Hooper 1930 Census

I recently got personal access to ancestry.com and many of their records. I'd like to work on some ancestral foundations by looking at the documents for my close ancestors. I'll start with my Grandpa Calvin Hooper.

Census 1930, Beaver, Utah, United States

Muir/Hooper families on the 1930 Census

First half of the Muir/Hooper family 1930 census 

Second half of the Muir/Hooper family 1930 census

The Hoopers are found living with or near their family, the Muirs in Beaver, Utah. (Hannah) Elizabeth (Orton) Muir is shown as head of household over her children Marion, Wallace, and Lucy. Familysearch.org lists four children who must have already moved away and three children who had already passed away. She is my Grandpa Calvin Hooper's grandmother, and Jeanette Hooper's mother. Her listing as head of household makes sense, since Elizabeth's husband passed away around 1924. She is listed as a 51-year-old widowed immigrant from England who works as a laundress in a private home (possibly her own). That would be nice, since her youngest daughter, Lucy, is still only 12 years old. Her boys, Marion and Wallace worked as laborers on a farm.  All of her children were born in Utah. Only Lucy attended school, but all knew how to read. Oh, archives.gov explains that the question asked was if the person had attended school between September 1, 1929 (and April 1, 1930), so Lucy was the only one who attended school in the last year.

Elizabeth's other daughter, (Charlotte) Jeanette Muir Hooper, is the head of her own household. She's 25-years-old, and my Grandpa Calvin was a 5-year-old boy at the time.  He hadn't yet attended school, but again, it says he knows how to read. It lists a separate dwelling, so I wonder if that could be the basement or an apartment within the same home, or if it had to be a separate building. She married her first husband at the age of 18, and didn't know where he had been born.

It surprises me that Jeanette is listed as head of household, because she already carries the last name of her second husband, Morise LeRoy Hooper. (Familysearch.org lists their marriage in 1928). He didn't pass away until 1966, so where was he in 1930?

Morise LeRoy Hooper, uploaded by Rob Johnson

Morise LeRoy Hooper, age 19, uploaded by Rob Johnson

I can't find an exact match, but maybe with some miscommunication or forgetfulness, this could be him. I found a record for Morrise Hooper for the 1930 census in Mace, Shoshone, Idaho. He's listed as a 34-year-old boarder, working in a lead mine along with several other boarders. He was born in Iowa, his father in the United States, and his mother in Missouri. (Familysearch.org lists Morise L. Hooper born in Iowa, his father in Ohio, and his mother in Indiana.) It also lists him as divorced. If this is him, perhaps he couldn't remember his parents' birthplaces. He had been married and divorced two other times, so maybe that's why he claimed "divorced."

I'll have to look at earlier and later records to find out more about their lives, but I am proud to see that if this is Grandpa Hooper's new Dad, that he was willing to travel and do whatever he could during the Great Depression in order to support his family, even working in a dangerous lead mine in Mace, Shoshone, Idaho.

Mischief in Beaver

At Dad's Uncle Donald's house, I spoke with Grandpa's and Donald's other brother, LaRoy.

Grandpa Calvin M. Hooper in his youth

He said Calvin, my Grandpa, had been a talented track racer.  His best was the 500 m race.  He and LaRoy used to play around with the mine carts in Beaver.  Calvin would put his little brother in the cart and race it to the end, where the carts would dump their contents.  One time Calvin and one of his brothers played with a rope that caught fire, and dropped the burning end into an air shaft connected to the mines.  The boys ran away, and the miners evacuated, with no casualties.  People assumed someone had thrown a cigarette into the shaft, and their Mom, Jeanette, was appalled when she found out years later it was her boys' doing.

Abandoned mine in nearby murder-filled ghost town, Frisco, former murder capital

https://wiki.familysearch.org/en/Frisco,_Utah

Grandpa worked with tools all of his life.  LaRoy explained some of Calvin's ideas.  When Dad found out his father had tried to build a glider plane as a young man, to fly off of the dump, but was never successful, Dad proclaimed, "I'm glad he didn't, or I might not be here."

 I'd been confused about my great-grandpa's name, because on some records it says "Morise LeRoy" and others "Morise LaRoy."  LaRoy explained that his dad's name is Morise LeRoy, and when their son came along, Morise's wife wanted to name him LeRoy after his dad, but he hadn't told her about another son named Leroy in Washington state.  He didn't want to tell her, so he suggested LaRoy, since that's how they pronounce it.  I wonder if and when he told her about his other son.  She already had my grandpa, Calvin.

I used my basic Photoshop skills to work on Calvin's biological father's picture.  The other one I have still has a scratch across his face (accidental?), so Zak is going to help me fix it when we can get a good scan.

Calvin M. Hooper

John Marshall Sharp(e)