1940 Census Stories: William Wallace Greene And Veronica (Dorris) Greene

After last week’s 1940 US Census discovery on Ancestry of my grandfather Michael Flanagan’s census record, I decided to hop on FamilySearch.org tonight to see what states they have indexed, and was quite pleased to see that Arizona is already fully indexed.

A quick search quickly revealed the census record for my husband’s great-grandparents William Wallace Greene and Veronica (Dorris) Greene, enumerated on April 25, 1940, in the city of Phoenix (Maricopa), Arizona. They are listed in Enumeration District 7-41A, Sheet No. 61B, on lines 62 and 63.  Unlike the 1930 US Census, at this time, no family or lodgers were living with the Greenes.

William (1869-1944) is described as 71 years of age, having completed 4 years of college, and was currently not working. At his age, I assume he was retired rather than jobless — my husband says that he had always heard that Great-Grandfather Greene never went unemployed during the Depression.  Significantly for William who died in 1944, this particular US Census would be his final one. William had moved to Arizona from Illinois sometime between 1880 (the 1880 US Census places him in Arizona still) and 1900 (listed in Arizona on that year’s US Census), when Arizona was still just a territory. I am missing that elusive 1890 US Census that would help me narrow down when he left Illinois.

Veronica “Ronnie” Dorris (c. 1884 – ?) is described as 51 years of age (I hadn’t realized that she was 20 years younger than her husband), having completed an 8th grade education, and not employed. Veronica had been born in Mississippi, and had moved to Arizona by the 1910 US Census. I have only recently started exploring Veronica’s “Dorris” family line.

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree

embeddable family tree updated live from WikiTree