Leonard Eugene Dickson's story: details?

[nomadreid]

A story which is frequently to be found on the Internet is the story recounted by the American mathematician Leonard Eugene Dickson to Hadamard: Dickson's mother Tracy (née Tracy ) and his sister spent an entire evening unsuccessfully trying to solve a geometry problem. During the night the mother began to talk loudly and clearly in her sleep, outlining the details of a solution. The daughter woke up and took notes; she surprised her mother by having the solution for the class the following day.
Very nice, and assumed to be not an urban myth, but I would like to include some clear gaps in my own recounting. I could not even uncover the name of the sister (or even any other evidence that he had one. Since it was "sister", not "step-sister", I presume that was also Lucy's daughter.) The story seemed to indicate that not only the daughter but also the mother was taking the geometry class, which seems dubious. (A class on geometry sounds more like secondary school.) If they were, it would have probably been at a university: what university, and what class? What was the mother (supposedly in her late thirties or early forties) doing being in the same class as her daughter? Auditing? Or was the "surprise" of the mother not as usually portrayed?
Can anyone fill in any of these details?

 

[Borek]

No idea how these things worked in the late 19^th century, but my first impression is that the story is about Mom trying to help her daughter with a homework.

 

[nomadreid]

Thanks, Borek. That was also my impression, but when I looked at original account (instead of the secondary ones I knew the story from) , I noticed that someone (me? the secondary sources?) had read the wrong pronoun: not the mathematician's sister, but the mother's sister (Dickson's aunt). Oops. This makes more sense of the phrase: "...mother and her sister, who, at school, were rivals in geometry,..." So, I guess it was in secondary school in Iowa; this leaves only the detail as to the sister's name. (Source: http://worrydream.com/refs/Hadamard - The psychology of invention in the mathematical field.pdf)

Another minor correction: that should have read "Dickson's mother Lucy (née Tracy )"

 

[fresh_42]

I have found this interesting page with all names suited, but an unknown date of death for L. E. Dickson himself and a different year of birth. As this difference is 23 days, it cannot be explained by the Julian calendar alone, which I know it took the US quite long to actually change to the Gregorian. Nevertheless, it seems basically correct, as far as the family tree is concerned:
https://www.ancestry.com/genealogy/records/campbell-dickson_72003245

I also read that both of his parents were bankers, so I assume that his mother shouldn't be part of this anecdote. The confusion is likely due to the similar names: Lucy Ellen Tracy (mother) and Tracy (sister). There is little to be found about Dickson's Halsted time, only that he dealt with geometry as long as he had been his scholar. On the other hand Dickson seemed to have stepped in for women's rights during his time in Chicago (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0315086097921200), so it might well be, that this geometric debate actually took place at home and even, that his sister might have attended similar courses in Austin.

 

[nomadreid]

Many thanks, fresh 42. I did some more digging on the genealogy site you sent (great site!) , and, also given the information I wrote in my reply to Borek (see post #3 , which I wrote after you wrote, but before I received your reply), have concluded that:
[1] it was the mother after all (not the brother with first name Tracy), when she was Lucy Ellen Tracy, telling her son Leonard about her experience when she was in secondary school (only later becoming a banker),
[2] it was the mother's sister, not either of Leonard's sisters (Frances Anna or Evelyn) (see post #3: also, Leonard's sisters were four years and ten years older than he was)
[3] that although Lucy had several sisters , two of them (Mary Eveline and Ada H Timms ) were full sisters, whereas the others (Frances Orcelia and Dorothy Ardelia) were half-sisters. None were the same age as Lucy, but given that American schools, especially in places like Iowa, often lumped several classes into one, it is possible that she and a sister were studying together: the most probable being those closest in age to her.
[4] There was one sister Mary Eveline who was two years older than Lucy (b. 1845 and 1843, resp.); all the others (the other full sister and the two half-sisters) had significantly larger differences in age.
Conclusion: the most probable candidate was Mary Eveline Tracy (later Dickson).
So, your source and your suggestions helped answer my question (although not with certainty, but at least with a high probability). Also, the other source and information about Leonard were interesting (although I could only read the abstract, given that the sciendirect article was paid). For all that, thanks again.

PS I wrote Iowa because although the father had earlier lived in New York State, the birth of his other children indicated that he was in Iowa at a time that Mary Eveline was taking geometry, assuming she was older than 13 when she had geometry.