Via email from SEDWilkins@aol.com in December, 2001:

My great-grandmother Addie Wardwell Dunbar is almost certainly the woman you

have listed . . . .

According the notes I have here, which I believe are in Annie's hand, Addie

Wardwell Dunbar was one of three daughters of Clara Wardwell, Addie and Annie

having been born, a year apart, to Clara and Jairus Dunbar. These notes

indicate, as do your records, that Clara remarried, but show that she also

had two children with Samuel Dunbar, Helen (later McMasters) and William F.,

who married Luena Connor.

Addie was born October 9, 1866. Her sister Annie L. Dunbar was born October

8, 1867. Helen M. Dunbar was born October 28, 1874 and William F. Dunbar was

born August 29, 1883.

George Henry Dunbar (who was born April 5, 1866 according to both these notes

and your records) and Addie Wardwell Dunbar were married August 12, 1899,

according to the State Archives (though the record says "George A"). He was

attached to an Army Transport ship (I believe he was in the Merchant Marine)

and went to China during the Boxer Rebellion. From there he returned (to

base?) in Oregon. Perhaps Robert was born there -- I still don't have birth

data for him.

My father understood that Addie and George both died of the flu in Oregon,

but they are buried in Castine so we hypothesized that the family (or perhaps

the Army or the Masons?) had their bodies brought back home. My father

understood that their son, his father, Robert, had become a ward of the State

of Oregon, but his maiden aunt Annie obtained custody and brought him home

and raised him in Castine.

(Annie's notes, and your records, if "Abby W" is Addie, have Addie's date of

death as 1907 and George's date of death as 1916, so perhaps he returned to

Castine with his son after his wife's death and Annie helped to raise Robert?

Or perhaps Addie died in Oregon while George was at sea, and so the child was

sent back to Castine, and George returned there after being mustered out? At

any rate, my father and his family went home to Castine to see Aunt Annie

during my father's childhood.)

Robert died in 1955, and his widow deeded the house in Castine to a man who

had been the caretaker and looked after Annie in her invalid old age.

Unfortunately I do not (yet) know his name.

My father, Malcolm Clyde Dunbar, was Robert's only child. He died in 1999 so

I am reconstructing all this without any living relative for recollecting

(which is why I can't double-check the "ward of the state" story).

Sally Wilkins

Amherst, NH