Not Charmed

Week 30: #52 Ancestors – In the News

By Eilene Lyon

I have done very little research on my great-great-grandparents Louis and Louise (Arbogast) Schaaf. They married in Jerseyville, Illinois, in 1880 and moved to Clark County, South Dakota, in 1883.1

This prompt sent me to Newspapers.com where I turned up a surprising news item about Louis.

Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, South Dakota) · 10 Jan 1919, Fri · Page 10
Downloaded on Jul 28, 2023 (Newspapers.com)

Louise died in 1914, so Louis was listed in the 1915 South Dakota census as being widowed.2 In the 1920 U.S. Census, he is listed as “divorced.”3 I had not realized he had a brief second marriage to a woman named Edith. In earlier newspapers, he ran a legal notice disavowing any debts she might incur.

Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, South Dakota) · 8 Jul 1918, Mon · Page 7
Downloaded on Jul 28, 2023 (Newspapers.com)

I found a marriage record for Louis Schaaf and Edith Baker in Minnehaha County (Sioux Falls) on May 25, 1916.4 Though Edith was about 25 years younger than Louis, she had been previously married and divorced, according to the record. It appears that she got back together with her first husband after her divorce from Louis Schaaf.5

Record of Louis Schaaf’s second marriage to Edith Baker. Click to enlarge. (Ancestry)

Another benefit of looking into Louis at this time is that I found family portraits on Ancestry.

The Schaaf family. The older couple in the center are Charles Louis Schaaf and Christina Youngblood, my 3rd great-grandparents. Louis Schaaf of this story is second from the left, seated, next to his father. (Courtesy of John Eyers on Ancestry)
Standing at far right is Louise E. Arbogast, Louis Schaaf’s first wife, my 2nd great-grandmother. She is pictured with her siblings. (Courtesy of H. Downing on Ancestry)

Feature image: City Temple, Baptist Church, 1914 postcard (ebay). According to the Schaaf-Baker marriage record, Rev. H. R. Best performed the rites and this was the church where he worked.

  1. Charles L. Schaaf and Louisa E. Arbogast. Ancestry.com. Illinois, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1800-1940 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2016. AND “Death of Mrs. Louis Schaaf.” Undated and unattributed news clipping. ↩
  2. Louis Schaaf. South Dakota, State Census, 1915. Salt Lake City, Utah: FamilySearch, 2013. ↩
  3. Louis Schaaf. Year: 1920; Census Place: Elrod, Clark, South Dakota; Roll: T625_1717; Page: 3B; Enumeration District: 81 – via Ancestry.com. ↩
  4. Louis Schaaf and Edith Baker. South Dakota Department of Health; Pierre, South Dakota; South Dakota Marriage Records, 1905-2016. ↩
  5. I believe Edith’s maiden name was Rudd, and she married Earl L. Baker in 1899. They had a daughter together, Leila May Baker. However, without a divorce record, I cannot be 100% certain this is the correct Edith Baker who married Louis Schaaf. ↩

59 thoughts on “Not Charmed”

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    1. I suspect the name misspelling was on the newspaper’s end. He probably placed the ad over the phone. Things certainly went south with that marriage pretty quickly. I expect his children weren’t thrilled about it from the beginning.

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    1. Most certainly. But I find a lot of crazy stuff happening in South Dakota in those days. Maybe something about living in such a cold, desolate prairie. (It’s nicer now with all the trees, but back then it was pretty harsh.)

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    1. It was a bit of a surprise, though I’ve come across similar stories before. As for all Louise’s siblings, I am intrigued to learn more about her and her family. These are ancestors I learned about through DNA tests, so they are less familiar to me.

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  16. What a story to unearth about your ancestors! I have plenty of skeletons in my closet … not mine but ancestors from stories I’ve heard over the years. I liked the title of the post. 🙂 At least you concede you got some photos along with the tabloid-like info you gleaned.

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