My ancestor mothers

  How many mothers might you know about in your ancestry?

I had a few dead ends, because there were often few documents of just whoever Joe Smith married named unfortunately Mary or Susan. These women raised a family, and cared for at least one of my direct ancestors. But their own mothers remained a mystery.

So I'm getting out my trusty Ancestry app, where I think I've got about 8000 people on my main tree (yes I've got a few off shoots also, which add about 3000 more potential relatives.)

My main tree has almost 4000 photos as well. 

Let's just find some sepia mothers to share today.

My grandmother on the left with her sister.

1. Ada Phillips Swasey Rogers (my father's mother) (1886-1964)

2. Ada's mother, Zulieka Granger Phillips Swasey (Dear Nan)  (1858-1935)

Dear Nan with her granddaughter, Ada Mary Rogers

3.Dear Nan/Zulieka's mother, Mary Hull Granger Phillips,  (1829-1861)

A woman's portrait, unknown, but showing hair style and clothes worn in the 1820s.

The following are my transcriptions from copies of original letters that were written by Mary Granger Phillips:

(No notation of date or place;  MaryPhillips.001 and 002)

 There is plenty of Game in the woods but William has had little time for hunting now.  Does are rather scarse. (sic) The Black tong(?? Two letters added above word, unclear) killed a great many off last year they say.

        I have not got my Piano yet – waiting for a draft on P.O. as I think I can be better suited by sending there for it.

        I must remind you will wirte me as I am anxious to hear how you are this cold Winter.  I almost feel as if I had got back to the North.  Do you remember of ever experiencing such cold weather any Winter before?

        Lizzie writes me Mother has suffered a great deal with the Asthma, It is impossible for her to endure the cold.

 ===(on back page)

I receive the Harpers and regret I did not take the Ladys also (perhaps publications?)  I find many people even away up here (Monde?) who know you and ask with no little interst after you.

        The river is rising very fast today and we are listening for a Seamboat every moment.  There are some seven or eight flat-boats on their way down with Cotton.  Hoping to hear from you soon, I close,

                Yours affectionately,

                        Mary H. Phillips

 ------

(note by author: Lizzie is her sister, Elizabeth Granger, and Mother is probably Mary Granger. The piano arrived, according to a letter posted on_ June 10th, 1860)
(no heading, written to her Mother-in-law, Mary Gainer, see MaryPhillips.002)

 The children are quite well.  Zulie often talks of you all.  She is growing very fast and talks us nearly crazy.  Is very curious must know and understand every thing she hears and sees.  She is pretty, bad and smart and I am I regret to say entirely unable to control her never having seen ever such a temper.  I often wonder how Lizzie would manage her, although Zulie has been much spoiled (--?--) everyone, she is very affectionate, child loves me dearly  but does not want to mind.  Ada is different more mild the sweetest and caring little thing will let you kiss her all day and not get mad.  Pa Gainer says Zulie is the worst child he ever saw and Ada the best now if they do not spoil her.  She began to walk a little past nine months it is so cunning to see her walking her hair curls and she goes round

 (on back page)

jabbering to herself you all would eat her up.  I have not had a pair of shoes to fit her since those you sent and they are all worn out.  I have let her go barefooted this Summer on account of not being able to get any for her.  I do hope some goods will come to Town Bluff.  Zulie too wears anything for shoes.  I am very much troubled about getting everything.  There are no goods any near us.  I expect we shall see sights to get things to wear this Winter.  I think you will find a letter of winds if nothing else.  I will try to write often as I can.  I have on hand a monstrous pile of sewing though, but will answer all who write.  All desire Love keep a cheerful heart dear Mother. I think of you much and often.

        Your affectionate Daughter,

                        Mary

 (Author’s notes: Pa Gainer (William Phillips step-father) is in Texas, or has been to have seen both granddaughters.  His words are being relayed either to his wife, Mother Gainer, or Mary's mother, Mary Granger, by Mary.  The time may be after Confederate blockade has made goods hard to obtain.  Ada had been born Sept 15, 1860, so would be 9 mos old by June of 1861)  But the blockade wasn’t really holding manufactured goods back entirely. Perhaps goods just weren’t being shipped at this time, except for war needs.)

4. Mary's mother, Lucy Elizabeth Parsons Pulsifer,  (1807-1876) (I have yet to find out who/why the Parsons name is included for her.) See below about her earlier sister and brothers. Incidentally, she apparently died in Galveston TX in 1876 (according to a news record and a probate in 1877 in Massachusetts). Yet she, as Lucia, and an unmarried daughter, Elizabeth Granger appear on the 1880 census in Southwick, Hampton, Massachusetts. That is another one I haven't figured out yet. Her real daughter Elizabeth married and had 3 children, and continued living in Galveston. Who was this other Elizabeth and mother Lucia?

