An ancestor I'd like to meet, Eugenia Booth Miller

Week 4 (Jan. 22): I'd like to meet...
My great grandmother, Eugenia Almeda Booth Miller. 52 Ancestors, 52 Weeks
 #52 Ancestors

I was named (middle name thank heavens) after her.
And I was born 69 years after she was.
And I started blogging about my ancestors when I was 69...so I named my blog, "When I Was 69."
Then for the fun of it, I looked back from my great grandmother's date of birth another 69 years, to see who had been born 69 years before she was.
I know, a bit strange.
But it connected me to 2 people at least, rather than just one.
Yes I blogged about it.  See that post HERE.

After all, there was the title...which I changed at one point to represent the age I now was. But that meant (I think) that any searches or links would not work, so it's back at "69," even though I'm at 76 by now.

Let me introduce you to Great Grandmother Eugenia.1873-1936.

She's rather plump, and short of stature.  She usually has an apron on over her daytime dress. Of course when photos are being taken, she usually is in her Sunday best.  Photos were all taken out by the front steps.  Somehow that's where our family chose to represent themselves.

Eugenia and Charles Miller's home, 111 Davis Court, in 1920 & 1930 census San Antonio TX

Her home was in San Antonio, and I don't know that I ever visited it, but perhaps as a child when my own grandmother might have been living there. She and 2 sisters were living there with their father in the 1940 census (after Granny Eugenia had died in 1936).

Nanna Eugenia had 4 daughters, and a husband from Germany, Charles Herman Mueller (Miller) 1868-1946, who was a conductor for the railroad.  My grandmother was her oldest daughter, who married young and gave birth to my mother, then when her young husband died she may have moved back in with her family.  She remarried and then her second husband also died.  I think my grandmother began drinking about then (if not between her marriages.) 

My grandmother and my mother around 1924

The upshot of my grandmother's double widowhood was that she became an alcoholic in all probability.  And my mother as a child was raised in her Nanna Eugenia's home as much as her own.

Great grandmother Eugenia and my mother Mataley.

So my mother remembered well being with the aunts who were still living with their parents. And she also remembered some of the details of that life. One strange one that I remember is how the aunts would deal with their sanitary needs when they had monthly periods.  There was a covered bucket under the sink of bloody rags, which were washed out and hung out, and apparently my young mother learned a bit about a woman's life at that time.  She may have even become a teenager in that household, and used the same techniques as her aunts.  Since she didn't ever have a discussion with me about a "young woman's changing body" I guess I remember this as a momentous glimpse into their lives. When I was around 12, I got a booklet, and a box of sanitary napkins, and a talk at our private school which probably included a cartoon film about reproduction.

The 4 Miller daughters, with eldest, my grandmother Mozelle seated in middle

But back to Nanna Eugenia.  My mother's cousins, Patricia Eugenia Rogers and Robert Rogers, were a bit younger than my mother was, but there's a great photo of them all dressed up.  Patsy Jean was the recipient of the first name from Nanna Eugenia in 1929, so when I came along in 1942, only Almeda and Booth were left...according to my mother.  I'm glad I wasn't named Barbara Almeda.  Barbara Booth is stranger, but at least people have just one way to spell it.

Cousins Patsy Jean, Mataley (my mother) and Robert in 1934.

Nanna Eugenia was the daughter of a lawyer Richard Booth, (b. 9.23.1846, Jackson County, Indiana, d 5.30.1879 killed by person he was prosecuting, in Hempstead, TX.) He married 7.20.1869 (his second w.) Eugenia Almeda Whitty. 1852-1875.  She had been the youngest of 9 children.

The Richard Booth family had 2 older children by his first wife, and then gg grandmother Eugena Almeda Whitty Booth had 3 children.  She died on the same day as her third child's birth and death, when her daughter Eugenia was not yet 2 years old.  When Richard Booth was killed 4 years later, it is pretty likely that his children had already been living with their grandparents, William Lewis Booth (also an attorney) in Hillsboro, Texas.  That's also where Nanna Eugenia was born, and married, and had her first 3 of her 4 daughters. Fortunately they all lived to adulthood.

My mother, Mataley, with her mother, Mozelle, and my sister Mary Beth, in St. Louis around 1955,

Nanna Eugenia died Jan 1, 1936 from coronary occlusion, with hypertensive heart disease. My grandmother Mozelle was living with her at that time, and gave the information for the death certificate.

If I could meet Great Nanna Eugenia, I would like to ask her about her life in Texas at the turn of the 19th century to the 20th.  I'd like to ask her where everyone slept in a little house on Davis Court.  I'd like to ask her about how it was to raise her daughters, then grandchildren.  I would like to find out what she was passionate about.

Thanks for stopping by my blog, and I'd love to hear your comments.