| Notes |
- Philip Truax’ Story....
Philip (Phil) had a difficult start in his younger life. His mother, Anna (Annie) Prohaska Hefti Truax, died in 1907, when many of the Truax children were very young. His widowed father, Andrew Nelson Truax, appears to have sent 2 of his male children to the Methodist Deaconess Orphanage in Lake Bluff, Illinois. Philip (age 11) and his brother Charles (age 13) were listed as living at the Orphanage in the 1910 U.S. Census.
Philip’s older sibling Aubrey Nelson (age 16) was living in Valley, Beadle, South Dakota in the 1910 Census; he was listed as a laborer/servant in the Kretchmer household. Perhaps these were relatives of their late mother Annie or some other extended family members. William Andrew (age 17) was living on his own in the 1910 census, as a boarder in the Wells household in Waukegan. The eldest sibling, Lulu May Truax, was already an adult in 1907 when her mother died so she was also living on her own.
The next record available is that of a second marriage for Phil’s father, Andrew Nelson Truax. Andrew married Emma Bockus in March of 1910, in Indiana. The 1910 census shows him living in Waukegan at 807 Grand Avenue, as head of household with wife Emma Truax, daughter Belle Truax (age 8), and step-daughter Emma Bockus (age 15). It appears that Phil’s youngest sibling Werdna Belle (Belle) Truax, remained with the family after he remarried. We have no idea where Belle was living between the time her mother died and her father remarried. It would have been difficult for Phil's father Andrew to take care of a very young daughter after his wife died. Perhaps she lived with her sister Lulu.
One of the sadder parts of the story is that Phil and his brother Charles were not invited back into the family after their father remarried. Their orphanage was a place for many local families struggling for food and money, and it was typical for children to come in and then leave, and perhaps come back again if the parents encountered hardships again. As boys just hitting puberty, they certainly could have used some guidance into adulthood. I often contemplate how that decision was made … was it the new wife Emma who did not want these stepsons around? She clearly allowed young Belle Truax to blend into the family as an 8-year-old; perhaps she figured her daughter Etta could help out with a girl. Or was it their father Andrew who cast Phil and his brother Charles aside?
When Phil was 16, he lied about his age and joined the Navy, enlisting with his brother Charles. He served in WWI in the Navy where he was stationed in Russia. Upon his return in 1919, he lived in the Wadsworth area, which was mostly farmland at the time. There he ended up running the farm at the Veteran's Hospital. This hospital was really an asylum where WWI veterans suffering from mental illness were cared for.
As far as we know, Phil did not have a relationship with his father, even though they were living in Waukegan and the surrounding areas for a number of years after Phil returned from WWI.
Then Phil met Madesse Ames and theirs was a very passionate romance. Surviving love letters kept by my grandmother Madesse (discovered only after her death in 1990) indicate that Phil was head over heels in love with her. His letters often came right out and proclaimed his undying love where he called her "girley girl" as a pet nickname. It was clear that he was crazy about her.
Phil and Madesse married in 1923 and moved to Waukegan where they rented a room in a home owned by the Bradbury family. The Bradburys were more than just landlords; one of the children was Ray Bradbury, who would become a very famous science fiction author. Madesse used to baby-sit Ray for the Bradbury family.
Phil proceeded to build the house at 914 McAree Road, Waukegan, where their daughter, Geraldine (“Gerrie”) was born. Some of my grandmother’s notes from the early days of their marriage indicate that Phil was in touch with his oldest sister, Lulu Truax – Lulu is listed as one of the guests at Phil’s wedding and Lulu was also listed as a guest at Phil and Madesse’s first Thanksgiving and Christmas in 1923. I also believe he was in touch with his brothers Charles, Aubrey and William. Phil was the contact for obtaining the military headstone for his brother William, who died in 1933.
One story my mother told me about her father Phil was that every Christmas, he would organize decorating the tree with different colors, ornaments and lights -- and this would not happen until Christmas Eve, after she was asleep. Then on Christmas morning, the whole tree and other “wonders” of Christmas were a complete surprise to Gerrie. And each Christmas morning was different as the years went by.
The family lived together in Waukegan until Gerrie graduated from high school in 1945, after which Phil asked Madesse for a divorce. Phil and Madesse had a stormy relationship, often arguing loudly when Gerrie was a young girl.
Phil had fallen in love with another woman, Agatha Schmaltz. Shortly after Phil and Madesse divorced, Phil married Agatha and moved to the Clearwater, Florida area.
In April of 1970, my mother Gerrie learned that Phil was terminally ill with cancer, so our family made a trip to Florida to see him. Philip had visited our family in Waukegan one other time but I was quite young and don’t have any memory of it. My only recollection of meeting him was our very brief greeting in that hospital in Florida. He was quite incoherent and it was unsettling for us kids, who did not really know him and had never seen anyone that ill before. I suspect my mother did this because she thought Phil would want to see his grandchildren before he died. Or perhaps he asked and my mother felt compelled to grant him his request.
On our road trip back to Illinois, we got a phone call that Phil had died.
My mother never talked much about how frequently or infrequently she and her father Phil were in touch in the 25 years between her parent’s divorce and the last time she saw Phil on his deathbed. I believe there were cards and other correspondence periodically. By all accounts, Phil had found happiness living in Florida with his new family, and Gerrie accepted this.
My mother often told me how much she adored her father as a little girl, but she recognized that her mother and father did not “work” as the years went by. I believe Gerrie made peace with Phil during that final visit in 1970.
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Simmons-Truax-Godbout-Ames Family Tree
1899 - 1970 (70 years)
