George Roediger, pt 3a--The Elusive Albert Schmidt

This is an addendum to my previous post "George Roediger, pt. 3"

Albert Schmidt was the first husband of Anna Augusta Grosse, who later married George Roediger in Columbus on 30 October 1902. Their marriage record states that Anna (Grosse) Schmidt was a widow.
I have been trying to find a death record for Albert. I have been able to narrow down the time of his death to the period between 2 June 1900 and 30 October 1902. The first date is from the 1900 census which was enumerated on that date in Montgomery Twp, Franklin Co, OH, and the second date is from Anna Augusta Grosse's second marriage.
It seems that this should be a simple search now that the images of Franklin Co, Ohio's Death Records are now available on FamilySearch.org. But I have not only done an automated search, but when that failed to produce results, I looked at every line of every page of death records between these two dates and came up empty.

In the last Post, I highlighted newspaper articles about an Albert Schmidt who died by his own hand in 1903. But this death took place outside of the known time frame, and took place after Anna Augusta remarried. And even though there are a number of similarities between the Albert Schmidt who Anna Augusta married and the Albert Schmidt found in the haystack in 1903, there are also several dissimilarities which I believe would rule him out. And I believe that the facts presented below positively rule out "Haystack Albert Schmidt."

The portion in purple is an addition I made after the initial post:
But for those of you who are interested, I found the death record for "Haystack Albert" on line 26 of page 350 of the Franklin Co, Ohio Record of Deaths (1890-1899, vol. 3):
Albert Schmidt, white male, age 56 years, born in Germany, married, death was sudden on 6 July 1903. Ruled a suicide by morphine poisoning. His occupation was carpenter. He lived at the corner of 9th and Sycamore. He had lived in Columbus for 14 years. The names of his parents were unknown. 

To just point out the dissimilarities from this record to what was known about our Albert Schmidt:
1) Obviously, and most compelling is that he died over 9 months after the widow and Anna Augusta and George Roediger were married, and, as you will see below, at least 2 years after her husband Albert stopped showing up as the head of household in the City Directory and Anna began showing up as the head of the household.
2) This Albert was living at a different address than what is found in any of the records pertaining to Albert and Anna.
3) This Albert was 56 years of age, which makes him 3 years older than our Albert as portrayed by the 1900 census and 14 years older than portrayed by his marriage record. (See further down for details)
4) Finally, this Albert is listed as "married" at the time of his death. But, if he was, then it wasn't to Anna Augusta Grosse, who had by that time remarried and moved to Mercer Co.

The odd part of all this is that although this Albert Schmidt had lived in Columbus for the previous 14 years, he is not to be found in the City Directory, nor the 1900 Census. Stranger and Stranger.
For added mystery, I noticed that the person listed directly above this Albert Schmidt also died from suicide by morphine poisoning on the very same day. Katie Myers was 26 (30 years younger than Albert), had only lived in Columbus for 2 weeks, and had previously lived in Zanesville, Ohio. Curiouser and curiouser.

So when, where and how did OUR Albert Schmidt meet his demise?

I am hoping that by presenting the facts that are known about Albert Schmidt, Anna Augusta's husband, one of their descendants will see this post. And maybe, just maybe someone will have a story or some hard evidence about Albert's demise.

So here are the facts that I have been able to learn:

*Name: Albert Schmidt or Schmitt (from his marriage record, and the 1900 census)
*Date and place of birth: A major discrepancy is found when comparing the marriage record and the 1900 census. The marriage record says that he was 26 years old when he was married on 14 August 1890. That would make his birth ca. 1864. However, in the 1900 census, he is listed as 49 years old with his birthdate given as July 1850. That is a huge discrepancy, and only serves to muddy the waters. But both records agree that he was born in Germany.
*Occupation: Marriage record says "carpenter" and the 1900 census says "house carpenter"
*Residence: at the time of his marriage (1890) he was living on Mohler St. or Ave., Columbus (Apparently this street's name has been changed or no longer exists)
At the time of their first daughter, Johannah's death (7/28/1891), they were living at 439 E. Deshler, Columbus.
At the time of Gertude's birth (3/3/1892), they were still living at 439 E. Deshler, Columbus.
The Columbus City Directory of 1891 and 1892 also shows Albert Schmidt living at 439 E. Deshler, Columbus.
By the time of Ervin's birth (11/23/1893), they had moved to 395 Forest, Columbus.
At the time of Gertrude's death (1/2/1900) they were living at 395 Forest, Columbus.
At the time of the 1900 census they were living at 395 Forest, Columbus.
According to the 1900 Columbus City Directory, Albert is listed as a carpenter, living at 395 Forest St, Columbus.

According to the 1901 Columbus City Directory, Anna Schmidt is listed as living at 395 Forest, Columbus. This would indicate that Albert had died by the time this year's publication had been updated.
According to the 1902 Columbus City Directory, Anna Schmidt is listed as living at 395 Forest, Columbus, and doing laundry.

The timeline created above from various records, especially the Columbus City Directory, helps us narrow down when Albert died. We now know he was still living on 6/2/1900 (1900 Census) and he had died by the time of the 1901 City Directory. So, it appears that he died sometime during the second half of 1900.

Since his death does not appear in the Franklin County Death Records, it is possible that Albert was working away from home when he died. Makes me wonder about the possibility of him working in Mercer County at the time of his death. That might explain how George Roediger met his widow. But all of this is just grasping at straws.

If any of you have access to Newspaper Archives, maybe you could be persuaded to search the Columbus paper for the death of an Albert Schmidt in either 1900 or 1901. If you are a descendant of Ervin Ernest Schmidt, I am sure you are interested in this subject, and if you have already found the answer, please speak up. This kind of unsolved mystery drives me crazy!