Did Lenice Nuckles know a Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge?
In late 2013, when I began a project to digitize all of my family's photo's, I found among the photos that my mother had given me to scan, there was a black photo album with black paper pages containing photos that my father's mother Lenice Virginia (Woodward) Nuckles had collected from her life in Wisconsin.
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| Lenice V. Woodward's Photo Album |
I believe that that photos date from the mid 1930's through the mid 1940's. Unfortunately, only a few of the photos have anything written on them, so I have a lot of great photos and no idea about the identity of most of the people in the photos. There is no one still living who was there at the time to ask about them. Lenice passed away in 1977 when I was 4 years old.
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| Me and Grandma Lenice V (Woodward) Nuckles |
The photos in the album contained a number of photos of children. I asked my father about the photos. Although he didn't know for sure, he thought that it was possible that Lenice had been babysitter or took care of the children in the photos. Among the photos, mounted in the book was a paper card which had the names "Mr. and Mrs. James Ward Rector"
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| Name Card for Mr. and Mrs. James Ward Rector |
A simple Google search for James Ward Rector revealed a wikipedia entry for Wisconsin lawyer, Special Counsel to the Governor and Wisconsin Supreme Court Judge James Ward Rector.
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| Wikipedia Entry for James Ward Rector |
Did Lenice know a Wisconsin Supreme Court judge? Was this really the same James Ward Rector whose name was in the album? Was this card from a wedding invitation? So many questions. Switching the Google search result so that it showed images, two photos appeared, one of a middle-aged James and one, much younger, provided by the law firm that James once represented.
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| Photos of James Ward Rector |
The younger photo, seemed familiar to me. I looked back through the photo's from Lenice's album and found a photo of two men on a porch. One of the men looked nearly identical to the photos of James Ward Rector.
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| Two Gentleman on a Porch, possibly James Ward Rector |
As far as I knew, Lenice and her family lived near Platteville, Wisconsin before moving to Rockford, Illinois, but I hadn't been able to find the family on the 1940 US Census in Wisconsin or Illinois. My father said that they may not have appeared in the census because the Woodward family had been homeless for a period of time after losing their farm. Where did James Ward Rector and his family live? Were they related to the Woodward family? Only more questions.
I used Ancestry.com to search the 1940 US Census for James Ward Rector in Wisconsin. I easily found J. W. Rector and his wife Virginia living on Kensington Road in Madison, Wisconsin with their son James Ward, age 4, and twins Kathleen and Schuyler age 1.
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| 1940 U.S. Census for J.W. Rector Family |
Twins? I seemed to remember seeing a photo of twin babies in a double stroller. Upon locating the photo from Lenice's album, I noted that there was a boy in the photo as well as a partially obsurred woman sitting behind him. The boy was likely James Ward Junior, but at this point the similarity of these two photos to the Rector family was just a guess.
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| Twin babies, possibly Schuyler and Kathleen Rector with brother James Ward Jr. |
There were multiple photos of homes in Lenice's album. I wondered what the Rector home on Kensington looked like, assuming that it was still standing, so I did a search using google maps to see if there was a photo of 143 Kensington Drive in Madison. The home on Kensington did not look familiar.
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| 143 Kensington Drive, Madison, Wisconsin |
I used the Madison Phonebook on Ancestry.com to look up Rector in the nearest year to the 1940 census. The 1937 Madison phonebook had an entry for James Ward Rector and Virginia Bennett (her maiden name) at 754 E Gorham, Apartment A.
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| 1937 Madison Wisconsin Phone Book Listing for James War Rector. The other listings, Irving and Stanley are James' brothers. |
Another Google map search turned up a large apartment building which did not look familiar.
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| 754 E. Gorham Road, Madison, Wisconsin |
Ancestry.com had a phone book for Madison in 1935 as well. So I searched for John Ward Rector again and found that the family was living at 2408 Kendall Ave.
