Friday, April 13, 2012

I Found Clark Gable’s Mechanic in the 1940 Census!



There he is on line 64 with his family—Arthur Iverson, my grandfather!  According to my grandmother Ingrid Gilberg Iverson, Arthur’s wife, when Clark Gable brought his car to the garage where my grandfather worked, Clark preferred Arthur to be the one to work on his car. Sometimes Clark would even stay and watch my grandfather work on his car. I also heard that Clark Gable seemed to be a very nice, genuine person.

Of course, I'm not claiming that my grandfather was the only mechanic Clark Gable used to work on his cars. But it is really cool to hear that my grandfather was one of his mechanics. And one that he preferred at the garage where Grandpa Arthur worked.



In the 1940 Census, Arthur is listed with his wife Ingrid and their three children.  I've blurred the name and information for the youngest child on this census for privacy reasons. Jan, the middle child is my father. Arthur and his family lived at 6058 N. Bellingham Avenue in North Hollywood at the time of this census.

Here’s a picture of their house.

Jan Iverson's First Home

It’s so awesome that I had this picture of my dad’s first house and that it had the actual address listed too.  Because I had the address of the house, I was able to locate my dad in the 1940 census. I used the website  Stevemorse.org to find the correct enumeration district I needed so I could locate my dad and his family in the census. Thank you Steve Morse!

It’s especially neat to see this census because just two years after it was taken, my grandfather, Arthur Iverson, passed away. To see him in a census with his family is really cool.

Here’s a picture of my grandfather, Arthur Harry Iverson.

Arthur Harry Iverson

Thanks for reading!

Jana

Copyright © Jana Last 2012

Source:


Year: 1940; Census Place: Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California; Roll: T627_375; Page: 5B; Line 64; Enumeration District: 60-41. Ancestry.com. 1940 United States Federal Census [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2012.

13 comments:

  1. Jana, this blog is terrific! What wonderful things you have found out about your ancestors. I can't wait to read more. It inspires me to work harder on my own genealogy!

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  2. Nice - I am sure the area around his home doesn't even remotely resemble the picture anymore. :-)
    Regards,
    Theresa (Tangled Trees)

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  3. Thanks TCasteel! And yes, from the pictures on Googlemaps.com the area around his home definitely has changed! Best to you! Jana

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  4. What a cool connection! And I love Steve Morse's pages too!I was thinking the same thing as Theresa...I bet the area looks totally different.

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    1. Thanks Heather! It's so fun and interesting to hear about the stories of our ancestors. And Steve Morse really has provided a great service to all of us genealogists who don't want to wait until the 1940 Census gets indexed to find our ancestors, so a big thanks to him for sure!

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  5. Welcome to Geneabloggers.

    I guess I've been waiting to use the 1940 census to see when some indexes become avaiable. Can't wait to find my relatives though...

    Regards, Jim
    Genealogy Blog at Hidden Genealogy Nuggets

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  6. Thanks for the welcome! A former student of mine from a family history class I teach asked me yesterday when the 1940 census would be searchable and I couldn't give him a definitive answer since it depends on when the indexing gets done. (insert shameless indexing plug here) I gave him advise on how he could find his ancestors until the indexing is completed including using Steve Morse's website and looking at the 1930 census (maybe his ancestors still lived at the address in 1940?) and also looking at WW2 Draft Registration Cards for the address listed there. I'm sure there are other sources/documents to look at to try and find an ancestor's address in the 1940 census. Good luck with your search!

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  7. Ha - I was wondering how you figured out from the census who Clark Gable's mechanic was :-) Glad to have found your blog.

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    1. Hi Debi, Thanks for stopping by! I checked out your blog...it's awesome! I've added it to my reading list. :)

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  8. This was a very interesting article. Thank you for posting articles you enjoyed. I'm getting addicted (oops!) to blogging.

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    1. Hi Grant,

      Thanks so much for your kind comments! Isn't blogging fun?

      Thanks for stopping by!

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