Tell Us About the Girl From New York City
Most of her story remains underground
The Opp family is my mother’s maternal grandmother’s maternal side—and if that doesn’t emphasize “maternal” enough, I think of them as being on the Opp-osite side of the tree from my Callin family.
(Opening with a Dad joke of that magnitude should rebalance things, don’t you think?)
I’ve tried to write about this family before, but I kept getting stuck, as you’ll see, so I decided to start with the people who presented the biggest mysteries and roadblocks. Perhaps if we talk through it together, I will find it easier to work my way back through the rest of the family.
Emily Amelia (Opp) Frey was my 2nd-great-grandmother—one of “My Sixteen”—and her brother’s family poses several research challenges. We’ll get to him, but first:
Finding Jessica
Jessica Viola Owens was the third of four daughters of Walter William Owens (1850–1933) and Charlotte E Clarke (b. 1868), born on 1 August 1896 in Manhattan, New York City. Charlotte was born in England and arrived in New York on 17 October 1888 aboard the SS Ludgate Hill. Charlotte and Walter married the day after her arrival, on 18 October 1888.
Just over a year later, Janet Emily Owens was born on 9 November 1889. Florence Clark Owens was born on 12 January 1891, followed five years later by Jessie, who remained the baby of the family until she was nine years old. Then she was supplanted when Gladys Charlotte was born on 11 November 1905.
The Owens family lived in The Bronx, and they probably benefited from the newly opened subway system, the world-famous IRT.
Jessie’s First Marriage
This is where things became difficult, because the evidence tells me things that make me question whether the facts are correct, because the situations they imply are unusual.
Marriage license index records tell me that Jessica Owens married Stanley Slaker (1891–1972) on 9 May 1911 in Manhattan. She was 14 years old, and Stanley was 19. That seems young to me, but it’s consistent with the later records.
Stanley was a puzzle, because it turns out he also appears under the name Stanley Slicinki in some of his military records. It’s not that odd for people to use an Anglicized name; it just seemed odd that he could be found under both names. After comparing details across several military enlistment and draft registration records to be sure, records showing his different names but with a matching, precise birth date (27 October 1981) and his World War I enlistment date (11 October 1917) led me to believe they are showing me the same person.
On 5 Jun 1917, Stanley Slicinski signed his WWI Draft Registration card. He listed his residence at 742 East 217th St., Bronx, New York City, and his marital status: Married with 2 children. New York birth index records tell me that Stanley W Slaker was born on 18 Oct 1912 in Manhattan, and Dorothy Slaker was born on 21 Aug 1914 in Bronx, New York City.
Normally, I think men were exempted from the draft if they were married with dependents, but as I said, Stanley enlisted in the U.S. Army on 11 October, just over 4 months after registering. I suspect this is when Stanley and Jessica separated, because by the time the 1920 Census was taken, Jessica, Stanley Jr., and Dorothy were living in the household of James Henry Opp… and all three of them were listed with Opp as their surname.
What makes things difficult for me is that Stanley Sr. doesn’t show up in census records after his marriage. I only get his military records—the most recent of which was his 1942 World War II Draft registration, which said he was living at 711 East 231 St., Bronx, with someone named Jesse Slaker at that same address. I considered the possibility that our Stanley died in the war, leaving Jessica widowed to marry James Opp, but as I said, the later military records have precisely matching dates, and it’s pretty clear Stanley lived until 1972.
So something happened to his marriage between 1917 and 1920.
James Opp’s Third marriage
James Henry Opp found himself a 45-year-old widower in October 1915. He had been married to his second wife, Lillian Jones (1871–1915), for 19 years, and their youngest child was a ten-year-old daughter, Emily Amelia Opp. Emily was named after her aunt, my 2nd-great-grandmother.
The Opp family lived in Newark, and James ran an export business in New York. I don’t know what circumstances put a middle-aged widower in the orbit of a 20-year-old mother of two who was living in the Bronx, married to a machinist, but these are the facts I have. In chronological order:
18 Oct 1912: Stanley W Slaker was born.
21 Aug 1915: Dorothy Slaker was born.
6 Oct 1915: Lillian (Jones) Opp died.
13 Jan 1917: Emily A Opp died at age 13.
11 Oct 1917: Stanley Slaker (Sr.) enlisted in the Army.
13 Oct 1917: James Henry Opp, Jr. was born.
1920: The Opp family appears in the census, living in Elmira, Chemung County, New York.
10 Apr 1926: Jessica Viola Opp was born.
1930: The Opp family appears in the census, living in Elizabeth, Union County, New Jersey.
That 1920 Opp household tells me a lot. It includes: James and Jessie Opp (49 and 24, respectively) and Julian Opp (21, James and Lillian’s son), Walter and Charlotte Owens (69 and 51, Jessie’s parents), Gladys Owens (14, Jessie’s sister), and three children under 10: Stanley Opp (7), Dorothy Opp (5), and James Opp (2).
I found no marriage record for James and Jessie, but I think the unavoidable conclusion is that they combined their families in 1917. The 1930 household is not much different from the 1920 household. Charlotte Owens is not there, though Walter is listed as “married” and not “widowed.” I haven’t figured out what happened to Charlotte yet. The other major addition is 3-year-old Jessica. And in 1940, James (70), Jessica (43), and Jessica (13) lived in Newark.
If you look at the timeline and assume that James adopted Stanley Jr. and Dorothy, the facts all make sense. That timeline raises a lot of questions. It’s clear that James Opp Jr. was conceived soon after Emily Amelia died, and the timing of Stanley Sr.’s enlistment suggests that he may have learned that his wife’s third child was not his, probably during that summer. I always say I don’t like to judge people without knowing the facts, but somebody in this equation made some cruel choices.
Whatever the situation, I doubt Stanley Sr. was happy about these events.
An Opp-ilogue
James Henry Opp died on 1 Aug 1941 and was buried in Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Westchester County, New York. Jessica stayed in New Jersey until around 1962, when Mrs. Jessica V Opp appears in Los Angeles County, California. She lived in Thousand Oaks for 20 years and moved to Lompoc in 1986.
Jessica was 90 years old when she died, survived by sons James Opp of Camarillo, CA; Stanley Opp of New Jersey; Dorothy Campbell of New Jersey; and Jessica Whitesell of Solvang, CA.
I still have a lot of questions, and there are several more stories to tell about James Henry Opp’s life. But at least the story of the Girl from New York City seems to have had a happy ending.