Tuesday, December 3, 2013

The short life of Isis Forgey

My Aunt Isis lived to be about 5 months old, but her short has always fascinated me. She was born while my Grandfather Charles Lynn Forgey served in the US Marines. My Grandfather married my Grandmother Graciela Del Castillo in Nicaragua on 10 January 1919. Since Isis died in Nicaragua it's been difficult getting any information about her death. I've tried for a decade writing to various record offices in Nicaragua in an effort to get any additional bits of information about my ancestors there. I generally got no response at all. I did get one response from a Catholic Priest stating he could not find any information.
Thankfully the vital records for Managua, Nicaragua were filmed by the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah. These records have been digitized and uploaded to Familysearch and are fully searchable (I am hoping they eventually film the records in Granada).
I've asked my mother and her siblings about their sister Isis, but they didn't know very much about her other than she died very young in Nicaragua. My mother was under the impression Isis had broken her neck? She may have come to this conclusion after looking at a photo of Isis taken after her death. Her rigid position after her death may have made it look like her neck was broken? The family seemed to avoid talking about Isis, probably not wanting to bring back the memory of a painful event. No one knew her date of birth or death.
I've located 3 records mentioning Isis Forgey (she was named after her Grandmother Isis Browning Forgey). I now have her birth record, a 1920 US Census record, and a Death Record.
What I learned from these documents is:

  1. Isis was born on 26 January 1920 in Managua, Nicaragua
  2. Isis died on 3 May 1920 in Managua
  3. Isis died of a Gastro intestinal infection, and not a broken neck


Isis Forgey's birth record says her father Charles L. Forgey was in the Military
Isis Forgey's death record
1920 Census for Marine Legation Managua Nicaragua
 By April 1921 my Grandmother was back in her home city of Granada where my mother was born. My grandfather was out of the country in Honduras working in a goldmine at the time, he was discharged from the Marines in June 1920. My mother was born in the home of Horatio Arguello Bolanos. I found a newspaper clipping about him below. He may have been a cousin of my Grandmother?


My mother Edna Forgey-Kapple's Birth Certificate 

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