Legends and Lies

No one would ever knowingly want to accuse a family member of lying, however, sometimes things just don't add up.  There are several "tall tales" in our family, a few of which I have alluded to previously.  Another one concerns Charlie Chaplin.  Charlie Chaplin was a noted silent movies film star and "man about town" in the mid 20's.  My mother had told me that we were related to him but she never disclosed what the exact connection was. 

The first discrepancy I noted in the story was that Mr. Chaplin never spent much time in New York.  If you do a Google search, you can easily see that he had four wives and was situated in California much of the time.  In addition, his family was from Italy.

Why would anyone in my family make a connection with the well known Mr. Chaplin?  My mother  saved a publicity screen shot photo and another one with several Hollywood moguls and the famed Pola Negri.

  

Piecing it together; 

In July of 1923 my great grandmother, the widowed Anna Marie Boehm Krings, married a gentleman named Joseph Auer.  Joseph had been married to an Irish woman, Margaret (Mary) McCabe  who was tragically killed in December of 1922.  She and her daughter, Rita, had just left The Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help where they had attended a special mass and were stepping into the street when a "motor car" came out of nowhere and headed straight for the pretty pair.  Marie shoved her daughter, Rita, out of the way but could not avoid being struck herself.  She died shortly thereafter at the Norwegian Hospital in Brooklyn leaving Joseph with two children, a son, 15 y/o John, and daughter, the 9 y/o Rita.   

  

Joseph was (not surprisingly) devastated by his loss and likely overwhelmed with his new responsibilities.  He met and married my great grandmother a mere seven months later.  Initially, I was told that both John and Rita disliked Anna Marie.  I am sure that assuming the role of a step mother was no easy task.  Years later, Rita lived close to and took care of Anna Marie and became "the little red-headed girl" I've written about previously. I remember meeting Rita on a visit to my great grandmother when I was about 10.  She lived in the apartment directly across from "Grandma Auer".  In her own old age, she moved to Truth and Consequences, New Mexico and kept up a correspondence with my own mother until her death.  I struck up a correspondence with Rita's daughter, Mary Parodi, after connecting with her on Ancestry.  She volunteered many memories of my great grandmother and we chatted frequently until her death.

In one 1920 Census, there is a 40 y/o Joseph Auer living on West Houston Street with his sister in law, Rose and there is no mention of a John nor a Rita.  Rose, however, is married to a man by the name of Charlie....Charlie Chaplin.  This Charlie is of French descent.   I'm pretty sure this is not our Joseph as our Joseph would be about 60 y/o in 1920.  In another Census of 1920, I'm pretty sure we see our Joseph at 60 y/o married to Margaret (prior to her death) and living on Schermerhorn Street with their two children, John and Rita.  By 1925, our Joseph and "Grandma Auer" were living on 3rd Ave. in Brooklyn and raising Joseph's two children.  Anna Marie's three sons had already married and were their own.

None of this makes any sense and in no way points to a relationship between my great grandparents and the famed Charlie Chaplin.  Where did this crazy story even originate?  Why did my mother save the photographs?  

I'm chalking this one up to someone's creative imagination and putting it to bed.