Thursday 2nd January 2020 Number 5923

We reach out to all, regardless of Race, Colour, Creed, Gender, Orientation, or National Origin, offering support for researching family history and documenting cultural inheritance.

GOODBYE 2019 - WELCOME 2020

Welcome to the Laws Family Register

           A very special 96th birthday today to my mother, love you.

Robert Henry Laws

1828-1881

Captain of the Barque 'Woolhampton' 

my paternal Great Grandfather

This is Robert Henry's Wife 

Sarah Ann Laws, formerly Fuller

My paternal Great Grandmother

1846-1924

R I P

Gone but not forgotten, 

This blog is dedicated 

to all those who have borne our illustrious

surnames LAWS and LAWES Worldwide

Mail us today with your inquiries. we'd be glad to help you.

John P Laws  
The Registrar

laws@one-name.org

Recently, I did an Ancestry DNA Test

I will keep you informed of any results as I get them. 

Are you a relative, perhaps a 3rd or 4th cousin with 90-140 cM, 

I know of two already one in Canada, the other here in Scotland 

I sent an email to over 100 of my 3rd, 4th, 5th cousins to no avail so far.

If you are a Lawes or Laws, then you would be welcome in our new Facebook group


LAWS FAMILY HISTORY WORLDWIDE and DNA

LOVE YOU TO JOIN US

Please, share this blog, with your friends & contacts

e-mail with your questions



Find us on Facebook 
at
LAWS FAMILY HISTORY WORLDWIDE
email
lawsfhs@gmail.com

Henry Lawes

1595-1662

We have excluded records of living people to protect their privacy (GDPR 2018) 

We only show births before 1920 and marriages before 1940.  

If you are seeking to find folk after these years you should contact the registrar.

From our database today Tuesday 31st December

1648 - Death: Elizabeth DALLY-1138,
1716 - Marriage: George LETTICE-16763 and Thomasine LAWS-16762, Canterbury Kent England

1795 - Baptism: Jane CHARTERS-21428, Torpenhow Cumberland England
(My wife's 4th Great Grand Aunt)

1799 - Burial: Mary LAWS-19420, Beckenham Kent England
1802 - Birth: John L Parker EDEN-26191, Stokesley North Yorkshire England
1803 - Baptism: Elizabeth HORNE-12862, Hevingham Norfolk England
1805 - Birth: John LAWS-3877, (Weaver) Shoreditch Middlesex England

1806 - Christen: Alice LAWS-3846, Folkestone Kent England
1812 - Marriage: James LAWS-3318 (Merchant Life) and Ann SILVERS-3334, Great Yarmouth                   Norfolk England

1822 - Birth: Samuel LAWS-44794, Beeston Norfolk England

1825 - Death: Elizabeth RICHMOND - SMITH-3441, Hevingham Norfolk England
1841 - Birth: William B LAWS-11969, England
1843 - Marriage: William Herbert LAWES-38855 (Fraudster) and Ann HOWARD-38856,                             Clerkenwell Middlesex England
1848 - Birth: Edward John LAWS-9427, (Lamp Salesman) Chertsey Surrey England
1851 - Birth: James LAWS-2877, (Ag Lab) Doddington Cambridgeshire England
1854 - Christen: Robert Stephenson LAWS-4164, (Clerk)  Newcastle upon Tyne Northumberland                  England

1855 - Marriage: ThomasLAWES-2643 (Ag Lab) and Elizabeth RIX-2645, Felthorpe Norfolk                        England

1857 - Death: William LAWES-2302 (Gentleman), Ridgeway Hill, Stapleton Gloucestershire
            England
1859 - Death: Maria LAWS-7743, (Spinster)
1867 - Marriage: James William LAWS-32795 (Boot Maker) and Margaret CHURCHILL-6439,                    Saint Nicholas, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England
1867 - Birth: Louisa Jane LAWS-14503, Staines Middlesex England

1869 - Birth: Robert LAWS-42604, (Labourer)
1870 - Birth: Alfred LAWES-47383, (Newspaper Roundsman)
1872 - Death: Charlotte (Spinster) LAWS-5204, Ipswich Suffolk England

