52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Week 19 Prompt Newspaper

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 19

Prompt - Newspaper

Newspaper.com

Recently I have subscribed to this site.  It is the largest online archive of newspapers.  The archive has almost 17,000 newspapers.   Some of the newspapers date back to the 1700's.  They apparently add a million pages each month.  You can browse the newspapers by searching country, city and date. Or you can put in keywords and narrow the search by date and country.

It has been the most amazing site and when I can, I browse without an agenda especially those papers from the early 1900's.  They would print anything.   For example I found this news article in The Times from Munster, Indiana dated April 8, 1945.   It was on page 12.   This is my maternal great grandmother, Maria Krikau. 

Or this example of my 1^st cousin once removed (Freddie Krikau).   Again from The Times from Munster, Indiana dated July 3^rd, 1940. 

Of course I decided to search my maternal grandfather.  Remember the one I blog about every once in a while.  The black sheep!.  The man who married my grandmother (Mary Sullivan; nee Krikau) as well as another woman making him a bigamist.  It was a hushed family story.   His life had been wiped out of my grandmother's life quite meticulously.   She never or rarely spoke of him to us.  For some time at the beginning of my genealogical endeavors I had written off this bigamy story as a fairy tale .  Then a few years back I requested my mother's live birth registration and found out that her father, Patrick Sullivan lived in Stony Mountain Penitentiary as a prisoner.   Okay it was not just a family folk lore.  This past week I found this news article in The Winnipeg Tribune dated Monday, April 10, 1922 on page 6. 

Another so called "nail in the coffin" of this hushed family folk story.  The bigamy story is true.  This Patrick Sullivan lived at 609 Herbert Avenue in Winnipeg.  That was the same address as registered on their marriage registration.  By the way that is the address for Mary's parents!  This is my maternal grandfather without a doubt.

The date of this article was April 10, 1922.   My mother, Vivian Peters, nee Sullivan was born on April 19, 1922., just 9 days after Pat Sullivan was charged and sentenced to 2 years in prison.

Two different pieces of information prove what at first I did not want to believe.  This means I have more digging to do.  Can I get his court records?  Can I get any information about his stay in Stony Penitentiary?  When did they move to Saskatoon?  When was he released?  If it was a two year sentence and he was incarcerated right away he would be released according to my math; April. 1924.  However here is something to think about.  Patrick and Mary had their second child September 24, 1922 in Saskatoon.  Maybe he was released earlier than the full two year sentence.

This story of my grandfather, Patrick Sullivan, aka  Pat Sullivan,Robert Sullivan, Bob Sullivan, Robert Windsworth Sullivan and Robert Wentworth Sullivan, will continue. 

Circa 1922 - Patrick Sullivan

Wendy