Was the father of Roland Frederick Tear the same William Frederick Tear that Hine photographed, and who died in Los Angeles in 1975? I had never seen any records that William married. But I remembered a record in my files that showed the military enlistment in 1940 of William's youngest brother, Robert, whose address was given as Osceola County, Iowa. It now appeared that as least two of the Tear children from Washington, DC had somehow wound up in the same county in Iowa.

I searched the Iowa birth records and found that Roland had a twin sister, Ila June; and I found one more child, Mary Nancy, born to William and Phyllis in 1938. Several days later, I searched the Washington Post archives, and I found a birth announcement in 1942 for an unnamed boy born in the city to William and Phyllis. William's mother was still living in Washington then. But this didn't prove that William and Phyllis were married, only that they had some children together.

I wanted to know more about Phyllis, so I continued searching and found a partial history of the Larsen family (Phyllis's family) posted on RootsWeb.com. It included a 1973 obituary for Phyllis's father, Rolland Larsen. Among the survivors were daughter Phyllis (Mrs. Clifford) Josey, of Portland, Oregon; and daughter Lucille (Mrs. Joe) Bishop, of Seattle. So I knew that Phyllis married, but I still didn't know if she had been married first to William, or whether they had just lived together. And on Legacy.com, I found the obituary for Joe Bishop. Among the survivors was a son, Ernest Tear, of Auburn, Washington. I called him. We talked briefly, and he told me that William Tear was his father. I told him what I knew and emailed him the Hine photo. Several days later, he replied.

"Thank you for the information about my father, William Tear. As disappointing as his life was, I am appreciative of learning about him. I was raised by my grandfather in the early years until my mom, Lucille, got her life straightened out and finally left William. Her sister Phyllis married Cliff Josey, and they had a large family."

The next day, he emailed me again.

"I looked at my birth certificate, and I now know that my father was not William Tear. It looks like my father was his younger brother Robert, who was born in 1920. The full name on the birth certificate is Albert Robert Tear. I went through all my papers and I found a copy of William Tear's application for a Social Security number. He listed his birth date as October 11, 1906, in Richmond, Virginia, and his parents as William Frederic Tear and Mary Sue Carter. William's address was 1025 10th Street, in Sibley.

Ernest Tear told me that the twins born to William and Phyllis, Roland Frederick and Ila June, died at birth. In the Washington Post archives, an article published May 20, 1941, stated that their two-year-old daughter Mary Nancy was "killed by a truck in front of her home yesterday." So they had lost their first three children. I was not able to determine the name of the boy born to them in Washington in 1942, and Ernest didn't know either. Then I found Phyllis's death record (1993) and her obituary. I contacted several of her descendants, but they didn't have any new information for me.

And then the 1940 census was released, and I found Ernest Tear living in Sibley, Iowa, with his wife Phyllis, and their one-year-old daughter Nancy. Ernest worked as a house painter. The census taker asked where each household member was living on April 1, 1935. Both Ernest and Phyllis said they had been living then in Washington, DC.

I checked one more resource, NewspaperArchive.com, and I found an article in an Iowa newspaper announcing the marriage of William and Phyllis. They married in Rock Rapids, Iowa, on March 4, 1937. But according to an article in the Washington Post on February 16, 1937, William Tear had escaped from a Virginia prison on February 15. He was still missing when the article was written. Somehow he managed to elude the police, get married in Iowa 17 days later, and apply for a Social Security number in June.