Unboxing Wiley

Part 1: A note from San Francisco

On 10 June 2022, I found a note in my Ancestry messages. It began:

Hi Tad . . . this will seem odd. Your tree shows J Wiley Cowan. Do you have any contact with his family? His son Wiley died in my senior apartment building a week or so ago he was 96. The management "claimed" he had no living will or contacts. Therefore, they will basically keep all of his possessions. I thought to go to Ancestry.com to see if there are any relatives out there.

I had just published my Callin Family History that March, documenting as many descendants of James Callin as I could, and I remembered the Cowan family. I did the bulk of my work on their branch in 2016 and posted what I had on my old Mightier Acorns blog: Myers Family B - The Cowans of Missouri.

James Wiley Cowan (1879-1973), Wiley’s father, had two children - and since both were living in 2016 when I was researching that branch, I did not post any information about them. But Wiley’s neighbor, Bronte, had found my work on Ancestry, and she went on to give me some details.

Wiley lived at 2770 Lombard St., in San Francisco, CA. He was the sweetest of men and it was heartbreaking that he died. He was 96. I found a sister listed but she would have been older. In cases like this the management basically just keeps everything. I know Wiley use to get letters and read them in the lobby. But they will not bother to look for anything. It's not that he was rich but to see people in his unit that he kept so lovely looting through his life makes me sick. If there are any relatives near San Francisco they should have the right to his things, not managers who are not very nice, to begin with. I know Wiley was a Marine which he was very proud of. Again, sorry for writing out of the blue like this.

Wiley’s apartment building (on Google maps)

In the eyes of the law, I am distantly related to Wiley - 4th cousins, once removed - which means that legally, I have no right to claim any “next of kin” status. I did my best to find someone more closely related, but the folks I could find contact information for were almost as distantly related as me, and worse, no one had any memory of James W. and Beryl Cowan. They had moved to California and lost touch with all the family in Detroit and Missouri.

I gave Bronte the limited information I could find, but after a couple of days, she was no closer to finding an answer.

The manager is refusing to even take the names of the family members as far as they are concerned they own everything in Wiley's apartment. Legally they can not even enter the unit as Wiley's June rent was paid in full until the 30th.

I think it is important you make contact with the owners of this property. I have seen this before. A very old person dies they claim they had no contact, which makes no sense as we are required to provide one. What they will do is come in and basically loot the apartment of anything valuable and then let the other tenants come for the rest of the property. They are like piranhas fighting over things. Wiley had a lovely apartment with many things he loved in it they should go to his family or to a charity.

There is also his savings and checking account that will revert to the government if a family member does not come forward.

Wiley would have been taken to the Veteran's hospital in San Francisco... He was a Marine. The story from the management was he fell over the holiday weekend and was found, still alive, by his health care person. That is someone who you need to talk to.

Wiley told me he had a living will. The manager said he did not. The manager is not a person I trust or respect. Only been here a year.

Again, I had no legal claim to get involved with any of this - and I had just moved to San Antonio the year before, so I was nowhere near the West Coast. Next of kin could contact an elder care attorney to guard Wiley’s property and ensure his family received it. But that wasn’t me.

The situation felt a bit desperate, so I dug deeper. Wiley’s sister had eluded me before, but I went back and pored over all my other documents, looking for clues.

I found some.

There was evidence that Wiley’s sister had married - and while she appeared in early records under what turned out to be her middle name, she began using her first name when she got older. She was older than Wiley - about three years older - so I thought the odds that she might still be alive were slim, but I could find no death records or obituaries for her.

But once I knew her married name, I found an obituary for her husband and tracked down her daughter’s phone number. If you know me well, you will understand how hard it was for me to make a telephone call, but I did it.

And I left a message.

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On the off chance that you recognize the Cowan family, please say hello!

I have more to tell you, next week - when will I tell you about Wiley’s family history connection to the Callin Family History - so if you don’t want to miss the next chapter, be sure to subscribe. My newsletter is free, and you don’t have to give Substack any information you don’t want to give to access my posts.

Hold on, Wiley! We’re coming!