The Ford Family

Born	October 18, 1875 Jefferson, Wisconsin
Died	November 11, 1907 Elgin Insane Asylum
Father	Wenceslaus Wenzel Schrom
Mother	Thekla Schrom
Siblings	Minnie Weldon Bertha Schrom Albert James Schrom Tillie Marie Schrom George Gottlieb Schrom Frank Joseph Schrom Edward Schrom Arthur Otto Schrom Fred John Schrom Theodore James Schrom

Spouse	Fannie Schrom
Married	March 9, 1896 Wisconsin

Bio
Henry was the first-born son of Thekla and Wenceslaus Schrom, big brother to Frank Schrom who was Topdog's maternal grandfather.

The limited information we have paints a scary picture of the oldest of the 11 Schrom Children. His parents arrived in Baltimore in May of 1875 from their homeland of Austria. It would be safe to assume they knew little or no English, but they were bound for Wisconsin where the government was selling farming land cheaply to immigrants willing to work it. Henry was born in October of 1875, one month after his parents were married in Wisconsin.

We know Henry spent his childhood on the farm in Jefferson County, Wisconsin. There are no records saying he went to school, but his parents, like many other immigrants, quickly expanded the family to have more hands to work the land. Times were tough for sure, and when Henry was about 15 the family with 9 children moved down to the city of Rockford.

In Rockford, Henry's parents add even more children to the mix, with Fred in 1892, and finally Teddy in in 1893. That was the year that the biggest depression to ever hit the country to that point began. Food lines and soup kitchens were the norm. We don't know how long Henry stayed to help with the family, but in March of 1896 he marries a local girl named Fannie Spafford. The couple leaves the area and moves to Iowa to start a business, using Fannie's money.

By December of 1899, the young couple are in trouble. Henry skips town. The Commercial National Bank was seeking damages against them both for $1,200. A marriage license was issued in Iowa in February of 1900 between a Minnie Coombs and our Henry Schrom! (He listed this as his first marriage of course, and wrote that his parents were William and Tillie.) He then took off with goods from his business (swindling his creditors) and his new wife, and left for Kansas City.

In early May of 1890 it was reported in the local Rockford papers that Fannie had left Henry and returned home to Illinois. She was leaving soon for Kansas City to get her clothes and jewels that her husband had taken off with in his move to Kansas City. She was traveling with a Detective Cook who was trying to arrest Henry on charges of embezzlement and of course, bigamy.

The story goes cold there, except for Fannie's successful divorce from Henry on April 19, 1903. The whole affair must have been awful for Fannie, and she ends up in 1905 in the Ransom Sanitarium in Rockford - a facility for the treatment of alcoholism.

The whereabouts, activities, and crimes of Henry are a mystery after 1890. My guess is the law caught up with him and he was charged, but he ended up sentenced to the Elgin Insane Asylum where he died on November 11, 1907 at the age of just 32. Interestingly, the facility was charged with doing experiments on inmates and burying them in mass graves, but no records exist for inmates of this time.