Talk:Jean Carrol

Evidence

Her first appearance in the N3F member list is August 1950, when her address was given as 233 W. 42nd St., Room 303, N.Y. 18, N.Y. However, that address does not seem to have had any residents in the census on April 1 of that year.

In Little Corpuscle 3 (Winter 1952), her mailing address is given as 1658 Broadway, Rm 406, N.Y. 19, N.Y.

She wrote to G² from 117 West 46th St., New York 36, NY, saying "I'm engaged to be married to Theodore Engel"; the letter was published in March 1963, although an editorial comment in an issue a month earlier showed that this news had already been known then.

While she spelled her name Carrol, other sources have also misspelled it as Carroll with two Ls.

As Leah Zeldes Smith noted, she was wearing rings on her left ring finger in a 1958 photo, so she may have been married before Ted Engel.

— Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 09:35, 2 May 2023 (PDT)

Thoughts: Could the 1950 address have been a workplace or mail drop?

Not sure that fans’ misspellings are relevant. They are mostly carelessness. I think we should consider that Carrol wasn’t her birth name, but either a married name or a Fannish pseudonym. (It has a feel of not-real-name, somehow.) If there was a Mr. Carrol (whether that was his name or not), he doesn’t seem to be in the fannish picture — either gone by then or a mundane who didn’t hang out.

—Leah Zeldes Smith (talk) 10:09, 2 May 2023 (PDT)

The note about spellings was mostly a note to myself; I was ignoring useful material by being a stickler.

I think you're right about the mailing addresses not being her home address. 1658 Broadway also appears to have been a place of business. Good heavens, she could have lived anywhere—even Jersey!

Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 10:30, 2 May 2023 (PDT)

Margaret Jane McClain

Okay, this is promising. Jane McClain (6 February 1917 – 5 December 1994) was born Margaret Jane McClain and married German-American research chemist Walter Kurz in 1934. In 1935 they had a daughter Karen Kurz. It's in his Petition for Citizenship. By 1950 they had separated; Karen appears to have been raised by her grandmother in Belle Vernon, PA.

And then there's this from Hal Shapiro:

Karen Kurz of Pa. had to leave early, so prior to the banquet, Jean Carrol and Dale Tarr piled into the Olds and I drove her to a distant bus station.

Her NUMIDENT file has the following names for her: JANE MCCLAIN KURZ (Oct 1941), JANE ENGEL (Sep 1963), JEAN ENGEL (05 Dec 1994).

So I'd say that tracks pretty well with someone who married Theodore "Ted" Engel around 1963.

— Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 11:36, 2 May 2023 (PDT)

Yes. The 1940s and ’50s had a lot of people and institutions changing Germanic names to be more Anglo. So Kurz > Carrol fits, especially if they were divorced.

On the other hand, it’s weird that Karen’s mom wouldn’t have been her N3F sponsor.

—Leah Zeldes Smith (talk) 14:48, 2 May 2023 (PDT)

I dunno, I could imagine that a teenager who was raised by her grandmother would have mixed feelings about her mom. Especially now that I found her aunt's obituary showing that her mom was in New York City while Karen was still out in the sticks. (Karen appears to have moved to Berkeley CA, maybe for college, in 1953.)

Bee Ostrowsky (talk) 07:27, 3 May 2023 (PDT)