There are many lessons in this 1918 letter from the Ashland, Nebraska, postmaster to the Pension Examiner, J. H. Himes.

The first is that it is buried in the pension file of John Osenbaugh whose only connection to John and Dudley Pollard of Ashland, Nebraska, was that Osenbaugh married as his third wife Emmar (Sargent) Pollard Ross Oades Pollard Snavely (she will be referred to as Emmar from here on out). Emmar was the step-mother of John and Dudley Pollard.

While conducting an examination into Emmar’s pension eligibility the special examiner decided to interview the children of Emmar’s first husband, James Pollard–who was also her third husband. Emmar didn’t actually divorce James Pollard the second time she married him and claimed that James Pollard died in Nebraska while she was living in Iowa. That was the reason James’ sons John and Dudley were of interest to the pensioner examiner as they could address their father’s death.

And here in the pension file of their step-mother’s sixth husband is information about their residence in 1918 and the fact Dudley was deceased and that he was living in De Ridder, Beauregard Parish,  Louisiana, where he was buried.

Sometimes it really is about the extended family. And sometimes that extended family are people that your “person of interest” never ever met.

The postmaster was probably a reliable source for this information. While he probably did not have first hand information of the death and burial of Dudley in Louisiana, it sounds reasonable that he would have heard of Pollard’s death. In my database if I indicate that Dudley Pollard was dead by 21 December 1918 and is buried in De Ridder, I should cite this letter as my source. The letter does not say when or where Dudley Pollard died.

This record may lead to actual records in Louisiana which would provide more detail than this letter and which contain more primary information than this letter does.

But it could be a start and it was located in an unexpected place.