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Finding out that the senator attended church told me where to go next. I looked in the telephone directory and found the number of the First Methodist
Church in Pasadena. As I dialed the number, I prayed the church still existed. After all, 40 years had passed since his death on July 2, 1943, and the church might have passed out of existence. The church secretary answered the
phone and must have thought something was a little strange, as I stammered and stuttered out the information, telling her the family name and why I was looking for the senator. There was silence on the other end as the secretary
seemed to be searching her mental index file of former and past church members. And, then she finally said the words I'd been waiting to hear: "Well, yes, the senator and his wife were longtime members of this church."
She asked if I wanted to leave my name and telephone number, explaining that she might be able to find someone among their older members who had known the family. As luck would have it, an hour later, the telephone rang and on the
other end was Sen. MacMurray's third wife's daughter, Lorraine. I had tracked down a living relative, one I could talk to about family. Later that same week, I was invited to talk with Lorraine at her home in Pasadena. After
several cups of tea and much talk about family, Lorraine gave me the senator's biography, The Man from Missouri, The Story of James E. MacMurray, written in 1943, and the journal he kept as a young man in 1882 during his school
days at Chaddock College in Illinois. Finally, the family puzzle had been solved and I could put the pieces together. In the senator's obituary, there it was: The Senator's wife's name was Jenny Areson Rubel MacMurray. My
grandmother Olive Aletta Spencer Van Court's second husband was Charles Wesley Areson. My step-grandfather, Charles, and Aunt Jenny were brother and sister. This was the connection to my family. Aunt Jenny had passed away in
1941, the same year I was born. Charles W. Areson passed away on March 27, 1923, the same month and day my mother was born. Pleased with my detective work, I knew I wasn't finished yet. I had to check out my mother's story about
that elusive finishing school in Illinois. Well, there really is a MacMurray College in Jacksonville, Ill., only in the 1920s it was called Illinois Women's College. In 1930, the name was changed to MacMurray College for Women, in
honor of James Edwin MacMurray, a major benefactor of the college. Today it is simply known as MacMurray College, and in 1996 they celebrated their sesquicentennial. |
