Dorothy Jean Sheets

1929-1997 · Kansas City KS

Born 1929, Kansas City, Kansas

Died 1997

Mother: Eva Nina Culbertson

Children include Carol

Dorothy Jean Hewitt was not born with either of the names she was known by. She was born on 31 December 1929 at Bell Memorial Hospital in Kansas City, Kansas, the hospital of the University of Kansas. Her birth certificate named her Lilly Bell Culbertson. Her mother was Eva Nannie Culbertson, a young woman of 26. The father's line reads only "Henry Smith", with every other question about him left blank.

She was not kept. On 4 December 1930, when she was eleven months old, the Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, sitting as the juvenile court at Kansas City, heard the petition of Harry B. Sheets and Cora L. Sheets to adopt her. The court's papers call her Lillie Belle Culbertson. The decree made her their child and ordered that her name "be changed to Dorothy Jean Sheets." The clerk, Lynn G. Buford, certified a copy the next day. A juvenile court of the time handled adoptions together with the care of neglected and dependent children, and its records were closed to the public.

Harry Bradford Sheets was 41 and Cora Lillian Mefford was 42 when they took her. Cora had been born a twin at Hunnewell, Shelby County, Missouri, in 1888. The couple already had a son, Charles Richard, called Dick, born in 1922. Dorothy grew up as their daughter in Kansas City. Harry died there on 18 January 1940, when she was ten. Cora lived until 1978.

By 1949 Dorothy was married to Samuel Arthur Hewitt Jr., a painter. In April 1950 they lived with their baby Carol Jean in his mother Dollie Hewitt's house at 2641 East Sixth Street, Kansas City, thirteen people in all. Dorothy was 20. Her children with Samuel included Carol Jean (1948), Samuel Bradford (1952), Thomas Richard (1958) and Patrick Eugene (1963). By 1994 she and Samuel lived apart, she at Richmond, Missouri.

She lost her son Thomas in September 1994, at 36. Three years later, on Friday 17 October 1997, Dorothy Jean Hewitt died at her home in Lee's Summit, aged 67. She was cremated. The memorial service and burial were held at 2 p.m. on Sunday 26 October at Highland Park Cemetery in Kansas City, Kansas, where Harry and Cora Sheets lie. Her ashes were placed on her mother Cora's grave, under a small bronze marker reading "DOROTHY JEAN HEWITT 1929 1997".

Her birth mother lived almost as long as she did. Eva Culbertson married Ben Avey, raised five more children in Linn County, Kansas, and died at Fort Scott in 1995, two years before the daughter she gave up.

Parents

Eva Nina Culbertson 1903-1995

Children

Carol Hewitt (1948-2008)

Sources

Find a Grave memorial 110157403, photograph added by Sarah Johnson, 13 May 2021

1950 United States census, Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri, enumeration district 116-372, sheet 9; FamilySearch ark:/61903/1:1:6F9D-9Q2J, image ark:/61903/3:1:3QHK-SQHW-V6F5

Kansas City Star, 27 September 1994, Metropolitan edition, p. B3

Obituary of Samuel Bradford Hewitt, Speaks Suburban Chapel, Independence, Missouri, August 2011, as transcribed on Find a Grave memorial 263477751

Kansas City Star, 24 October 1997, Metropolitan edition, p. C3

Kansas State Board of Health, standard certificate of birth, certified copy no. 1460; Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, Juvenile Division, decree of adoption, December 1930; both photographed on Find a Grave memorial 110157403, added by Sarah Johnson

Find a Grave memorial 110157403, photograph added by Laura, 12 October 2017

Kansas standard certificate of birth, Lilly Bell Culbertson, 31 December 1929, certified copy no. 1460; Circuit Court of Jackson County, Missouri, Juvenile Division, decree of adoption, 4 December 1930 (both photographed with a family note on Find a Grave memorial 110157403); 1950 United States census, Kansas City, ED 116-372, sheet 9 (FamilySearch ark:/61903/1:1:6F9D-9Q2J); death notice, Kansas City Star, 24 October 1997, p. C3; death notice of Thomas Richard Hewitt, Kansas City Star, 27 September 1994, p. B3; Find a Grave memorials 110157403, 62322684, 109709588

If Dorothy Jean Sheets is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Dorothy Jean Sheets (1929-1997)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/dorothy-jean-sheets-1929-1997-4e97b4.