One of the problems, early on, was that my grandfather, born in April 1880, was shown on the census of 1880, but in a name nothing like his adopted name. One suspects the last named used in the census of 1880 was the last name of his father, but has no way of knowing for certain.
why was no one offended by her having children out of wedlock?
To me, this has always been the most remarkable part of the story. Clarion County was a small county at the time, and everybody knew everything there was to know, about everybody else. My grandmother, who went to school as a child with my grandfather, for example, explicitly knew his background (as did everyone else).
But there apparently was no social stigma attached to the whole thing, my great-grandmother not having to "pay" any "penalty" for having children out of wedlock, and my grandfather and his half-sister not having to "pay" any "penalty" for being born outside of marriage.
It's a mystery; there's probably other factors here that I don't know.
Correction: my grandfather was born in January 1880, and showed up on the April 1880 census as “four months old,” in his original name.
<<sometimes types too fast.
My grandfather (born 1877) had a cousin who was born out of wedlock and raised in her grandfather’s house. The child’s father went off to the Civil War (Co. E, North Carolina 15th Infantry) and died six months later. When he left neither he nor the childs mother knew there was a baby on the way. Sometimes things just happen that way and the older family members step in to raise the child.