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| Elmer Milton Davenport |  |  |  |  |
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| Email from Dr. John Scott Davenport 1/3/2001: "Uncle Elmer's life was tragic. In 1904 all of the Davenport sons contracted polio, which left Henry, Edward, and Elmer all with one leg shorter than the other... Uncle Elmer had one leg than was six inches shorter than the other. Both Henry and Elmer wore an iron riser on the shoe so they could walk. But all three walked with pronounced gimps. Elmer the most pronounced, then Henry, and then Ed, who wore only a triple thickness of sole on the one shoe... Elmer was 6'5," and with that short leg, he swayed mightily side-to-side as he walked. It was painful to watch him walk, as I well remember. Elmer could not do any labor requiring continuous standing, had an 8th grade education but had to find sit-down work. His wife Opal was disfigured, had been scalded on the face as a child, had a badly puckered countenance. She, too, was painful to look at. They had one daughter. Uncle Elmer worked variously as a timekeeper and office clerk, ultimately got a good clerical job with Winchester Munitions at East Alton, Illinois, where by 1942 he had been elected Police Magistrate. I spent two days with the family in June 1942 at East Alton, the last time I saw cousin Dorothy, and met a motorcyle type who was boarding with them. I then went off to the Marines for WWII. When I got back to Decatur in July, 1945, Uncle Ed told me that Aunt Opal had run off with the boarder in 1943, taking Dorothy with her, and Uncle Elmer had gone to pieces. Ed went down to East Alton, closed out Elmer's affairs--which had gone to hell by then, and brought Elmer back to Decatur. Thereafter, Elmer drank excessively. He was found dead in early 1945 in a sleeping room at the Railroad YMCA, and Uncle Ed buried him. Uncle Ed was unsuccessful in locating Aunt Opal or Dorothy then, or later. He told me he quit looking by 1960." | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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