, I looked at that but it was just his registration for the draft.
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Old 28-05-19, 19:18
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According to "Find a Grave", Congdon was general manager of the Bert Levy Circuit and was completing a successful road tour when he was killed in an bus and fire engine collision.
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/138633423
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Old 28-05-19, 19:39
Lorraine Karen Lorraine Karen is offline
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SELECTIVE SERVICE SYSTEM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_Service_System

Edward was 41 when he completed the draft on 12 September 1918

1917 to 1920

World War I draft card. Lower left corner to be removed by men of African ancestry in order to keep the military segregated
Following the U.S. declaration of war against Germany on April 6, the Selective Service Act of 1917 (40 Stat. 76) was passed by the 65th United States Congress on May 18, 1917, creating the Selective Service System.[10] President Woodrow Wilson signed the Act into law after the U.S. Army failed to meet its target of expanding to 1 million men after six weeks.[11] The Act gave the President the power to conscript men for military service. All men aged 21 to 30 were required to register for military service for a service period of 12 months. As of mid-November 1917, all registrants were placed in one of five new classifications. Men in Class I were the first to be drafted, and men in lower classifications were deferred. Dependency deferments for registrants who were fathers or husbands were especially widespread.[12] The age limit was later raised in August 1918 to a maximum age of 45. The military draft was discontinued in 1920. Wiki.
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Old 28-05-19, 19:46
Lorraine Karen Lorraine Karen is offline
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Oh thank you that's sad about Edward then.
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