On the 1940 census Mildred Cabell, age 21, is living with her younger sister Dorothy (Cabell) Pope, age 17, at 416 E. 18th Street. Both have been orphaned since the death of their father in 1935. They live about a half mile from their older sister, Hazel (Cabell) Caston (1852 Peck Street). Mildred had only worked ten weeks in the previous year, earning only $50 in 1939, Hazel had worked 30 weeks, earning $150 dollars for the year. Dorothy was unemployed.
Hazel and Dorothy’s husbands are missing from the household on the census. I have no idea at this point if they are separated, deceased, or just not recorded.
Mildred and Dorothy’s situation look precarious in 1940. What remains of their family is dispersed across Indianapolis. Their elderly step-mother is raising their youngest sister and we know little of their situation.
Mildred and Dorothy will persevere.
Mildred will marry Monroe T. Grady the next year. Monroe is the son of a tenant farmer from southern Indiana who makes his way to Indianapolis between 1930 and 1940. By 1943 they have obtained an apartment in Lockfield Garden Apartments (Bldg. 649, Apartment 380) near her first cousin Myrtle (Montgomery) Williams who is also living in Lockfield Gardens. Monroe is a driver for a surgical supply company, and he and Mildred have started a business, a record store on Indiana Avenue: Lockfield Record Shop, also known as Grady's Record Center.
We don’t know what became of the suspicious marriage of Dorothy to Orville (Arville) Pope, but she eventually marries Leslie Radford, together they will start "Telecom Inc. of Indiana". When she died in 1980 they were still co-owners of the company.
We don’t know if it was the fortune of marriage or the example of perseverance of their father, Henry Cabell, which was the basis for their progress.
(Picture: Indianapolis Recorder, October 16, 1954)
(Obit: Indianapolis Recorder, January 12, 1980)
Mildred (Cabell) Grady:1917-1994
Washington Park North Cemetery, Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana, Plot: St Luke: Maintained by: William Taber, Record added: Nov 25, 2013. Find A Grave Memorial# 120801160
for more on the Cabell family see: Tuberculosis hits the Montgomery family:
Who’s who in this article.
- Henry Cabell was Myrtle (Montgomery) Williams’ uncle. His wife Lelia Montgomery was the daughter of Sarah E. (Miller) and Logan Russell Montgomery.
- Dorothy, Mildred, and Hazel were Myrtle Montgomery’s first cousins.
- Myrtle (Montgomery) Williams and James Francis Williams are the focal point of the Montgomery-Williams Project.