1874 - Birth: Edgar S LAWS-13599,
1879 - Birth: Jerome Alexander LAWS-16360,
1886 - Marriage: Vincent John LAWS-26870 (Brickmaker)  and Mary Elizabeth BARROWMAN-                 27018,
1887 - Birth: Mildred M LAWS-17390, Newcastle upon Tyne Northumberland England
1891 - Birth: Edward Ernest (Apprentice Engraver - RAF Service Number: 310655)  Islington                        Middlesex England

1892 - Marriage: Matthew Mathias ROBERTS-28778 and Elizabeth Frances LAWS-28777,                           Wellington New South Wales Australia
1892 - Birth: Edward LAWES-47471, (Hospital Patient)
1892 - Birth: David LAWS-23909  (RN J4506) , Gateshead Durham England
1892 - Birth: David Hugh LAWS-17093, Sunderland Durham England

1894 - Birth: Victor Lorraine LAWS-29451, (Lorry Driver)  Clapton Middlesex England
1895 - Birth: Minnie Dorothy CHAPMAN-22598, Westminster Middlesex England
1898 - Marriage: John LAWS-4276 (Ag Lab)  and Sarah A H M DIXON-15359, Feltwell Norfolk                 England
1898 - Birth: Elizabeth WRIGHT-42389, West Hartlepool Durham England

1898 - Birth: Alice Maud ADNAMS-23065, Battersea Surrey England
1898 - Birth: George LAWES-15903,
1898 - Birth: Henry Charles LAWS-8446, Bowen, Queensland Australia
1900 - Death: Muriel Kline LAWS-35354, Balmain New South Wales Australia
1901 - Birth: Frederick James WARDEN-44612, (Carpenter) Cardiff Glamorgan Wales
1904 - Burial: Laura Isabel LAWS-27548, Stockton-On-Tees Durham England
1905 - Birth: Jessie Beatrice LAWS-49830,
1907 - Birth: Amy Doris HOLMES-44233,
1907 - Birth: Essie May LAWS-28880,
1907 - Birth: Leslie LAWES-12683 (Australian Army), Leichhardt, New South Wales Australia
1910 - Marriage: John LAWS-24178 and Barbara COLLINSON-24179, Ryhope Durham England
1910 - Birth: William H LAWS-45911, (Motor Body Coach Minder)
1910 - Birth: Lily LAWS-37052, (Age 8 mths)  South Shields Durham England
1912 - Marriage: William Royal Garnet LAWES-35102 and Irene Catherine HAMILTON-35103,                   Sydney New South Wales Australia
1913 - Marriage: Claude Douglas LAWES-40523 (Machine Parts Salesman) and Mary SWOFORD-             40527, (Hardware Saleslady) San Francisco, California United States
1913 - Birth: Francis H T BOSHER-44209, (Radio Instrument Maker)  Edmonton Middlesex                         England
1914 - Military: John William Oughton LAWS-21802, (ARMY Sapper WR/202714/207480)                          Northumberland Fusiliers (Enlistment)
1915 - Birth: Edward A LAWS-43442, (Baker)
1915 - Birth: Clarence L LAWS (Van SALESMAN)-41257,
1915 - Birth: Thelma Louisa LAWS-11249, Warwick, Queensland Australia
1916 - Death: Sarah DOUGLAS-5147, Heaton Northumberland England
1918 - Death: Clara LAWES-19361, Moscow Idaho United States
1919 - Birth: Joseph Arthur LAWS-37293,(Labourer at Cement Works)
1932 - Death: Thomas LAWS-19408,(Dog Catcher) Ogden, Webber County Utah Unites States
1933 - Death: Emma LAWES-2561, (Widow) Woking Surrey England
1935 - Death: George Frederick LAWS-15096, (Market Gardener)  The Lodge, Kingsfield, Dartford             Kent England
1941 - Death: Reginald Frederick LAWES-38022, Entre Rios Argentina
1953 - Death: Thomas Roebuck OXTOBY-40950, Bradford West Yorkshire England
1953 - Miscellaneous: Albert Frederick LAWS-38144, (Schools Inspector)
1954 - Death: Pantha Della LAWS-16806, Rutherford County North Carolina United States
1956 - Death: William Pennington LAWS-14675, Yakima, Washington, United States
1957 - Burial: Christine Emma LAWS-49230, Great Yarmouth Norfolk England
1961 - Death: Albert Edward John LAWS-6589, (Deputy Naval Stores Officer) Jarrow Durham                     England but resided Chatham Kent England
1970 - Death: Shirley Muriel LAWS-49459, Burwood, New South Wales Australia
1970 - Death: Phyllis Gertrude SOUTH-31759, (School Teacher L C C)  Oxford Oxfordshire                         England
1970 - Death: Ethel Irene MCDANIEL-19987, (Supervisor) Texarkana, Miller County, Arkansas                    United States
1973 - Death: Clarence LAWES-16245, (PVT US Army)
1980 - Burial: Geneva LAWS-22269, Blanding Utah United States
1987 - Death: Thomas LAWS-8511, (Engineer)  High Lorton Cumberland England
1988 - Death: Norman William LAWS-21231, Oakdale New South Wales Australia
1993 - Death: Daphna May PEPPLE-16300,
1997 - Death: John Richard LAWS-35370,
2002 - Death: Zelma LAWS-10745, Hickory North Carolina United States
2008 - Death: Edward David (Painter) LAWS-28724, Lowestoft Suffolk England
2011 - Death: Iris M CLARK-49317, Ramsgate Kent England

