So my newspapers account was pretty informative during Elmer’s youth. He was a very social guy, along with my Uncle Jack, so the local Pomona paper, the Prog, had plenty of Elmer and Jack in it during those high school years. Even a few years after. But I ran into a stumbling block once I reached the 1940’s.
So my next move, had to be an Ancestry account. This is where my cousin Elmer’s life totally took me by surprise.
In 1940 or maybe 1939, he and Jack began working for Douglas Aircraft in El Segundo. I know about Jack’s war efforts, but I couldn’t find anything at all regarding Elmer. But I did find the following piece of information.
That’s why Elmer disappeared when the 1940’s began! Somewhere along the way, he became Jim. Not James but Jim! Now I became even more interested in my cousin and wondered why he would do that. Unfortunately, the place of their wedding is unknown. So that became a dead end. Now I had two quests I needed answers for, what became of Elmer……errr……..Jim, and now I needed to know why the name change.
Ancestry was terrific for the former, but I may never know the reason for why he changed his first name. My Uncle Jack had one child and his name is Jim. My name is James. But never was there any mention of Cousin Jim (Elmer).
Finding his obituary answered all my questions regarding his life from 1940 on. Yet the mystery isn’t quite solved. Why the name change? I was able to collect a timeline of when the records stopped calling him Elmer and started calling him Jim. Here is that timeline.
Sept. 1937 — Elmer Michael McWilliams
1940 — signs his draft card Elmer M. McWilliams
April 1941 — Social Security records him as Jim Michael McWilliams
Oct. 1942 — marries Elizabeth as Jim M. McWilliams
2000 — obituary: Jim McWilliams
His great- granddaughter Riley is the keeper of the family tree. I’m going to message her to see if she or members of the family have the answer to this riddle. Plus I’m also curious to know if she has any clue of her great- grandfather’s youth and the relatives he lived with. Because we’re all worth getting to know.
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