Incidentally, her brother, Joseph Perkins Pulsifer was one of the founders of Beaumont TX. Here's a bit of information about him:

PULSIFER, JOSEPH PERKINS (1805–1861). Joseph P. Pulsifer, early Texas apothecary and a founder of Beaumont, the son of Ebenezer and Elizabeth (Dwelbee) Pulsifer, was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on July 8, 1805. Little is known about Pulsifer's education, except that his letters show him to have been an extremely literate man. Probably through apprenticeship, he became an apothecary, and sometime after 1827 he opened a drugstore in partnership with his brother Eben in nearby Charlestown, now a suburb of Boston. There Pulsifer became a member of the Mechanics' Society and served as its secretary in 1831. Sometime during 1832 or 1833 he returned to Newburyport to work in the drug firm of Thomas Davis and Company. In the fall of 1833 Pulsifer moved to New Orleans in search of economic opportunity and found employment in the store of druggist and retail merchant Henry W. Millard . By 1835, however, the firm developed financial troubles. Pulsifer and Millard then entered into a partnership, J. P. Pulsifer and Company, with Texas merchant Thomas B. Huling . The men moved to Texas in July of that year. In a small settlement named Santa Anna, on the Neches River, they opened a store under Pulsifer's management. In the fall of 1835 the firm purchased fifty acres on the Neches River and laid out the boundaries of a new town, which they called Beaumont.

 From Beaumont, Pulsifer took an active, if nonmilitary, part in the Texas Revolution . Citizens of the Neches River Settlement, as that area was called, appointed him chairman of the Committee of Correspondence, secretary of the Committee of Safety, and a member of a local committee to draft ideas for a constitution and bylaws for Texas. He also served as Beaumont's first postmaster and as a trustee of the first school. After the revolution Pulsifer, Huling, and Millard added fifty acres to the original Beaumont townsite. By entering into partnership with Nancy Tevis and Joseph Grigsby , each of whom donated an additional fifty acres, they increased the original area of the town to a total of 200 acres. Beaumont ultimately incorporated both Santa Anna and Tevis Bluff, an older settlement about a mile upriver from Santa Anna. Pulsifer, who never married, remained a citizen of Beaumont for the rest of his life. In addition to practicing his professions of storekeeper and apothecary, he served in various public offices: collector of revenue for the port of Sabine, county clerk, county commissioner, and clerk of the Jefferson County Board of Land Commissioners. Before the first Jefferson County Courthouse was built in 1854, the county commissioners periodically held court on the second floor of his combination home and store in Beaumont. He also served as an agent in Jefferson County for the Austin State Gazette . Pulsifer died in Beaumont in 1861. The one extant volume of his correspondence remains unpublished. It covers the period from 1833 to 1836 and describes his immigration to Texas and his ordeal during the Texas Revolution.

 BIBLIOGRAPHY: 

 Judith Walker Linsley and Ellen Walker Rienstra, Beaumont: A Chronicle of Promise (Woodland Hills, California: Windsor, 1982).

 Source: Texas History Online

 

5.  Lucy's mother, Elizabeeth (Betsy) Dwelle Pulsifer (and similar spellings)(1762 or 72 - 1824) Betsy had her first three children die quite young. So they named later children the same names. Joseph the first died at 9 months in 1798. Elizabeth had her death noted as May 28, 1800, but no birth record. And Ebeneezer the first just lived from July 1801 to April 20, 1806.

6. Betsy's mother, Elizabeth Browne Dwelly (or similar spellings)  (1737 or 1740 - abt.1768) 

7. Elizabeth's mother, Abigail Goodenow Browne,  (1716-1803)

8. Abigail's mother, Prudence Morrison Goodenow/Goodnew,  (1691-1720)

And we know no further along that maternal line... though there were mothers of each of the fathers which would mean about a hundred or so more mothers just from my one grandmother's line!

Prudence was my seven times great grandmother. 

Sharing with Sepia Saturday where I'm completely off the meme this week. But we'll get by, and share my Mother's Day eve post with my sepia friends!

Today's Quote:

Maya Angelou

Standing on the shoulders of our mothers!

Because of their strength, we are here today. And I'm not just talking about the mothers - but all the women who raised/nurtured/mothered us!

