Approximately 1873, Henry Stephen Davids from New York married Adeline Coy Brown from an old Massachusetts family, whose genealogy is part of this collection. In 1875, a daughter Charlotte Judd Davids was born to this couple. Henry was a U.S. Naval Engineer, and about 1877 the family traveled to China with Henry's assignment on the U.S.S. Monongahela. Adeline, however, contracted cholera in China and died in 1878. Henry wrote many very eloquent letters to Adeline's mother describing the grief surrounding this event, and these letters are part of this collection.

Charlotte was sent home in 1879 to Adeline's mother in San Francisco. Henry completed his cruise on the U.S.S. Monongahela, but not long after, contracted Bright's disease, and died in 1888 in the home of his sister, Emeline Cox of Sandwich, Illinois, leaving 12-year-old Charlotte without parents. Henry anticipated his death, and in his will (also part of this collection) he carefully provides for this beloved daughter. She was apparently raised by the eldest daughter of Emeline Cox, who had married Walter G. Adams and moved to Racine, Wisconsin. Henry made Walter's brother J. Phelps Adams the executor of a trust to pay for Charlotte's needs.

Charlotte married James McKay in 1895, bearing a son Calvin (named after Adeline's father). But James died soon after. Charlotte remarried in 1900 to George Edgerton, bearing 3 more children, including Charlotte Rachel Edgerton, Emmet Edgerton, and Florence. Emmet married but had no children; Florence married and bore one official son Wendell Purkey ; Wendell married but again had no children; Florence apparently bore a second son Russell, who was put up for adoption as an infant, and does not acknowledge his biological roots, though he has 2 sons. Charlotte Rachel Edgerton married a Mr. Lane, with no children of record, and later married Howard Jandt, who had 2 young sons (William and Edward) at the time. The Jandts do not recall Charlotte Rachel ever discussing her earlier marriage to Mr. Lane.

Apparently, Charlotte Judd Davids passed the objects in this collection to her youngest child, Charlotte Rachel Edgerton, and the latter passed them to William Jandt. Tom L. McFarland (a descendent of Emeline Cox) located Bill and his wife Sherry Jandt in northern Wisconsin in August 2001, and the Jandt's kindly made most of the materials available for this collection.

Knowledge of the Davids family structure, through obituaries found by Sandwich historians Ken Bastian and Barbara Hoffman, have been very helpful in attaching names to these pictures. I also consulted Leslie Bellais of the Wisconsin Historical Society in Madison, who offerred her opinion of clothing styles in some pictures. Marriage records are now also available on-line though the Illinois marriage records.