Tell Me the Old, Old Stories
About ten years ago, I was bitten by a bug. The genealogy bug. I had the strange compulsion to try to find out as much of my family's history as I could and write it all down.
Now, being the youngest of eight, while my mother was also the youngest of eight, this was no easy task. My grandparents had all passed on. I wasted several good years as a sullen teenager with two bright Grandmas who would have loved to tell stories, but, regret gets us nowhere. And I still had several aunts left who were willing to talk.
I also found several people online who were cousins and were more than willing to share what they had found. So, I bought myself some software (family tree maker - excellent stuff, by the by) and started typing.
Along the way, I decided to try to dig into my paternal grandmother's mother's family - something none of my contacts had done in depth. My great-grandmother, Anna Bertha Crompton (~1876 - 1960), was a mythical figure to me. She lived the end of her life partially with my own parents. She suffered from dementia and could not live on her own. By the time I came around, her former house was a tumbling ruin on an old back road that we passed on the way to visit relatives weekly. I would look at it in wonder. All we had left of that house were a few keys from the organ that Bertha used to play.
Bertha's own life was not one of ease. The bare facts that have been found, along with the stories that have been passed along, illuminate a life that was quite rocky.
In 1899, Bertha married a Mr. Jacob Carrier, who stated that he was a widower. He lied. He was convicted of bigamy in 1899 (I get images of Mr. Rochester here, though that's probably the romantic in me). Bertha, thrown out on her own, became a lady maid to Fannie Pratt - milliner.
By 1900, Anna Bertha Crompton had married "up" into the Avery family. My great-grandfather was not the most upstanding of citizens, having been married twice and being more than a bit fond of hard cider. Bertha's own brothers protested the marriage because of "Fiddler Bob's" bad rep, and chased the couple to Montrose, where they were married. But Bertha would not be swayed, or so legend has it. William Henry "Bob" Avery was a good man, and speculation (and census records) has it that he and Bertie were in the family way when he married her (she had been his sister's maid…).
Bertie lost three children to disease - her only two sons and one of her daughters. Her remaining four daughters were TAKEN by the Avery family to be raised "correctly". These upstanding women wouldn't deign to have children themselves, but they were determined that Avery children would be raised properly. My own grandmother was raised by her Aunt Fannie and Uncle Emmons Pratt (who, since he was so often spurned by his wife, was said to have turned some unwelcome attention to my grandmother.) Aunt Alice was raised by George and Alice Avery. They told her that her parents didn't want her, so they took her, and they refused to allow Anna Bertha any correspondence with "their" daughter. It was only later in life that my grandmother reunited with her sister and told her of how their mother had cried every week at the returned letters, and later, at the unanswered phone calls.
Of Bertha's family, there is not much detail to find. After all, the Crompton family wasn't the crème of society. What detail there is to find is poignant and sometimes tragic.
Her father - Mr. Thomas Crompton - had served in the civil war, and had committed suicide in mid-life, leaving a pitiful estate to his widow and children. Her mother - Maria Bennet - died in her late seventies, a resident of a hotel in downtown Tunkhannock (she had eventually lost her home).
Bertha's sister, Mida, had been born "feeble of mind" (it ran in the family), and perished in the 1930's in a fire in the state home for widows and orphans of Civil War vets where she resided. The rest of the Crompton siblings were sent to the Soldiers' Orphans School in Harford, where they received education and board, as their own mother could not care for them.
Her paternal grandfather - Matthew Crompton - had been an immigrant from England (interesting note: this is the most recent immigration in my family - most of 'em that I can trace came over during the 1600's), and his wife, Temperance, had the unfortunate heritage of coming from New Jersey. But she overcame this and moved to Pennsylvania.
Bertha's mother's family (William Bennet b~1817 and Maria Comstock b ~1817) hailed from Northeastern PA, but disappear into history. I can't track where the Bennets or Comstocks came from that produced this family. But, the Bennet family itself had a few strange stories. The two youngest sons, in particular, had a hard time.
