Gertrude Homan had nine siblings. Her sister Marie, known as “Molly” to her friends, was about ten years older and, by the time Gertrude was 10, Molly was Mrs. Lloyd F. Lonergan. A brother, Frank, was 20 years older, married and had several children, but his family never visited with the Thanhousers in later years. Gertrude’s younger brother, George Homan, Jr., remained a bachelor throughout his life and passed away in the 1920s. Ida, the oldest of Gertrude’s sisters, married Kennedy Stout, who worked with the United States Department of the Interior in the Bureau of Indian Affairs. “Uncle Ken was a pedantic man,” Edwin Thanhouser’s son, Lloyd, recalled in later years. “He was full of wise sayings, such as ‘What is so rare as a day in June? As for me, I’d like ’em better done!’ Aunt Ida was socially ambitious and wanted to join the Daughters of the American Revolution, and she had the Homan family’s genealogy investigated. Sure enough, a Homan fought in the Revolutionary War, but the rascal turned out to be a Tory! Aunt Ida and Uncle Ken had one child, Miner.”
Louise, another of Gertrude’s sisters, married a man named Bayright, divorced him, and married I. Gainsburg, a New York lawyer. The firm of I. and L.H. Gainsburg furnished the inspiration for a Broadway show, Counsellor at Law. Carey Tidball, another of her sisters, was an actress and was on stage in Milwaukee in 1899 with Edwin Thanhouser’s stock company. Under the screen name of Carey L. Hastings she appeared in many Thanhouser films from 1910 to 1917. Gertrude Homan Thanhouser died in her apartment at 1 Fifth Avenue, New York City, on May 29, 1951. (An obituary published in The New York Times stated erroneously that she died in Glen Cove, New York.)
