Curly's Gold

[Huskerz85]

There has been little to do for me here for the past few days and so I've been reading through a couple pages of postings & doing a few web searches as well. This is quite a place.....am intrigued by CrystalDawn's DVDs too....

Anyways, I was wondering if anyone remembered the following story....that aired fairly early on in UM's run. I say early on, because I remember watching Robert Stack walk through the library downtwon and remember how horribly dated the decor was........

Curly Green was a friendly old man who lived a simple, frugal and ultimatly quiet life here in Omaha. Not much is known about his past, except that he possibly served in WWII and might've hailed from the town of Schyler, NE. When he died, he amassed a great deal of $$$, estimated (back then) at around $200K I think.

Noone was able to track down any of his relations, nor were they able to find out anything substantial about him.

I know it seems pretty dry next to the more sinister murder/missing persons cases around here, but has become something of a fascination to me, as it is one of the only cases I know of, actually set in my city here.

[radar1979]

This case caught my eye early on too. Just prior to writing this I sent an e-mail to one of the evening papers in Omaha to see if anything had come of the story. Josh Butler, the man who was tracing Curly's heirs, had listed the case as "closed" in a 1988 article prior to the airing of the UM episode.

What gets me most is that we have all the usual details needed for the start of a good "family tree" type search...provided that the facts are accurate.

1. Curly said he was born in Kendall Montana, Fergus County, just prior to 1900...I checked Kendall and it was a busy mining town at that time so that fits well.

2. Curly said he came to Nebraska from Denver, this was around 1914 or so and he was 16 at the time.

NOTE: WALTER Green should appear on both the 1900 and 1910 census records in either location at SOME point...and then in Omaha in 1920 and 1930.

3. Curly stated in writing that his birth Parents were Harry Albert Green of Englans and Ann Mauren of Latvia. Census records from the time should list their country of origin...they should even be included in the records from 1920 and 1930 as the people were asked where their parents were from. Curly may not have answered these questions...but I don't know, and the 1920 and 1930 census records had not been released in 1988.

4. Curly said that he had a Step-father in Denver in 1915 and that was his reason for leaving.

5. Curly served in ww1...though all Army service records since 1912 were destroyed by fire in 1973. Since he gave his parent's names and birth places on the 1938 birth certificate he may also have listed them on his enlistment papers.

I have traced ancestors and relatives with FAR less info than this, so, unless Curly was lying to EVERYONE, there must be a record somewhere.

Perhaps one of you out there with access to Ancestry.com or one of the other genealogy sites might check these names, dates, and places with their records...and then send the info along to Josh Butler in Ohio.