Two babies one the award for “most recent baby” at the 1941 reunion of the fourth annual Trautvetter-Schlidmann reunion held in Hamilton, Illinois: Wayne Wells and Buddy Neil. Wayne Wells was determined to have been a Schildmann descendant. I already suspected who Buddy Neil was, but avoided jumping to conclusions. The only “Neil” family listed in the entire listing of attendees as “Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Neil[sic] and family.” Mrs. Neill was a Trautvetter descendant. It was consistent with the other double prizes that were apparently awarded one to a member of each family.
Mr. and Mrs. Cecil Neill–actually Cecil Neill and the former Ida Trautvetter–did have a baby in April of 1941: Keith Neill. Keith is my father. I have never heard of him referred to as “Buddy” in my entire life. I thought the reference might be to “Baby,” but Dad’s birth certificate from April of 1941 indicated he was clearly named at birth.
Thinking it was a typographical error at the newspaper, I located another version of the writeup in another local newspaper from Warsaw, Illinois. That newspaper, also dated on 25 September 1941, included the same reference to Buddy Neil.
The reference does appear to have been to my father and does not appear to have been a mistake of the newspaper.
Was he called Buddy for a short time or was it a mistake made by the compiler of the newspaper? At this point, I won’t know. But at least I made the effort to figure it out.
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