2012 - Death: Marjorie May LAWS-41139,

The French Cheese Van in Edinburgh

Cédric Minel 

www.cheesee-peasee.com 

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Lord, help me dig into the past and sift the sands of time, that I might find the roots that made 

this family tree of mine

Lord, help me trace the ancient roads, on which our fathers trod, which led them through so 

many lands, to find our present sod. 

Lord help me find an ancient book or dusty manuscript, that's safely hidden now away, 

in some forgotten crypt. 

Lord, let it bridge the gap that haunts my soul when I can't find, that missing link between 

some name, that ends the same as mine.

  Irish immigrant James Hanan laid the foundations of the family fortune back in 1866 when he and his son John started a small shoemaking factory on the Brooklyn shores of the East River.  James handled making the shoes, while John sold them – a hard task made easier when John convinced his father to imprint the family name on the soles of their product.  Every Nike, Sketcher, Sperry, and Reebok brand on the bottom of a shoe owes a little something to John Hanan’s marketing skill.  The free publicity – imprinted in dirt from coast to coast – helped the Hanan & Son become one of the dominant footwear companies in the country.  By 1882 they opened a huge factory at 54 Bridge Street and employed some 400 people, among them various Hanan relatives of varying degrees of consanguinity.  By the time control of the company passed to John’s son James D. Hanan, in 1897, the company was worth millions. 

James D. Hanan lived larger than his father and grandfather, thrusting the family into the upper echelons of East Coast Society.  He bought a house at Narragansett Pier, Rhode Island, just down the road from Newport, and took up yachting. Nicknamed “Commodore” after he became president of the yacht club, he took his boat “The Surf” across the Atlantic to Monte Carlo, where his sister fell in love with and wed an Italian count.  True, Don Arturo di Majo Durazzo was only 24 and his bride was 50, he’d made a living selling olive oil and spaghetti, and may have had a criminal record in France, but an Italian count was an Italian count. 

It was typical of the pomp and preparation that went into one of their affairs, that everything from the tablecloths to the cigarette boxes,  was in,  a black and white checkerboard pattern,  They even themed the orchestra – an all-black band was hired for the evening and outfitted in spotless white suits. 

Rounding out the Hanan family was Mildred Hanan, daughter of Alfred Hanan, and sister to Alfred Hanan Jr. Mildred had married a Dr James Wagner when she was only 17; the marriage didn’t take, and Mildred had got a Reno divorce shortly thereafter.  She spent her 20s marinating in the Hanan milieu and is listed as attending many of the society parties with which lower-upper class New Yorkers busied themselves. Keeping her company was Grace Lawes, a Hanan hanger-on.  A few years older than Mildred, Lawes was a distant relative of sorts, an aunt of James Hanan’s second wife, and weirdly enough a friend of James’ first wife Edith; so much so that when Edith moved to Europe, Lawes was given power of attorney over Edith’s affairs. Divorced in California shortly before joining the Hanan's, she acted the part of an elder sister to Mildred.  Barbara Gottschalk, a frequent Hanan guest, remembered most of all Lawes’ cold beauty;

I have known Grace Lawes for a long time.  I met her here at the Hanan home.  She seemed to be connected there some way.  I never knew just how.  But she was the sort of woman one never knows very well.  She was beautiful, tall, with titian hair and remarkable eyes.  But I think her face was the coldest I ever saw.

