A question...

[Veidt]

well I´ve a very good friend, he´s italian and he told me he won´t believe that mother going to bed letting 5 kids playing,after 10 p.m. that night?!?
An italian "mama" is always the last one going to bed after checking on all kids already laying in bed.

3. Christmas Eve is the most important night of the year in most Italian/American families.Families spend the whole evening together... I just cannot fathom them leaving any of the children alone downstairs on that night,of all nights ?? MOO

Snipped by me to save some space. I believe I've read that the children were not alone and unsupervised, they were with their eldest sister who usually tucked them into bed every night. That night however being Christmas Eve they let the children play a while longer and the sister fell asleep for a while because she was so tired and the children were playing safely.

I don't know about Italian-American families specifically but given what I know it does not sound strange to me that their sister would help her parents. I assume that since they were a tight-knit family it would be normal and even encouraged for older siblings to help the parents take care of the younger children. I believe I also read somewhere that the reason why the oldest sister put them to bed each night was because she was so close to them and this way their mother would get some rest and she would have the chance to chat with their siblings etc.

Maybe it could have been a cover up as you say but I doubt it. They were by all accounts a tight-knit family and the billboard for example sounds like a lot of time and effort. They were not a family with as much money as the McCanns so it would have been much harder on them to keep up with wanted signs and appeals to find their children.

I don't have any sources because I just remember this from reading this thread and some other ones, so MOO.

I spent yesterday reading through the Sodder Family forum, and was halfway through the first thread on the family when I started thinking I had heard the story before. Of course, I hadn't, but it was when the discussion about the photo that was sent to the mother of a young man she thought was her son Louis, it finally clicked for me.

When I saw the discussion about the photo, and what was written on the back, I automatically thought the "ilil Boys" followed by the numbers meant Illinois Boys (as in Boys home or Orphanage), and that the numbers were his file number there at the home. That's when my lightbulb moment came-

I have done a massive amount of genealogy research over the years, for various family and step family. My mother's current husband asked me several years ago if I would look into his mom's family. I said of course and asked for particulars- he said from what he could remember, she was the only surviving member of a house fire, and was raised in an orphanage in Boston, Mass. He didn't know the names of anyone in her family. I asked him to get in touch with her and see if that was accurate. I can no longer find my notes on it, and my stepfather is fishing offshore at the moment, but off the top of my head, I remember two different, stories, one was related to me before my stepdad talked to his mom, the other after-

The first story was that her parents had left her and her siblings alone in the home while they went out for the evening, and a fire was started while the parents weren't there. There were 8(?) children in all, and several were killed in the ensuing blaze- they surviving children were removed from the parents custody, separated and my stepfather's mother placed in the orphanage.

The other story I seem to remember is that there was a fire, and the parents WERE home, and they, along with six or seven of her siblings perished, leaving her the only surviving member of the family.

At any rate, she passed in 2004, and I can no longer question her about it. She believed she was pretty young when it happened, she said possibly between the age of 3 and 7. She didn't remember her parents names, or any of those of her siblings. I always thought that it was really sad that she was placed in the orphanage and no family ever came forward to take her in. She was never adopted or fostered out- she stayed there until she was grown. In a sad twist, my stepfather spent the better part of his life believing his mother was dead, killed in a domestic dispute with his father- he didn't learn until much later, when his mother found him, that she hadn't died.

Now I want to point out that I don't think that she is one of the Sodder children- it would be nice if she were, because then maybe my stepdad would have some answers, and so would the Sodders, but again, I don't think she is. I do, however, think the coincidences are interesting-

1. House fire involving several siblings
2. The middle name she was raised with was Louise
3. She was born May 19, 1937, Jennie Sodder was born Sept 19, 1937.
4. Judging by the photos on this case, my stepfather would certainly look related to the Sodders.

I never found anything more about my stepgrandmother's side of the family- beyond her date of birth and death. I contacted the Boston Fire department to see if anyone remembered a fire of a similar nature, or even remembered any stories like this- no one did. I tried searching for news stories of the fire, and never found anything in Massachusetts that matched. I posted the story on several message boards for the surname and area, trying different spelling variations of her surname, and no one had heard a story like this, nor did anyone remember her. I even tried message boards for Boston Orphanages, to see if anyone remembered her from there. The genealogy research into her family hit a dead end, and I've set it aside for several years now.

Anyways, I thought there were some interesting coincidences between the Sodders and my stepfather's mother's story.

That's strange - aside from the missing children no other people died during the house fire. However it is possible that if they are alive somewhere they could have been lied to. Louise would have been 8 years old so old enough to remember at least something of her old life but of course if she was told by adults that her parents had died she could easily have believed it, plus psychologists have shown that kids have "fake" memories all the time if they're prompted enough. When your stepfather returns you should ask him for more info. As to the genealogy there are so many reasons why you could have hit a dead end - a family who lived in a rural area, a family who didn't live in Boston but your stepfather's mother was taken there because her local orphanage was full already, who knows. I do think it's strange that it's something so similar, though.