Clara Harriett McGregor Watrous Cristink 1870-1917
2010
To our surprise, after the stories and memories of two generations, we discovered that direct ancestor Henry Reynolds Watrous had a second wife. After his divorce from his first wife and direct ancestor Glendora in 1892, he married a much younger Clara Harriett McGregor. They were married in Salt Lake City, Utah in 1893, which was one year after his divorce from wife Edith Glendora Pancake Watrous. Henry’s wife had filed for the divorce on the grounds of “drunkenness and failure to provide”. She was granted the divorce and the custody of two sons, Earl and direct ancestor Everest.
The fact that ancestor Henry married after his divorce from Glendora was never known to anyone in our family until the 1910 US Census became available in a searchable way. There were Henry, his wife Clara and his two sons Earl and Everest. Earl was barely nine years younger than his father’s new wife.
Sometime before 1908, Clara Harriett McGregor Watrous divorced Henry, citing the same problems in the same words which Glendora had used in 1892. She married a much older man, even older than Henry had been to her young years, named Louis Albert Cristink. He was an emigrant from Germany who had settled in Utah. He had never been married before he married Clara. A history of Clara, her parents and siblings was written and compiled by Daphne Child who is deceased. The McGregor line was among hers. It was known in the family that Clara was very unhappy in her marriage to Mr. Christink. Clara died in 1917 and was buried in the Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City, Utah. Both husbands outlived her.
Clara’s parents were James Bailey McGregor and Harriett Bailey. Perhaps they were cousins because of their shared surnames. They were converts to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints who emigrated to America and settled in Utah. James was from Scotland and Harriett from England. They had two children. Clara was the oldest and a son James was the youngest.
Clara’s mother Harriett divorced James McGregor and married a Mr. Livingston. They became the parents of one son, who is shown as the youngest in this photograph along with Clara and her brother James McGregor.