The following is from an AD LIB column by Roz Young, around June 1980, in the Dayton Daily News. Reprinted here with permission and may not be republished without permission from the Dayton Daily News. | Back to Butler County Resources
"Finding Rags' ties took a bit of doing"
John Schaefer stopped in the office the middle of May. "Ever since Roots," he said, "there has been a resurgence of interest in tracing families. I have decided to find out who Rags is."
Rags at that time had been dead a week, and many were speculating who he was. John's visit was to find an Ad Lib about Rags written two years before other columnists around town found him good copy.
John is a genealogist and therefore, a kind of detective. When he was in charge of locating the 250 members of his Roosevelt class of 1932, he found all 250 members. It is impossible for a class reunion committee to beat that record.
John has developed special techniques for locating persons. Whenever he wants to find a local person who has disappeared, he starts with the address at which he lived while he was in high school, information available from the school records. Then he checks the city directories until the family disappears in the listings. If there is no new listing at another address, it is likely that one member of the family has died.
Next he visits the bureau of vital statistics. If one of the family has died, by narrowing the death date to the two years covered by the directory, he can find the exact date. This information enables him to find the death notice in the newspaper. The story usually gives the names and addresses of survivors or the undertaker can give him a clue.
For the Roosevelt reunion John had trouble locating a classmate named Pott. He tried his usual method without success. Later he learned that when his classmate's father died, his name was misspelled in the obituary notice. One of the classmates recalled that Pott's mother had remarried someone named Busch and that the family in the past had spent summers at a fishing resort Pott's uncle owned in Three Rivers, Mich.
JOHN WROTE to the chamber of commerce and received a list of fishing resorts in the area. When he wrote to the resort owners, one man replied that Pott had sold out long before. He thought that the Pott boy had gone to live in Wisconsin with a physician brother-in-law.
In a listing of physicians in Wisconsin at the library John found the brother-in-law's name. He lived in Sheboygan.
To John's letter of inquiry the doctor wrote that Pott was a store detective at Marshall Field in Chicago. When John wrote to the store management asking for Pot's address, a reply said that the information was confidential. John then asked the manager to deliver a letter to Pott.
After all the trouble John had to find Pott, Pott did not come to the reunion.
When John said he was going to trace Rags, I wondered how he would go about it. "I'll let you know," he said.
HE FIRST MADE UP a notebook of the 15 stories about Rags that had appeared in the papers up to that time. One gave his name as Elias John Barauskas.
At the library John looked for the name in the Chicago telephone directory, choosing it because it is the largest directory in one volume. He found listed a Gus Barauskas.
Gus said over the telephone he had never heard of an Elias Barauskas, and he was sure they were not related. Gus has two brothers, but neither is named Elias. He added that the name is Greek and Elias is pronounced Ay-lee-as, which accounts for Rags' nickname Lee.
Next John went to the coroner's office. When Rags died, all he had with him was a notebook belonging to a Daytonian and a cheap piece of jewelry. He had probably found them on the street. The notebook had been returned to its owner.
John then talked with Tom Sammons, a detective with the police force. Tom told him that the FBI had identified Rags as Elias Joseph Barauskas and that he had been born in Waterbury, Conn.
JOHN SPENT a morning at the library looking through Connecticut telephone books. In all the state he found three Barauskases listed.
On the third call he spoke to Leon Barauskas in New Haven. "Why yes," said Leon. "That must be my uncle Eli. I'll call my father."
"Have your father call me," John said.
In a little while Alphonse Barauskas telephoned. "I had forgotten his middle name is Joseph," he said, "but he is my brother. The last I knew he was in a hospital in Kentucky, but when he left ere, we lost track of him. I have another brother in Florida and we have an aunt living in Connecticut."
John suggested that Alphonse call the coroner's office with the information. "What I wonder," said Alphonse, "is why did you wait so long to let us know?"
This is how Rags was finally identified. The news stories mentioned only that "a local genealogist" had provided a clue to his identity.
I thought you might like to know the story of that local genealogist.
(from an AD LIB column by Roz Young, around June 1980, Dayton Daily News. Reprinted here with permission and may not be republished without permission from the Dayton Daily News.)
