The Otherwise Forgotten

I hate it when I’m researching family lines and I come across one that seems to end with nobody to remember these people. I’m going to write about a bachelor cousin who had very few close relatives except his sister and whom probably nobody would otherwise remember. He must not be utterly forgotten.

William Francis Selgrath was born to Charles Selgrath and his wife Emma Leonard in Salt Lake City, Utah Territory, on 9 April 1886. Charles and his wife and two of his siblings, an older sister named Margaret and a younger brother named John, had been working for the railroad in their hometown in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, around 1885 and had all decided to migrate to Salt Lake City. [Note: They did NOT have any affiliation with the Mormons; they were all staunch Catholics.]

But then Charles and Emma left Utah and went back home to Schuylkill County between William’s birth and 20 July 1890, when their daughter Margaret was born in Pennsylvania. They stayed there a little over twenty years. The 1910 Census found them still all living in Schuylkill County, in the tiny community of Mt. Carbon, next to Pottsville. The father, Charles, was an engineer on the railroad, and 23-year-old William was working in the roundhouse.

During the next decade the parents and Margaret moved to Ogden, Utah. Probably Charles continued to work on the railroad, as Ogden was a huge railroad hub for the entire western region. William moved further west and settled in Sacramento, California. When he registered for the draft in 1917, he was working as an inspector for a government entity in the state capitol. He was not married and listed his mother as his next of kin.

In June 1920 William’s sister, Margaret, married George Wishart of Ogden, Utah. I hope William was able to come for the wedding, for it might have been the last time he would see his mother.

Emma had tuberculosis, unknown to the family, and when she finally sought medical help in July 1923, she lived only a couple months longer. She died and was buried in Ogden, Utah.

Margaret and George Wishart had a son and a daughter born to them in Ogden, and then they moved to California. They had a daughter born in San Bernardino and a son born in San Francisco. While living in San Francisco, they invited Margaret’s father, Charles, to come and live with them, which he did. Charles died there in 1928.

William Selgrath moved to Carmel, California, in Monterey County and opened a bakery there, which he ran for many years. The Wisharts joined him there in 1930. William Selgrath died in November 1970 at the age of 84, and his bakery was taken over by the Wisharts and renamed after them. George Wishart died in June 1980, and Margaret Selgrath Wishart died in 1986 at the age of 96.

William and Margaret had few or maybe no cousins, as neither their aunt Margaret Selgrath Breining nor their uncle John Selgrath in Salt Lake City ever had any children. Their older aunt Maria and her husband, Christian Kramer, never had any children. Their uncle Jacob Selgrath seems to have been married (back in Pennsylvania), but no record has been found showing his wife’s name nor whether he had any children. Their oldest uncle, Francis Selgrath, disappeared from all records with no progeny.

William and Margaret were the last Selgraths of their family line. Gone but not forgotten.