I could not tell about her age.  She was not young, but she was always beautifully dressed, her hair was always beautifully arranged, and I could never guess at her years.

There was no doubt that Mrs Lawes was a woman of great culture and refinement. The summer of 1919 began in much the same way as previous seasons had at Narragansett Pier, with dinners and dances, and at one of these soirees, someone introduced an unwelcome guest; influenza.  The global pandemic, which had originated the trenches of the Great War, had killed some 21.5 million people worldwide before it arrived in the Hanan home.  By the time it left, it took many of the elder Hanans with it, including Mildred’s father Alfred and her uncle Talbot.  Grandfather James caught it too and never fully recovered; he died a few months later leaving the family awash in tragedy and without any cogent paternal leadership.  

Hanan & Sons continued operation under the leadership of various minor Hanan's family members, up to and including Count Durazzo.  Its leadership position among shoe manufacturers began to fade. That was all in the future, for the moment Mildred’s trust fund left her quite comfortable with a yearly income of $12,000 ($150,000 in today’s money), right at the time that the 1920s began to roar.  Without any father to answer to, and with her mother, an ineffectual check on her headstrong daughter, Mildred lived the high life in a rotating whirly-gig of restaurants, speakeasies and parties.  Mildred handled it well, but Grace Lawes struggled to keep up with all the drinking and socializing; lacking her own funds she soon became indebted to Mildred.  

More troubling, Lawes became an alcoholic, a problem at all times but certainly egregious when prohibition liquor frequently included ingredients such as turpentine, gasoline, and ether.  In her struggle to balance out the effects of the alcohol, Grace turned to cocaine, and to balance that out, morphine. 

A typical night out began at Mori’s, an Italian restaurant located along Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. Barbara Gottschalk, an old school friend of Mildred’s typically joined them.  It was over pasta at some point in 1920 that Barbara introduced a fourth member to the group; John “Jack” Borland.  Dartmouth educated, handsome, and with plenty of available income from a thriving chemical import company, Borland was just shy of 30.  He soon became enamoured of Mildred, a match which Grace encouraged, at least at the outset.

Soon, however, Grace began to feel marginalized.  With Borland taking up more and more of Mildred’s time, Lawes’ source of funds was in jeopardy, and with it, her means, to purchase clothes, booze, and drugs.  

In the summer of 1921, Mildred and Grace engaged in a virulent quarrel at Hanan’s estate in Shoreham, Long Island.  Lawes showed up late for dinner.  Borland, who overheard the argument from a chair on the front porch, never revealed its substance, claiming only that he had paid little attention to it because he believed it was just a “women’s quarrel.”  

Perhaps Lawes showed up to dinner drunk or drug-addled or maybe Mildred had begun to press her over the large sums of money she’d borrowed; regardless, Grace was thrown out of the house. “Whatever the cause of the quarrel of the two women may have been,” wrote the New York Tribune, “Mrs Lawes saw undoubtedly slipping from her the ease and affluence which had been hers since she had ingratiated herself with Miss Hanan and had become almost a member of the family.  Ordered to leave the Hanan summer home at Shoreham, Long Island., either because she owed her benefactor large sums of money which she was unable or unwilling to repay, or because she had made her presence obnoxious by overindulgence in alcohol, possibly both, Mrs Lawes conceived of the plan of killing the woman who’d been her best friend.

Taking up rooms at the luxurious Hotel Vanderbilt, Lawes quickly began to dissipate whatever remained of her assets.  Her behaviour in the last two weeks before the murder was bizarre.  She stalked Mildred, following her around New York City in a taxi-cab or on foot.  Confronted by her prey, Grace threatened her former friend with disfigurement.  Calls came in at odd hours to the apartment at 780 Park Avenue, where Mildred lived with her mother.

