Edith Dodson
Privacy Level: Public (Green)

Edith Faye Dodson (1916 - 2008)

Edith Faye Dodson
Born in Canton, Fulton County, Illinois, United States of Americamap
Ancestors ancestors
Wife of — married 1939 (to 15 Jan 1946) [location unknown]
Wife of — married 15 Jan 1946 (to 25 Sep 1963) in Reno, Washoe County, Nevada, United States of Americamap
Descendants descendants
Mother of [private son (1940s - unknown)] and [private daughter (1950s - unknown)]
Died at age 91 in Lansdale, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, United States of Americamap
Problems/Questions Profile manager: Jana Shea private message [send private message]
Profile last modified | Created 14 Mar 2016
This page has been accessed 977 times.

Biography

Edith Faye Dodson was born 6 September 1916 in the Deerfield Township, Fulton County, Illinois. She was the second and youngest child of Forrest Dodson and Flora Kettenring.

Edith grew up on the family farm. Her mother was a first-generation American whose parents were well-to-do German immigrants. Her father was from a long line of prosperous Illinois-native farmers. Edith graduated from Canton High School, however, at the height of the Great Depression.

During the Depression she worked the counter at her uncle’s bakery. It may have been here where she met her first husband, James Sereno.

Edith married Jimmy in 1939. As newlyweds, they resided with Jimmy’s Italian immigrant parents in St. David Valley, Buckheart Township where both her husband and father-in-law worked as coal miners in a strip mine.[1]

During World War II, James served in the US Navy’s Construction Battalion or “Navy Seabees”. Edith found herself living alone in California and working for who would become her second spouse. The glamour and climate of Southern California, plus the attentions of a stylish man seemingly with some wealth and connections were no doubt powerfully seductive to a Depression-era wife of a coal miner from a small town in Illinois.

Edith began an affair with her boss. She filed for divorce from James in December 1945, claiming mental abuse. The divorce was granted on 15 January 1946, the exact same day she married Max Lipman in Reno, Nevada.

With Max she had two children.

They lived in Carlsbad, San Diego County, California where Edith was active as President of the Oceanside-Carlsbad Soroptimist Club.[2]

After the birth of her first child, Edith’s parents moved to California to be closer to their grandson. But in 1954, Edith lost both parents.

Her marriage to Max began to fall apart by 1960 and she began an affair with the man who would be her paramour for the next three decades, Chris Frandsen.

Edith eventually divorced Max in 1963.

As a single mother in a time when that situation was very frowned upon, Edith kept her family together by moving into an apartment in Carlsbad and making ends meet by working in a bakery owned by a friend.

Edith would spend most of her remaining years in Carlsbad as she preferred best - living alone - even after both of her children moved across country to Pennsylvania and had families of their own. A once a year visit was more than enough family time for Edith, who spent a good deal of those visits playing solitaire while chain smoking and drinking bourbon.

In 2001, she realized her health was declining and she needed to be near her family. That summer, she moved to Pennsylvania so her daughter could care for her.

Edith’s health continued to decline for the next seven years. She died 13 July 2008 in Lansdale, Pennsylvania.

Sources

  1. “1940 United States Federal Census (Population Schedule)”, St. David Valley, Fulton County, Illinois, USA, family 243, Felix Sereno household, digital image, FamilySearch (Online: Intellectual Reserve, Inc., 2021), [Original source: National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), “ Records of the Bureau of the Census, 1790 - 2007”, NARA digital publication T627, RG 29 Rol 805, (Washington, DC: National Archives and Records Administration, 2012), p. 11B]
  2. “Mrs. Potter Install Oceanside-Carlsbad Soroptimist Officers”, digital image, Newspapers.com (Online: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012), [Originally published: Times-Advocate, Escondido, California, Friday, 5 Jun 1953, p.4]




Is Edith your relative? Please don't go away!
 star icon Login to collaborate or comment, or
 star icon contact private message the profile manager, or
 star icon ask our community of genealogists a question.
Sponsored Search by Ancestry.com

DNA Connections
It may be possible to confirm family relationships with Edith by comparing test results with other carriers of her mitochondrial DNA. However, there are no known mtDNA test-takers in her direct maternal line. It is likely that these autosomal DNA test-takers will share some percentage of DNA with Edith:

Have you taken a DNA test? If so, login to add it. If not, see our friends at Ancestry DNA.



Comments: 1

Leave a message for others who see this profile.
There are no comments yet.
Login to post a comment.
If Edith used the name Lipman after marriage, please add it to "current last name" so she'll show up on lists of Dodsons and Lipmans. Thanks!

D  >  Dodson  >  Edith Faye Dodson