Our Nellie

It seems that my great-grandmother's mother was Ellie Keith Smith, which sometimes may appear as Nellie. Miss Smith married Mr. Archibald Levines. Now, was Mr. Levines Jewish? The name certainly sounds sort of like it might be Jewish. I do not know enough about his ethnic composite to say anything about that but I do know that he was actually Canadian born and bred. His mother's family, the Speers, apparently immigrated to Canada from Ireland in the early 1800s. Some of the relatives probably know more about this than I do. Anyway, Miss Smith was his second wife and she died not long after the birth of their one and only daughter, my great-grandmother. He also had a daughter from his first wife. He apparently later married a third wife and returned to live in Canada. So how did my great-grandmother get a passport for missionary travels when the application form of one-hundred-plus years ago required that she declare her father to be a U.S. citizen born and bred or else the date of his immigration to the United States? Well, her husband was able to get a passport and so his wife and children were attached to his passport so really it was not a problem. So there is really nothing else to say about this. It's not a big deal, really. You could ask lots of questions but I would not know the answers.