Ty Cobb was a famous baseball player. On Sept.24,1949, he married his
2nd wife. Her maiden name was Frances Fairburn, daughter of John
Fairburn, a Buffalo,NY physician friend of Ty's. Frances' 1st husband
had died in a plane crash in '34. She had divorced her 2nd husband, a
guy named Cass, shortly before she married Cobb in Buffalo,NY. She
divorced Cobb in May,'56 in Minden,NV, and received permission to
resume her previous name Cass. I need her birth date,yr. & place, AND
her details of death if she's dead. When she married Cobb, they
descibed her as "an attractive 40 yr. old divorcee from Buffalo".
Tacky I know.  I can pay $15. for both birth & deat details. Same if
she's still alive.

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Request for Question Clarification by luciaphile-ga on 27 Nov 2002 06:14 PST

Hi bluestreak-ga,

You're right, this is definitely getting to be a habit--although a
very nice one. I've tracked down birthdate information on Frances.

I have not been able to determine if she's still living or not. There
are a couple of people in the SSDI under the name Frances Cass (also
Frances Cobb), but none of them have the right birthdate. I've also
been doing some searches in newspaper databases looking for obits, but
have turned up nothing so far. She could have remarried a fourth time,
but I'd need that name to search by.

How do you want me to proceed?

Regards,
luciaphile-ga

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Clarification of Question by bluestreak-ga on 27 Nov 2002 06:40 PST

Hello again luciaphile! If this keeps up, people will say we're in
love! Good question. What to do? You know, there is a credible chance
she's still alive in her 90's. I saw all the names on the SS death
index, and there was one I checked out. The Frances Cass who died in
Mar,1985,in Little Suamico,Wisconsin, looked awfully good to me as a
suspect, and I thought she might be my girl, so I emailed the
librarian in that town, who mailed me her obit. Wrong gal. Oh well.
Sometimes they win, sometimes I win. I miss more than I hit. Since she
doesn't turn up on the usual databases, I'm inclined to think that she
remarried, died and will be almost impossible to track, OR, she's not
dead yet. Either way, I think you've done your job. So you can follow
up with a ANSWERED question so I can rate you, AGAIN. I like this
game.

Hi bluestreak-ga,

Thanks for the question. This one was a toughie.  

First of all, the correct spelling of the maiden name is Fairbairn,
not Fairburn. Her father was Dr. John F. Fairbairn, an
otolaryngologist (ear, nose and throat doctor) in Buffalo, New York.
Her first husband was William R. Cass, who was later killed in a plane
crash. Her second husband was J. Allen Fusca, from whom she was
divorced. She met Cobb in Lake Tahoe and they married soon after that
on September 24, 1949 at 3PM. The marriage didn’t last and she filed
for divorce on September 7, 1955. Another little tidbit, which may or
may not be of interest, she had a nickname of “Pansy,” because she had
violet-colored eyes.

Frances was born on September 25, 1909 in Buffalo. 

“It was Cobb's second marriage, and the third for the bride, who
turned 40 on the day following the wedding, Sept. 25.”

A little background here as well, a Buffalo man was trying to locate a
copy of his marriage license, but didn’t have a date. Buffalo City
Hall officials were stymied until the man volunteered that he was
issued the license on the same date as Ty Cobb, which led to the
discovery of the license itself.

“Marriage License of Ty Cobb Found in City Archives,” by Thomas J.
Dolan. Buffalo News, 7/17/1999, Final ed., A1.
http://www.buffalonews.com/newslibrary/advanced.asp

Full text is available for a fee of $1.95 (see below for my search
terms)

The article was then picked up by the AP wire service. I checked it
out as well, and it has more details of how the license was
discovered, but not much more in the way of Frances and her
background.

 “Cobb memorabilia found on microfilm” by Bill Porter. Associated
Press Newswires. Buffalo, NY, 07/22/1999

As I mentioned in my clarification request, I am uncertain as to
whether or not Frances is still alive or under what name she ended up.
It is entirely possible she remarried. There are several entries in
the SSDI and via Family Search http://www.familysearch.org for Frances
Cobb, Frances Cass etc. I even attempted to search via her maiden
name. None of the dates match up. I also searched several newspaper
databases for obituaries for her using variations of the name and
found nothing.

Search strategy:
Google searches 
“Ty Cobb” “Frances Fairburn” 
“Frances Fairbairn” Buffalo
“John Fairbairn” Buffalo
etc. but pulled up nothing with dates that could be used.
Interestingly a fair amount of web sites have her maiden name as
Fairburn and not Fairbairn.

I decided to tackle this from the Buffalo angle and went to their
website’s archives
http://www.buffalonews.com/newslibrary/advanced.asp
search terms: “ty cobb” and “frances cass”
I then searched several newspaper and periodical databases using a
variety of terms:
“ty cobb” “frances cass” “frances fairbairn” etc.

I hope this answers your questions. If you need additional
information, please ask for clarification before rating my answer and
I’ll do my best to help you.

Regards,
luciaphile-ga

Unbelievable! I'm so much more than pleased! You are incredible.
That's all I can say. I love detail & nuance more than food itself.
Thank you so very, very much. Is there nothing you can find and shine
a spotlight on?  I'm still begging you to investigate my case for
George Moreland!  Please,please,please. Groveling is no problem is it
gets me my info! Again, I can only marvel, Luciaphile. This question
is closed.