Lewis Bego

White male, born about 1846 in Yugoslavia. He died on 4 June 1930 at the Escambia County Poor Farm in Pensacola, FL. He was 84 years old. According to the death certificate, he was widowed at the time of his death, had been in the city for 20 years, and had worked as a merchant. The cause of death was mitral regurgitation. The informant on the death certificate was James Steward, superintendent of the Poor Farm. Lewis was buried in the Poor Farm cemetery.

In the 1920 U.S. Census, Lewis was living in Milton, Santa Rosa County, FL, at 421 Willing St. He was 69 years old, widowed, and living alone. The census indicates he came to the United States in 1872 and was naturalized in 1889. It gives his birthplace and that of his parents as Serbia, and his native tongue as Serbian. He was able to speak English and he was a retail merchant, grocery store.

Lewis appeared in the 1930 U.S. census for the Poor Farm, enumerated in Kupfrian’s Park, Escambia County. He was an inmate, listed as being 85 years old and widowed. He was 19 years old at the time of his first marriage. He was born in Yugoslavia as was his mother, though his father’s place of birth – which appeared to at first have been written as the United States – was crossed out and replaced with “unknown.” His native tongue and the year he came to the U.S. were both unknown, though the census indicates he spoke English. Occupation was listed as “None.”

I have found a Louis Bega (wife Draga) in Tampa in 1910, Jacksonville in 1914, and West Palm Beach in 1916. In each instance, Louis was a saloon owner. I cannot get any more confirmation that this is the same person as Lewis Bego, however. As a Louis Bega shows up in the Tampa City Directory from 1930 on as a restaurateur (and later, purveyor of soft drinks), I think it might not be. In the 1910 U.S. census for Tampa, Louis and Draga were both from Hungary, as were their parents. Louis was 56 and Draga was 33. They had been married for 6 years. Only the age matches up.

I hunger for his immigration records.

SOURCES:

Florida Certificate of Death, Florida Deaths, 1877-1939. Database. FamilySearch. http://FamilySearch.org : 14 June 2016. Index based upon data collected by the Genealogical Society of Utah, Salt Lake City.

Ancestry.com. U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2011.