Searching for Sina - Timeline of Her Life

Those of you who follow LongLostRelatives.net may be aware that learning more about my maternal grandmother, Sina Bellinger Kelly, is my primary research goal for 2011. My first step was to create a timeline of events in her life, based upon what I already know.

3 April 1889	Sina’s birth Location: Greenwood, Nebraska or Fremont, Nebraska
13 June 1900 1900 Census	Living in Greenwood, Nebraska Living on Elm Street Household: John Bellinger, age 46, farmer Emma Bellinger, age 37, farmer Harry Bellinger, age 19, farmer Sina Bellinger, age 11, student Clifford Bellinger, age 9, student
1904	Death of grandmother, Ann Jane McVoy Landon Greenwood, Nebraska Sina, age 15
21 Nov 1906	Brother Harry Bellinger married Alvena Johansen Loup City, Nebraska Sina, age 18
21 April 1910 1910 Census	Living in Lincoln, Nebraska 1311 N. 26th Street Household: John Bellinger, Carpenter, House Emma Bellinger Sina Bellinger, 21, Bookkeeper, grocery store Clifford Bellinger, 19, shipping clerk, wholesale grocery
8 Oct 1913	Marriage to William L. Kelly Lancaster County marriage records Book 38, Page 275 Sina, age 24
6 Aug 1914	Birth of Maxine Dorothy Kelly Greenwood, Nebraska Sina, age 25
15 Sep 1915	Death of Maxine Dorothy Kelly Greenwood, Nebraska Sina, age 26
31 Dec 1915 or 1 Jan 1916	Death of mother, Emma Harriet Landon Bellinger Lincoln, Nebraska Sina, age 26
26 Jan 1916	Birth of Margaret Janice Kelly Greenwood, Nebraska Sina, age 26
4 Aug 1918	Birth of Helen Marcella Kelly Greenwood, Nebraska Sina, age 29
1 Sept 1919	Brother Clifford Bellinger married Sophia Koch Sina, age 30
16 Aug 1921	Birth of William Leroy Kelly, Jr. Greenwood, Nebraska Sina, age 32
8 Feb 1927	Birth of Patricia Landon Kelly Greenwood, Nebraska Sina, age 37
6 Feb 1932	Death of brother, Harry Miller Bellinger Omaha, Nebraska Sina, age 43
29 Apr 1936	Death (suicide) of brother, Clifford Bellinger Omaha, Nebraska Sina, age 47
10 Aug 1936	Death of father, John William Bellinger Greenwood, Nebraska Sina, age 47
Nov 1955	Sina’s death Greenwood, Nebraska Age 66 Burial: Greenwood Cemetery, Greenwood, Nebraska

What I learned from this exercise

By creating a timeline, not only about Sina's personal history, such as census records, I've added the life events from other family members to put some additional context to Sina's life.

In 1900, the family of John and Emma Bellinger were living on Elm Street in Greenwood, Nebraska. This census record confirmed that the family was living in the house that I featured in my post, It's a Dog's Life, in November, 2010. This gave me additional information that three generations of women in my family lived in the same house as young girls: me, my mother and my grandmother. For me, this is a fascinating piece of family history - each of us was about the same age when we lived there!

Sina was about 15 years old when her grandmother Landon died and about 18 when her older brother, Harry, got married. Harry was married in Loup City, Nebraska, so that provides me with a lead to locate a newspaper article about his wedding. Loup City is about 160 miles from Greenwood. Was Sina at the wedding?

In 1910, the Bellingers were living in Lincoln, Nebraska. Sina's father, John Bellinger, was working as a carpenter. Sina was working as a bookkeeper at a grocery store and her younger brother, Clifford, was a shipping clerk at a grocery store. The same grocery store? Quite likely. This gives me something else to follow-up on. The Bellingers were no longer living in the house on Elm Street in Greenwood. Did they retain ownership of the home during the time they lived in Lincoln? Land and real estate records must be discovered. By doing a search on the Lincoln-Lancaster county government web site, I discovered a photograph of the house where the Bellingers lived in 1910. It's only a few miles away, so a drive-by is now on my To Do list.

In October 1913, Sina married William L. (Bill) Kelly and I have the source of their marriage record thanks to the database maintained online by the Lincoln-Lancaster County Genealogical Society. I believe that the microfilmed records are available at the Nebraska State Historical Society archives, so obtaining a copy is added to my To Do list. While there, I can also search the microfilm records from both the Greenwood and Lincoln newspapers for an article about their wedding.

Bill and Sina's first child, Maxine Dorothy, was born in August 1914. Little Maxine, my aunt, lived only 13 months and I shared a photograph of this happy little baby and her tombstone on my other blog, Nothing But Tombstones, back in October.

What I learned from the timeline is that Sina's mother, Emma Landon Bellinger, died just three months after the death of Sina's first and only child at the time.  I cannot even begin to imagine the grief that Sina must have experienced through the losses. Sina was pregnant with her second child during this time.

Less than a month after the death of Sina's mother, her next child, Margaret, was born, followed by Helen, two years later.

Sina's brother, Clifford, was married in September 1919. I've discovered that the record of Clifford's marriage is on microfilm at the W. Dale Clark library in Omaha. Sina was about 30 years old when her younger brother married. I plan to look through the microfilms of the Omaha and Greenwood newspapers for an article on his wedding. I have a photograph of Clifford and his bride, Sophia Koch.

The 1920 census shows Sina and Bill Kelly living in Greenwood, Nebraska with their two oldest daughters, Margaret and Helen. Their next two children were born in the following decade.

The 1930 census shows the Kellys and all four children (all of whom lived to adulthood) living in Greenwood and they were enumerated right after Bill's parents, Dan and Minnie Kelly. Both Kelly families were farming at this time.

The decade of the 1930s brought the death of Sina's older brother, Harry Bellinger, in 1932 and the suicide of her younger brother, Clifford, in 1936. His death was well documented in the newspapers. He shot himself in the tavern he owned in Omaha, following an argument with his wife.

Four months after Clifford's death, Sina's father, John William Bellinger, died.

Even though the timeline does not show a lot of the events of the 1930s and 1940s, during this time frame Sina and Bill raised their four children, lived through the Depression and saw their only son go off to World War II. All four of their children were married and three were divorced before the mid 1940s. Two of the children remarried. Four grandchildren were born. We are all living.

When I started on my Search for Sina, I stated that I didn't know much about my grandmother. But once I began working on the timeline, I discovered that I knew a lot more about her life than I ever realized before. My To Do list is growing and I'm certain there is even more for me to learn about Sina.

Track my progress in my Search for Sina