Monday, March 30, 2015

The Marriage of Wayne

The Marriage of Wayne

There are some cases where the vital records just don't seem to support the facts as we know them. Certainly that is the case for Wayne.

To start, Wayne comes from a family whose name has evolved, and maybe is still evolving. It has been written as Friedly, Fredly, Friedley, and Fridley. Wayne Friedly apparently used a different spelling that his brothers, Charles and Walter Friedley, and maybe even his sister, Nadine Fredley.

Wayne's family seems straight forward enough. In his obituary (2009) he was survived by his wife, Sally, and four children. And when Sally died three years later (2012), she was survived by her four children and predeceased by her husband Wayne and her parents, Louis and Gracie Mae (Hendrix) Hafer.

So far, so good.

The kids were all born in Cincinnati in the early 60s. Or at least three of them were. Their birth records can be found in the Ohio Birth Index and for each, their mother is listed as Hafer.

Right family. Right?

But in Ohio divorce records we find a record in 1977 for Wayne E. Friedly (Wayne's middle name was Emery) divorced from Esther M. Friedly. She was living in Cincinnati while he was out of state (across the river in Kentucky?). In the record he was born in 1935 and we know he was born in April 1935. The marriage was dissolved after 21 years placing the marriage as 1956. All of that looks plausible.

Such a unique name, Wayne Friedly, and here it is in the public records for divorce. I am troubled by a couple of things here. First, is the name Esther. And second, under minor children, I would expect to see three or four but in the record it is listed as zero.

OK, maybe this isn't the same Wayne E. Friedly. Maybe there are two of them with the same spelling. And the same year of birth. And the same location.

As or Sally, the name Hafer was on the birth certificate of three kids for which we can find their records. So let's write this off that Sally and Wayne were married and had four kids as shown in their obituaries.

Oh, one more thing. I have a marriage record. It is of Wayne Emery Friedly and Sally Hafer. For 20 Aug 1977, just 12 days after he was divorced. Or someone was divorced.


If only that divorced record was for 21 days and not years, maybe Wayne and Sally were married, divorced, then he married Esther for a short time, divorced, and Wayne and Sally remarried.

There is too much here for me to figure out.

If anyone can help with the marriage of Wayne, please assist. This one is too strange for me.

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