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| 1935 Madison Wisconsin Phone Book Listing for James War Rector. |
On Google Maps, I found a photo of the home with an oval glass window and a large metal lamp above the front door. There were three small round terracotta pots with planted flowers below each window. I had definitely seen this building before.
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| 2408 Kendall Ave., Madison, Wisconsin, circa 2015 |
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| 2408 Kendall Ave., Madison, Wisconsin, circa 1935 |
It was definitely the same house as in Lenice's photo. The only real difference were the missing shutters on each window. The building looks to have been taken very well care of over the last 80 years.
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| Close up of oval window and lamp at 2408 Kendall Ave., Madison, Wisconsin circa 2015. |
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| Close up of oval window and lamp at 2408 Kendall Ave., Madison, Wisconsin circa 1935. |
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| Grave Marker of John Ward and Virginia Rector |
James was originally a logger who was convinced by a friend, the President of the University of Wisconsin, to attend the University where he got his Law degree. He drafted Wisconsin's anti-gambling law which removed slot machines from the state. Elizabeth lived to age 95 and passed away in 2000.
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| Newspaper Article about John Ward Rector |
Were any of the Rector children still alive? Could I find any of them? Would they remember my Grandmother? Since men are usually the easiest to track down because their names don't change when they get married, I started with James Junior. James married June Pandolfi in 1960, was in the Army and attended UW like his father. I do not know if he had any children but I have not found any.
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| June Dorothy Pandolfi is bride of James W. Rector Jr. |
Unfortunately, a search of findagrave.com revealed that James Ward Junior had passed away in 1987 at age 51.
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| Grave marker for John Ward Rector Jr. |
I began trying to locate information on one of the twins, Schuyler Rector. The article about his father's death had said that he lived in Georgia. I did not have much luck finding anything, other than his marriage to Margaret Elizabeth Turney. I attempted to locate information on Schuyler's twin sister Kathleen. She had been married several times and was last seen in Massachusetts. Several articles listed an additional sister named Nancy that was born in 1941 after the 1940 census. I discovered that Nancy had also lived in Massachusetts and based on the article about James Ward Senior's life had the last name of "Lenicheck" at the time of his death.
If she is still around, might she be on Facebook? A quick facebook search turned up two entries for Nancy Lenicheck one "Retired from U of W in Madison" and one for living in "Massachusetts".
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| Facebook Search |
When I clicked Nancy's name, I saw her friends list appear. Right there at the top of the list was "Jamie Rector". Wow, James Ward Rector the Third?!? I've sent a facebook message to Nancy introducing myself. I hope to see what she can tell me about her family and how they may have known my grandmother. If I don't receive a reply from her, I will try to send a message to Jamie Rector. I've also located what I believe to be Schuyler's daughter Virginia (named after her grandmother, obviously) on Facebook and sent her a message as well.
Acting on the fact that Lenice must have spent significant time in Madison, possibly living there for a time, I looked through the photos from the album again. There was a set of 4 photos that were taken in front of a very elaborate building and one of the building itself.
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| Lenice Woodward on the Wisconsin State Capital Steps (Center) |
Lenice was in one of the photos, and some other women were in the other two. I had searched for photos of all of the government buildings near Platteville on multiple occasions but I had never found a match. James Ward Rector had certainly worked at the State Capital in Madison for a time. What did the Wisconsin State Capital looks like? I searched and found photos on Google. The buildings were an exact match. I had now identified the location of 4 more photos. Was one of the women in the photos, Virginia Rector?
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| Wisconsin State Capital, Madison. Left photo take by Lenice Woodward. |
There was an additional photo of Lenice which I spent some time restoring. The photo was really interesting but in very bad condition. The large window in the back is a match for the Capital as well. This photo was obviously taken inside the Capital.
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| Lenice Woodward inside the Wisconsin State Capital building. |
UPDATE: 7/1/2015 - Schyler's daughter responded to my Facebook messages, and I've sent her a few of the photos to ask her family about. Sadly, I never heard anything back from her.