Their strength got us through childhood, but first through birth. What wonders our mothers had...pushing us into the world after we had been snuggled under their hearts so long.

That strength got us through young adulthood, when we discovered our own minds, our own sexuality, our own paths that would start us going toward where we are today.  For many of us the strength of our mother was shown when we defied her, and then she had the wisdom to let go.

This Mother's Day I share the strong shoulders who lifted me up so many time when I fell, who embraced me while I cried, and who fed me and gave me life.

 My mother in the years before me!

 My parents,  Mataley Mozelle Webb Munhall Rogers (1917-2003) and George Rogers in their elder years...

My mother during her productive working years in St. Louis, MO. She worked so that my sister and I could attend a private school.

My mother on right about the time she married in 1936. On left is my father's mother, Ada Swasey Rogers (1886-1964).  She became a guiding force for my parents for quite a while as young adults.

 Dad's mother, Ada Rogers, in her elder years.

Ada Rogers as a young girl.

 My mother's mother, Mozelle Booth Munhall (1897-1960) in her younger years.

Mozelle Munhall in her elder years

My great grandmother Eugenia Almeda Booth Miller (1873-1936, mother of Mozelle) in her elder years.

This photo below is dated '25, where Eugenia B. Miller stood next to my mother, Mataley, as a child with 2 of her friends, at her home in San Antonio TX. I was named Barbara Booth after my great grandmother! In 1925 my great grandmother would have been 52, and my mother would have been 8.

The Booth family home, built in 1855, Hillsborough TX (photo from the 1970s)

And I'll give a bit of my genealogy of the Booth mothers in my ancestry.

Eugenia Booth Miller's mother was
Eugenia Almeda Witty Booth (1852-1875) who lived in the Booth home in Hillsborough TX.

Her mother was
Susan Elizabeth Hoke Witty (1817-1895) who first moved from Alabama to Hill County TX.

Her mother was
Elizabeth Hunt Hoke (about 1793-1846) who may have been born in South Carolina or Alabama.

Her mother was unknown.

I have a few thousand grandmothers, but many of them don't have their mothers' names.  So when I look back 12 generations or so, these mothers were usually through their sons in my records.  But this post is just about the mothers of mothers.  I would not qualify since I only had 3 sons.

Happy mother's day

I list all the mothers of  my mothers over at my Alchemy of Clay blog today.

But I have as many mothers of fathers, even more, actually.  For all the 3000 some people on my 3 trees, there's a mother behind all of them.  Er, maybe less because some of them had up to 17 children.  So let's say 1000 are mothers.

Imagine if they are all getting together to celebrate today, maybe having a cup of tea and scones...I love scones and have never made them.  I try making various kinds of teas, some more successful than others.

So here's a room of 1000 of my ancestress mothers.  I wish they could sit in a circle, but that would be a bit hard.  Let's do an inner circle of 20 mothers, then another circle of 40...doubling in each circle...wonder how many concentric circles that would make, all sitting comfortably with a tiny tea table for their pleasure.  I think it would only be about 10 circles...though I kind of lost count when I got to the one with 5000 women sitting in it.  Er, maybe that won't quite work!

Imagination is such fun.  Then putting it into reality is the tricky part.

Right now I'm taking steroids for my cough (Bronchiectasis) which might have been hereditary.  Who knows.  Not the steroids.  But they sure make me have funny ideas, don't they?

So I chose a random mother, Maria Magdalena Schmidt Conn, my 6 times great grandmother.  Born 29 Oct 1740 in Buchan, Mosbach, Baden, Germany, and I have no further information on her family of origin.  She married in the US, (I think) to Henry Conn (Kohn) from Ireland.  They lived in York County, Pennsylvania from 1845-1851 at least according to The Trinity United Church of Christ records.  They had 3 sons, 2 of whom were soldiers in the Revolutionary War, and at least one of these was christened in their church.

Maria died on 18 Dec, 1809, and is buried in the Union Cemetery in New Centerville, Somerset County, PA.

Her son William is my ancestor, with his wife Elisabeth Alexander having been born in Guildford, North Carolina.  They married Dec. 6, 1778 in Lincoln County, NC.  Again I don't know her heritage. When another Elisabeth is named in a will, she was married to Mr. Davenport, in North Carolina.  So I'll keep searching.  I did just find her 1840 census report in Henry County KY.

So little steps and many clicks on un-productive sites will keep adding more information to the family, when one half end up being helpful.  Thank you all you mothers who gave birth to all these ancestors! You gave me my life.