Missing Margaret

It is always a challenge to search for a missing person.  Recently, while researching a family, a young mother passed away, in 1926, leaving behind her widower and four children.  The obituary named the four children:  Madeline, Margaret, Benjamin, and Michael.  By 1930, her husband Michael had remarried; however, Madeline, Benjamin, and Michael were the only children living with her widowed husband and his second wife.  Where did Margaret go?  My first thought was that she had passed away between 1926 and 1930.  But I could not find a death record.  Madeline's death occurred shortly after the census was taken in 1930.  Both  Benjamin and Michael went on to marry and died in their old age.  But there was no trace of Margaret living in town with relatives or another family.

Then, I found a 1947 marriage record for Margaret Long who married Edward J. Walter.  The marriage record listed her parents--Josephine and Michael--but with their surname not the surname of Long.  Had she married someone by the last name of Long or had she been adopted?  Then, I remembered that Josephine had a Grandmother Tillie who had married a Long (her third marriage) and Josephine also had an older sister who married a Long who happened to be the stepson of her Grandmother Tillie.

Further research showed Grandma Tillie living with her granddaughter Mary and stepson Ferdinand Long who was Mary's husband.  The census record listed the children of Mary and Ferdinand.  Two of the children were the same age with the names Phillip and Margaret, age eight.  Were they twins?  Or could Margaret possibly be the Margaret Long of the 1947 marriage record.

My theory is that after the death of Mary's sister, Josephine, she "adopted" or perhaps became the guardian of Margaret and so her name was listed as Margaret Long in the census.  Or the census taker may have assumed her last name was Long because she lived in the Long household.  I believe "Missing Margaret" had been found!  But I may never find the answer to the question, "Why was Margaret the only child that appears to have been "farmed" out after the death of Josephine.  After all, she was the second oldest of the children and it would seem that out of the four children, the baby would have been the most likely to have been adopted by a family member.