I am just now catching up on posts after the Madison
Bouchercon and a lovely trip to Italy.
In recent years I've received a great deal of information and
copies of documents from Roger's half-brother Don Torrey. Don
was a kid when Roger died in 1946 and he only learned about
the connection from a sister a few years after their father's
death in 1967. Their common father had three wives with
children by each and Roger came from the first marriage and
Don from the third. The father never mentioned the first
family to his third.
I had anticipated Don's information being published as a part
of a Torrey collection but that seems to have stalled. I will
pull something together that will provide more detail but
here are the basics.
Roger Denzel Torrey was born in Michigan May 5, 1901 (or May
5, 1900 depending upon which records are believed) to Neil
Baldwin Torrey and Rose May Morey Torrey. Rose divorced Neil
and moved to Klamath Falls, Oregon. Roger's mother married
Harry Poole and together they bought or built several
theatres in the area that featured movies and at least one
had an orchestra and hosted vaudeville acts. According to
various published Klamath Falls histories, Roger played the
piano and organ in the theaters and for a time was a manager
of one of them. Roger's mother was a community leader in
Klamath Falls and was elected and served in the Oregon
legislature from 1945 to 1947.
Turned down for the U.S. Army because of his age, Roger
crossed the border, lied about his age and claimed to have
been born in St. John, New Brunswick, Canada. He took the
oath on October 16, 1918 and in his enlistment papers his
"Trade or calling" was listed as Logger. His army health
records list him as 5 ft. 6 and 3/4 inches tall and weighing
122 pounds and he had brown hair and hazel eyes. His
discharge certificate was signed at Vancover, BC and dated
December 9, 1918.
Roger did own the confectionary shop in 1930 with his then
wife Edna working as a sales clerk in the shop.
Roger died in Broward County, Florida with the cause on his
death certicate listed as "Acute intoxification (alcoholism)"
and under "other conditions" was listed "cirrhosis of the
liver." He was living at 1009 SE 4th Street in Ft.
Lauderdale, FL with his wife Helen. He is buried at Evergreen
Cemetery in Ft. Lauderdale. the death certificate lists his
birth date as May 5, 1900. Family records place the year of
birth at 1901.
There's more detail that I hope to bring together in a longer
writeup.
Richard Moore
--- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "George Tuttle"
<noirfiction@...> wrote:
>
> The 1930 Census lists a Roger D. Torrey of Klamath
Falls, Oregon,
> age: 28, occupation: "own confectionery". According
to Lee
> Server's Danger Is My Business, Roger Torrey was a
lumber-jack in
> Klamath Falls, Oregon.
>
> Florida Death Index, 1877-1998 (Florida: Florida
Department of
> Health, Office of Vital Records, 1998) lists a Roger
Den Torrey,
age
> unspecified, dying in 1946 in Broward
County.
>
> It would be nice to have a newspaper obituary or a
little more
> information before we connected all of these Torreys
together.
>
> Anybody?
>
>
>
> --- In
rara-avis-l@yahoogroups.com, "Vladimir" <kerwud@>
wrote:
> >
> > Good day!
> > Bibliography of Roger D. Torrey on
line
> > http://rraymond.narod.ru/torrey-bib.htm
> >
> > It's incomplete... :-(
> > Does anybody know the dates of his
life?
> > Vladimir
> >
>
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