Leona Mallory's Husband, Pinkney

Leona Lucinda Mallory (daughter of Ben) married Pinkney Poor in 1932.  He died of a heart attack in 1955, at the age of 54, and was buried in a military cemetery in San Diego.  

When Pinkney was a young man, he tried to enlist in the navy.  He was told that he would need his birth certificate to join, so he went to his mother, Martha, and asked for it.  She reluctantly told him that she didn't have it because he was adopted.  

She did have his adoption papers, however, and he was able to enlist, but he never knew anything more about his biological parents. 

 

Pinkney had a happy childhood, so maybe it never crossed his mind.  His adopted father was a good man, a county sheriff, and Pinkney was close to his younger sister, Crystal, the biological child of John and Martha Poor.  After he married, Pinkney had two children, a boy and a girl, who were the beloved grandchildren of John and Martha.  The Poor family, all three generations, went camping and took road trips together, and spent summers in a cabin by a lake.

But Pinkney passed on the story about how he found out that he was adopted.  He told his wife and his children, who felt it was important enough to pass the tale on to the next generation, as well.  So, maybe he did wonder, now and then.

The sheriff and his wife had been fostering the child for seven years before they adopted him, and they called him Pinkney Percy Peyton Poor.  According to the adoption papers, Pinkney was born Henry Slyter, on or about the 23rd of January, 1901.  

His home birth was reported (found on FamilySearch.org) by a Los Angeles hospital matron as occurring in January 1901 (no specific day).  His biological father was recorded as G. W. Slater, born in Canada, and his biological mother as M. J. Humphrey, born in Canada.  The child's name was written "Henery."

 

The biological parents, or at least the mother, had to have given permission for the child's adoption, so the court document probably had the correct name and birth date: Henry Slyter, born 23 January 1901.

 

In the June 1900 U.S. Census, Maggie J Humphrey was a 40-year-old teacher boarding in a Los Angeles house, with a gold miner and his artist wife.  Maggie was single (and three months pregnant, but that's not in the census).  She and her parents were born in Canada, but they are also recorded as born in "Canada, Scotland."  According to FamilySearch, her birthplace was a "Scottish Colony" in Upper Canada.

At the same time, 56-year-old George Slyter was living with his wife and three of their children in San Francisco.  (The census reports 9 children born to the wife and seven still living.)  They had been married for 35 years.  George was born in Canada and was a contractor, experienced with masonry, plastering, and carpentry.  His wife, Alice, was born in New York to Irish parents.  They met after George immigrated to New York, where he joined Company D of the 89th NY Infantry during the Civil War.  Their first child was born in 1866. 

Maggie immigrated with her sisters to Minnesota in 1881, where they homesteaded and became citizens of the U. S..  Maggie acquired land and a teaching certificate from the state, and lived there until 1895. Sometime shortly after, she moved to California.

How George and Maggie met is still a mystery.  They came from similar backgrounds as immigrants from Upper Canada and, based on their work together in the years that followed, they shared an interest in flipping properties.  This may have been how they met, if Maggie bought a property that needed work and hired George as a contractor, but that's merely a guess.  It does not appear that they were ever neighbors, nor knew each other as children.

George was admitted to the Home for Disabled Veterans in 1899 for "chronic rheumatism," with Alice still as his next of kin, even though his address was West LA.  He checked himself out of the hospital in 1905.  Sometime between 1900 and 1910 George and Alice were divorced, although Alice was calling herself a widow in San Francisco City Directories.

 

Maggie took the surname Slyter sometime before 1903, although no marriage record has been forthcoming.  Perhaps they were married by a chaplain while George was in the veterans' home?  The 1910 Census reported that they had been married for 10 years and Maggie never had any children. George died in 1918 of heart problems at the age of 73.

In the 1920 Census, Maggie was listed as widowed and living with her sister, Barbara Humphrey (age 61, never married), in Los Angeles.  The Voter Registration for that year lists Maggie as a florist, otherwise she was unemployed between 1920 and 1940.  Without George, she was no longer buying and selling properties, either.  Her sister, Barbara, died in 1928.  Maggie continued to live in Los Angeles and appears alone in the 1930 and 1940 Censuses there.

Maggie died on 13 Jun 1942 at the age of 82.  Her obituary in the local newspaper was one sentence long.  They didn't even get her name right.

 

LA Times 14 June 1942 p31

DNA evidence links the granddaughter of Pinkney Poor (born Henry Slyter) to a descendant of Hiram Slyter, the youngest son of George and Alice Slyter.  For more family info from the Slyter family see the George M Slyter entry on FindaGrave.com.