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The Mystery of George Brott and Sons
Our first mystery takes place over 100 years ago in Nebraska, along the banks of the Platte River,
and involves the disappearance of several members of the family of George and Mattie Brott.
George (b. 1862) and Mattie lived near Omaha in the late 1890’s. George worked for a meat-packing
plant there, and they were recorded with their family in the 1900 Omaha census. Shortly thereafter, Mattie died, leaving George
to care for the four small boys, William (b. 1888), Charles (b. 1889), Earl (b. 1892) and Roy (b. 1897).
George placed the children in Mother’s Jewels Home in York, NE and was never heard from again.
Perhaps the burden of caring for the boys alone was too great, or he went west to seek his fortune, intending to return for
the children later, but instead meeting with misfortune. Whatever the reason, the family was never all together again.
Some of the boys were old enough to work, so they were farmed out to ranchers far away. Earl was sent
to help a rancher in Central City, then ran away to live with another rancher along the Platte River. Eventually, at the age
of 16, he joined the Navy, then fought in WWI, serving on the US Zelandia.
When Earl returned to the orphanage many years later, in an attempt to find his three brothers, he
learned that the records of the orphanage had burned in a fire. Earl was never able to find his brothers, William, Charles
and Roy. Did they marry and have descendants? Were they adopted and their names changed?
Earl married Florence Miller and had two children, Dale and George, and many other descendants. But
the mystery remains– where did the other boys end up and what happened to their father George? By the way, we have George’s
ancestry in the Bradt records – he was a descendant of Arent.
BROTT MYSTERY SOLVED
...Well, the mystery of George Brott isn't solved completely, but there have been some interesting
developments!! Perhaps our readers can help or
make suggestions on where else we can search to tie up the loose ends.
--Laurie
Grimes
From the York, NE Historical Society, I was able to learn that the Mother's' Jewels Orphanage is still in existence,
but now called Epworth Village. I talked to a VERY helpful woman at Epworth, who searched the early records and
even found a photograph of the young sons of George and Mattie Brott! As it turns out, George died soon after Mattie
(place of burial still unknown), so the four boys were placed in the orphanage.
My contact at Epworth gave me
the names of the families with whom the boys were placed. What great records! William was adopted by the family
of
Frank Carpenter in Araphaho, NE, Charles by the M. S. McCord family in Boone, NE and the baby, Roy was adopted by August and
Minnie Ueckert
of Stark, NE.
The descendant of Earl, George Brott III and his wife Beverly, with whom I had previously
been in touch, was able to follow up on the older two boys. The oldest, William A. Brott, took the Carpenter name, married
Lura Hill and farmed in the Merna, NE area for many years. They later moved to Shenandoah, IA, where William died in
1938. He and his wife are buried in Rose Hill Cemetery there. The children of William and Lura included George,
Alice, Ruby, Dorothy, Jean and Charles, who all used the Carpenter family name. However, they DO know that they are
Brott descendants.
Charles, on the other hand, did NOT take the McCord family name. He remained a Brott,
married and became a farmer in Wright Co., MO, where he
appeared with his family in the 1930 census. According to
that census, his children were: Helen, Pauline, Raymond, Kenneth, Marjorie and Doris.
No contact with descendants of Charles
has been established thus far.
Neither has here has been any communication with descendants of the fourth child, Roy.
Roy appears to have taken the family name of Ueckert and at some point moved to California. I located his death through
the Social Security Death Index and the California Death Records. He died in 1969 in Los Angeles, perhaps never knowing
he was a Brott.
Another item of note: obviously the orphanage records had not burned, as had been the story in
Earl's family. Sometimes family stories get mixed
up, but we might also consider that perhaps with the secrecy surrounding
adoptions at that time, this was an excuse given Earl to protect the privacy of the adoptive families. Readers may recall
that when Earl went to search for his lost brothers after his service in W W II, he was told
the records had burned in
an orphanage fire.
And even though, because of that, Earl was never able to locate his three brothers, his son George
has had some satisfaction in tracing and corresponding with the descendants of at least one of the brothers, William.
Wouldn't it be nice to find descendants of the other two?
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