What happened to Christina Applegate's grandmother? | WDYTYA (US)

Christina Applegate just learned that her grandmother retained custody of Christina's father after a contentious battle eager to provide closure for her dad Christina now hopes to finally find the truth behind her grandmother lavina's uncertain death to give us a jump start Meredith called ahead to Joe clet who's an archist at the New Jersey state archives she asked him to see if he can find a death certificate for my grandmother but since she may have remarried we asked Joe to look for olivina Applegate Shaw or constant my dad says he was about 8 when he was told Lavina died so Joe's looking for death certificates from around 1950 okay we were able to find a l Shaw um I don't know if that's the right certificate it's uh we didn't find anything under the other names this is it this is her because this is 522 Market Street 522 Market Street date of death February 18th 1946 okay but wait a minute what oh this is her mother yeah cuz there's Jacob Weaver oh she's a weaver okay so this is all we got well it did say that she died in 1946 so that was soon after the custody battle right and I'm remembering Lavina said that her mother used to watch Bob for her a lot while she was working so maybe now her mother has passed away in addition to one of the child care providers for her son okay and that could be when my dad went to live with his paternal grandmother maybe all right what does this mean for me here maybe we should look online to see if we can find maybe any newspaper articles or something you know involving her name and see you know maybe we can hit something there okay let's do that okay why don't we do newspaper archives for New Jersey I think maybe we should search by just her first name because her first name is so unusual yeah okay okay and then let's see let's do um died 1955 so let's click on that and see if that first one gives us anything no Walton Lavina Walt oh my God Mrs Lavina V Walton AG 3 three died at her home yesterday after a brief illness she was the wife of Charles Walton in addition to her husband she survived by son Robert Applegate there's no can't find a death oh Lavina Walton well now we have a last name okay now we have now we have a different last name to search under okay let's do it let's see if we can find Joe 33 did you find some new information yes we did we want to look under a Lavina wall Walton Walton mhm and what's the date of death 1955 April 1st okay well we'll see what we can find okay thank you great thanks Joe so does 55 match up with about when your dad has a memory of no MM 55 my dad would have been 13 13 but he says he lived with his grandmother the whole time before that so his mother dies when he's around 13 and I know he went to go live with his father when he was 14 was like still living with her or but no he's he swears up and down it was this his grandmother grandmother and his aunts yeah yeah I don't know maybe this will open something up for him maybe I think we found your certificate oh my goodness okay oh my God lamina Walton died March 30th I guess 1955 okay she died of pulmonary tuberculosis with a fusion and therosis of the liver due to Chronic alcoholism wow so it's possible everything that my grandfather was saying was true okay she's buried okay it says Riverview Riverview cemeter New Jersey so she's here yeah less than a mile away from here all right we got to go check her out [Music] huh well I know it wasn't all the answers that you wanted but I think it gave you I know I know that we can't we can't find the the wise unfortunately but at least you know my father can know that her death wasn't something you know brutal and that she just died of a disease she di of a really bad disease mhm all right thank you so much it's really great to meet you nice to meet you too it it's a sad story of a woman who had to be sacrificed because of this disease it can destroy many families and consequently lines of people people after that and you know my father has lived his life thinking that it was something really horrible that happened to labina so it's really unfortunate it's very possible that when my great-grandmother passed away my grandmother had to give him up cuz she couldn't take care of him I mean that's what I feel like happened but I will never know