The brief life of Ruby Joyce Peterson

Here’s Ruby with Jack and Bill in 1925-26.

Ruby Peterson was born in Cambridge IL in 1898. Cambridge is in Henry County SW of Sterling. Her parents were Oscar Peterson and Ellen Flagg.

She would eventually become a partner with Jay Adams (my grandfather) in Sterling, but how did she get there?

At the age of 2, Ruby shows up in the 1900 census living with her mom Ellen with Ellen’s parents in Henry County. Ellen had divorced Oscar, and she and young Ruby moved in with William and Mary Flagg and their 2 other daughters, Minnie(17) and Gemina(12). William was a stonecutter.

Next we find Ruby aged 12 in the 1910 census listed as an “inmate” of the Andover Orphan’s home in rural Henry Couty! She was on a list of 50 or so children at the home, most from Swedish parents. Oscar Peterson’s parents were Swedish. The orphanage was a project of the Augustana Lutheran church.

Problem was, Ruby was not an orphan. Her mother Ellen lived until 1944 and her father Oscar to 1952. Perhaps families could send children to this place when they couldn’t support them? Curiously, in Oscar Peterson’s obituary, no mention of Ruby was noted.

In 1917 Ruby showed up in Sterling as the wife of William Corke, according to marriage certificate. She was 18, he 19. They were married in Kane IL, north of Alton.

The family unit shows up in the 1920 census living at 911 1st Ave in Sterling with a young daughter Naomi. Naomi Mae Corke. William was working at the “wire mill”, presumably the Northwestern Steel and Wire Company, the country’s largest scrap metal processor at the time. The plant drew many to Sterling.

Naomi is Jack and Bill’s half-sister that shows up in some family photos.

Here is Ellen with the three children of Ruby, Naomi, Jack, Bill the baby, 1925-26?

Jay, meanwhile, registers for the WW1 draft in 1918 and lists his address as 1205 Johnson Ave, Sterling.

What happened to Ruby between 1920 and 1925 is not clear, but in the 1925 Sterling City directory pops up the family of John Q Adams (Jay) and Ruby and 2 children! Jay’s occupation is clerk at Ankeny & Clymer (some company out of a Dickens novel?) Living with them at 1205 Johnson Ave is Jay’s mother Ella.

In that same city directory, Jay’s older brother Harry, wife Nora, and 4 kids also are listed with Harry a foreman at Frantz Manufacturing. After Ruby dies in 1930, the two families will move in together at Harry’s place.

I have not found a marriage certificate for Jay and Ruby!

Ruby Adams died in February 1930 and is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Sterling. The boys Jack and Bill were left without a mother at age 7 and 5!!!!