REVISED, and then REVISED again
Part 5b. Little Sanford Proctor finds a new home.
Sanford Proctor was a six-year old boy whose mother died of influenza during the 1918 pandemic. Having already lost his father, Sanford was now an orphan. On her deathbed, his mother had contacted the Chicago Daily Tribune to ask for help in finding a home for her son. Scores of people contacted the Tribune with offers to adopt the boy.
On November 16, 1918, the Tribune announced that Sanford had a new home. The doctor who had been treating Sanford at St. Luke’s Hospital had obtained custody of the little boy.
This doctor, whose name was not revealed in the article, had cared for the boy daily, often neglecting his outside practice to do so. Not only was Sanford’s pneumonia on the mend, the doctor also believed that expert care would help his crippled leg.
The doctor and his little patient had become great friends. When the time came for Sanford to be discharged from the hospital, the doctor realized he could not watch Sanford go.
“I can’t think of letting my little companion go into another’s home,” said the doctor. “I have grown attached to him. I can cure his shriveled leg and make a fine young man out of him.”
The article reported that Sanford would be going to a fine city residence and a spacious country home where he could romp and play. The doctor and his wife intended to adopt the boy and give him their family name.
Who was this kind-hearted physician? The story wouldn’t be complete without further research. This happened in 1918, so the assumption was made that Sanford should be in the 1920 U. S. Census under his new name. A search through the census records on Ancestry.com for Sanfords in Chicago in 1920 found him – he was now Sanford Watkins, living at 4943 S. Blackstone Ave., one of the finest addresses in the entire city.
Sanford was adopted by Dr. Thomas James Watkins and his wife Catherine. Dr. Watkins was head of the gynecology department and a professor of medicine at Northwestern University. He was also one of the heads of St. Luke’s Hospital and affiliated with Mercy Hospital. He was a past president of the American Gynecological Society and a presenter and author of renown.
Research also found that Thomas and Catherine Watkins had lost their only child, a seven-year old boy named Carman (Catherine’s maiden name) in 1901. The child was buried at Mt. Hope Cemetery on 115th Street here on the Ridge.
Dr. and Mrs. Watkins and Sanford lived at the Bryson Apartment Building, one of Chicago’s exclusive, grand buildings where the apartments had eleven huge rooms, soaring ceilings and marble entryways. The building, which no longer stands, was sold in 1923 to be turned into a hotel. The Watkins family moved to another fine new apartment building on Chicago’s Gold Coast at 219 East Lake Shore Drive, which today houses multi-million-dollar condos.
Dr. Watkins died of a heart attack at his office in 1925 at the age of 62. His remains were returned to New York where he was from originally. At the time of his adopted father’s death, Sanford, 12, was a student at St. John’s military academy in Wisconsin. Dr. Watkins left a trust fund of $50,000 for Sanford, which would equate to more than $700,000 in 2020.
We found further information on Sanford. In the early 1930s, he was a student at the University of Illinois – Urbana. For a while, he lived in rooms at the South Shore Country Club, where he was an avid golfer.
It appears he spent time in New York in the mid-1930s. He did travel from New York to England and Germany in the early 1930s.
The 1940 census found Sanford, 27, with his wife Barbara and son Thomas James, presumably named for Dr. Watkins, living in Beverly Hills, California. His occupation was listed variously as writer and stenographer.
Barbara was the daughter of Charles Helsell, an executive with the Illinois Central Railroad. The Helsells lived in Flossmoor.
On his 1940 draft registration card, Sanford listed his employer as John Truesdell. Truesdell was a young man in his late 20’s from Ohio who wrote a Hollywood gossip column that was carried by several Midwest newspapers. We’re assuming that Truesdell dictated his material to Sanford who transcribed it for publication.
Alas, though, we are sorry to report that Sanford died in December 1941 in California, at the age of 29, leaving a young widow and baby son. We are researching the death certificate to learn the cause of death.
We found that Barbara remarried in 1957 to John Whit Foster. Barbara died in 2003 in San Diego. Barbara’s and Sanford’s son Thomas James died in 1996. We do not know if he left descendants.
So many stories of individuals from the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919 had sad endings. It was nice to find this one “feel good” story from the 1918 Tribune about the orphan Sanford Proctor. And it looked like life was going well for Sanford for a time. In a twist of fate, just as Sanford never knew his father, his son never knew him.
We’ll do one more post to look at some miscellaneous stories and information about the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic in Chicago.