Trafford Edward WHALEN
Trafford Edward WHALEN, (son of David Edward WHALEN), b. 17 Jan 1914, Kansas City Kansas, d. 23 Jul 1931, Kansas City Kansas
Died of a brain tumor when he was 17. Was said to be very close to his mother. Ann Stewart McDonald his mother is said to have named him from a character from a Scottish book. Note that Trafford Publishing company is a famous book company out of Scotland that distributed the Scotsman, a magazine to many immigrant families from 1900 on. So he may have indeed been named after an actual character in a book or his mothers favorite publisher of the books and magazines she read. There are two other individuals in the genealogy with this unusual name. One Ann Stewart McDonald's first cousin Maggie McDonald named her child Trafford Whalen Cooper and later Ann Stewart McDonald's grandson George F Seymour III named his third child Trafford after his deceased uncle and because he liked the name. The naming of Maggie McDonalds son with the name Trafford Whalen indicates strongly that these two families must have visited and socialized at one time. Summerville MO and Lawrence County Mo were about four counties away from each other and that would have been a distance that was not insurmountable. While Maggie could have chosen the same first name for her son that her cousin Ann did for her son, it is too coincidental to believe that the middle name of Whalen was not because of some connection. Indeed my Aunt Lavon Schwarzenholz, the daughter of Ann Stewart McDonald knew quite a bit about Maggie McDonald and her extended family, parents and brothers and sister, so they probably kept in touch and met.