Where Were the Weibles? – 1940 United States Census

Robert Ohio Weible and grandson Robert Earl Ley, about 1946 on the porch of R.O.'s home on Wooster Avenue in Dover. R.O. was an avid gun collector, which gave his oldest son, Robert Colt, and great-grandson, Frederick Colt (me) our names.

Robert Ohio Weible Family | 1940 Census

Part two of our check-in with relatives, as captured by the 1940 federal census, finds us at the home of my great-grandparents, Robert Ohio Weible and Beatrice Ethel (Morgan) Weible.

Because the 1940 census has only made its way out of the National Archives in the last few weeks, names have not been indexed yet by sites such as Ancestry.com. But if you know where to look, you can find what your ancestors were up to, thanks to the handy questions census-takers asked 72 years ago.

That is, if our relatives bothered answering.

In this case, we travel to Ward 2 in Dover, enumeration district 79-10 — up North Wooster Avenue, and just past 11th Street (and only a few blocks away from the house where I grew up 40 years later) lived 47-year-old R.O and wife M.A. and two sons, Robert Colt Weible, age 24, and Bill, 16.

M.A. — as she is known in our family — is answering the questions, and quite freely. The 1940 census reports that:

Bill has just completed his second year of high school. His father and brother, according to the document, completed three years before joining the work force, whereas his mother completed all four.

R.O. works as assistant purchasing agent for the state of Ohio. His salary in 1939, of $4,000, is one of the highest I’ve spotted in the city. The best calculator I’ve found to put that in perspective estimates the “income value” in today’s dollars as $275,000, whereas the amount, given straight inflation, is about $64,000 in 2011 dollars.

Robert Colt — or Uncle Arry, as we know him — works about 18 hours a week as a student at the “state university” — which I am assuming is the Ohio State University.

Their home at 1115 N. Wooster is worth about $6,000 in 1940, according to the census.

But Where Was Sue?

Conspicuously absent from this federal family portrait is daughter Sue — my grandma.

She would have been about 21, going on 22 then. I know she attended Miami University in Oxford, and it’s my guess that she is either in residence there, or perhaps already employed in Columbus, where she worked as a clerical employee for the state.

But I’m sure some of my mom’s family have some more accurate guesses.

In any case, Grandma was considered sufficiently independent by her mother to not report as a member of their household. Or else M.A. was simply following the strictures of the census.

Perhaps when the 1940 census is fully indexed, we’ll get a fix on Sue’s location. We do know that by 1943 Grandpa would do just that!

R.O. Weible sweeps the walk of his home at 1115 N. Wooster Ave. in Dover, Ohio.