To try and talk some sense into the woman, Gottschalk met Grace for dinner at Mori’s on the night of September 21, 1921.  Lawes was hysterical, telling her friend “every time I’ve had anything sweet in my life it has been taken away from me…I have been a fiend – a fiend.  I’ve done things you’d never think me capable of doing.”  What those things were remains lost to history. What is known is that around lunchtime on the 22nd of September, Mildred joined John Borland to help him find a new apartment.  He lived with a college friend on 4th Street in Manhattan and had decided to find his own place in Brooklyn.  After a day spent searching, the two picked up Barbara from her place at 35 Schermerhorn in Brooklyn Heights, and then drove across the Brooklyn Bridge to Mildred’s apartment for dinner.  Around 10 or so, the phone rang.  The maid answered it.  Grace was on the other end, but Mildred refused to take the call.

Around midnight, Mildred, John and Barbara piled into Mildred’s car to take Barbara back to Brooklyn; Mildred brought along her dog, Puffy.  Grace Lawes waited out front in a cab and followed them to Brooklyn.  When the three were safely upstairs, Lawes dismissed the cab and paced back and forth in front of 35 Schermerhorn. Upstairs, John and Barbara discussed Italy, they’d both been and Barbara showed off a table cover she’d brought back as a souvenir.  Perhaps they shared a final drink.  

Out front, Grace waited. Katherine Strong, of 30 Schermerhorn, saw Lawes sit down on a doorstop take a teacup out of her purse, pour something into it out of a vial, and drink it, before throwing the cup into the gutter.  Police later found its broken remains and a vial marked “morphine.” 

John Williams, who lived in the same building as Gottschalk, noticed the suspicious woman too.  “She had several keys in her hand, and when I walked into the vestibule it struck me that she had seen me coming, and only pretended she was trying to open the door.  She stood aside as I approached the door, but said nothing until the door sprung open, and then thanked me.  She walked ahead of me to the third floor, but as I started to open the door of my apartment, I saw her light a cigarette.”  Grace went back out front, where she now stood in the shadows of a small porch to the building’s left.”

She didn’t have long to wait; John and Mildred intended their visit to be a short one; Mildred hadn’t even removed her hat and gloves.  Bidding farewell to Barbara, the couple walked downstairs and through the vestibule.  John held open the door, and Mildred came out first.  Only a step or two outside, Mildred saw her friend, “Oh, there’s Grace.”  She didn’t notice the revolver in Grace’s hand.  The first shot hit Mildred’s arm, causing her to drop Puffy, who ran barking into the night, never to be seen again.  Mildred turned and attempted a getaway.  The second shot entered her back below the eighth rib, tore its way through her stomach and kidney, and exited beneath her right breast. Grace Lawes wrapped her mouth around the gun and pulled the trigger, dying instantaneously as the bullet blew out the back of her skull and painted the outside of the building in a spray of brains and gore.

It was over before John Borland had much of a chance to do anything.  An off-duty policeman who heard the shots came running.  Unable to get Mildred’s car started, they flagged down a passing motorist and induced him to take the copiously bleeding woman to Long Island College Hospital.  Mildred lingered a few days, slipping in and out of consciousness, and asking after Puffy’s whereabouts.  At 4:04AM on the morning of Monday, September 25, 1921, she died, surrounded by her mother, brother, John Borland, and Barbara Gottschalk. In Grace’s purse, they found two letters.  One incoherently disposed of her few remaining assets, and the second was addressed to her mother:

Mother Darling:

You can never understand what I have gone through here.  Don’t try to learn.  It is fast.  I am too tired and ill to try and overcome the great obstacles I have placed in my own way.  Too much high life in New York and the pace is too fast.  The liquor here has driven me crazy, mother dear.  Forgive and forget and remember to pray for my soul.  Love to all, and think of me always.  Say to yourself always “A good, sweet daughter”

Lovingly,

 Grace

Sharon Nicola LAWS

2008 Olympics Cyclist

Environmental adviser for Rio Tinto Zinc 

1974-2017

R I P

The content provided on this site is not guaranteed to be error-free 

It is always advised that you consult original records.

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Member of The Guild of One-Name Studies

THE GUILD OF ONE-NAME STUDIES

www.one-name.org

registrar@lawsfamilyregister.org.uk

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With grateful thanks to Simon Knott 

for permission to reproduce his photographs on this site see 

http://www.norfolkchurches.co.uk/

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