In genealogy, every once in awhile you run into something strange. Sarah E Peck of Lincoln, Nebraska’s entry in the 1910 US Census (above) is one of those things. It’s not unusual to see blanks in census forms, especially in the age column of an entry (though it can be frustrating!) It is, however, odd to see the word “Unanswered” written into the field. What makes this entry even more strange is that other columns are filled. Her occupation, place of employment, place of birth, and parents’ birthplace all contain data. Only her age and marital status are missing (though one can make out a faint “S”).
So what happened, here?
The answer is both surprising and humorous, and offers a window into the realities of how census data about our ancestors was obtained. (If you like, we have another story about weird census data in our post “Can Census Records Be Wrong?” The short answer? Yes, they can.)
The details behind Sarah E Peck and her unanswered questions appear in newspaper articles from the time, such as this one from the New Castle News, New Castle, Pennsylvania, 27 May 1910:
Oddly enough, newspapers throughout the Midwest region and even as far east as New York picked up the story and put it into print, making Sarah a celebrity for a few days. They simply couldn’t resist the joke of the woman who refused to tell her age, even at risk of a fine! This, of course, was not the full story, however. Further details reveal themselves as one reads more local news coverage of the case. For example, the Lincoln Journal Star, Lincoln, Nebraska, 27 May 1910:
Other newspaper articles make it clear that Sarah did not know about her indictment until she read it in the paper. The very next day, she went to the census office and the court to speak to the judge. The judge let her off more easily than he had planned, given her forthrightness. He fined her $10.
But one thing she never revealed–not to the census, not to the court, and not to the papers–was her age.
Which, of course, for any true genealogist, begs the question: How old was she?
Some further newspaper sleuthing revealed that Sarah’s mother, Mary Jane Peck, died at her home in Nebraska in 1913. Her body, the obituary stated, was interred in Menomonie, Wisconsin. From there, I was able to find her mother’s grave, and a census entry from 1880 that listed Mary Jane, her husband William C Peck, and their little Sarah, living in Menomonie.
Sarah, it turns out, never married. She worked as an educator throughout her life and died in California at age 100.
Her age when the census enumerator knocked on her door in 1910?
42.
(Special thanks to the folks at the RAOGK USA Facebook group who first brought this Census entry to my attention!)