Benjamin was either fond of drinking or fighting or both. His only appearance in the annuls of history, besides census records, are the newspaper items detailing his death at age 22 as the result of a (bar) fight.
Zorah Bennet, though, is the tragic figure in the family. He was, also, feeble minded, as noted in several documents. At his mother's death in 1889, he was sent to the newly-opened Danville Hospital for the Mentally Insane. He passed the rest of his life there and died in obscurity, no one claiming kinship or responsibility for him. His corpse was donated to science (at the time, this was extremely insulting. In many civilized places, it was still illegal to study cadavers.) I find it particularly sad, because, of course, he had relatives living. He had to. I'm his relative, and I'm alive.
But life was different then. As poor as this family was, they probably couldn't afford the fees of Zora's care, and had to consign him to being without family. And they probably did it with heavy hearts.
Stories like these remind me that "the good old days" don't exist. They make me thankful to live now, where infant and child mortality rates are low, where "feeble mindedness", often the result of bad pre-natal care or harsh birth, is sometimes preventable or treatable. Where you can marry "up" (I certainly did) and people don't really raise an eyebrow.
But still, they are interesting to read, and they bring history alive to me in a way that textbooks never did.
(*)>
Now, being the youngest of eight, while my mother was also the youngest of eight, this was no easy task. My grandparents had all passed on. I wasted several good years as a sullen teenager with two bright Grandmas who would have loved to tell stories, but, regret gets us nowhere. And I still had several aunts left who were willing to talk.
I also found several people online who were cousins and were more than willing to share what they had found. So, I bought myself some software (family tree maker - excellent stuff, by the by) and started typing.
Along the way, I decided to try to dig into my paternal grandmother's mother's family - something none of my contacts had done in depth. My great-grandmother, Anna Bertha Crompton (~1876 - 1960), was a mythical figure to me. She lived the end of her life partially with my own parents. She suffered from dementia and could not live on her own. By the time I came around, her former house was a tumbling ruin on an old back road that we passed on the way to visit relatives weekly. I would look at it in wonder. All we had left of that house were a few keys from the organ that Bertha used to play.
Bertha's own life was not one of ease. The bare facts that have been found, along with the stories that have been passed along, illuminate a life that was quite rocky.
In 1899, Bertha married a Mr. Jacob Carrier, who stated that he was a widower. He lied. He was convicted of bigamy in 1899 (I get images of Mr. Rochester here, though that's probably the romantic in me). Bertha, thrown out on her own, became a lady maid to Fannie Pratt - milliner.
By 1900, Anna Bertha Crompton had married "up" into the Avery family. My great-grandfather was not the most upstanding of citizens, having been married twice and being more than a bit fond of hard cider. Bertha's own brothers protested the marriage because of "Fiddler Bob's" bad rep, and chased the couple to Montrose, where they were married. But Bertha would not be swayed, or so legend has it. William Henry "Bob" Avery was a good man, and speculation (and census records) has it that he and Bertie were in the family way when he married her (she had been his sister's maid…).
Bertie lost three children to disease - her only two sons and one of her daughters. Her remaining four daughters were TAKEN by the Avery family to be raised "correctly". These upstanding women wouldn't deign to have children themselves, but they were determined that Avery children would be raised properly. My own grandmother was raised by her Aunt Fannie and Uncle Emmons Pratt (who, since he was so often spurned by his wife, was said to have turned some unwelcome attention to my grandmother.) Aunt Alice was raised by George and Alice Avery. They told her that her parents didn't want her, so they took her, and they refused to allow Anna Bertha any correspondence with "their" daughter. It was only later in life that my grandmother reunited with her sister and told her of how their mother had cried every week at the returned letters, and later, at the unanswered phone calls.
Of Bertha's family, there is not much detail to find. After all, the Crompton family wasn't the crème of society. What detail there is to find is poignant and sometimes tragic.
Her father - Mr. Thomas Crompton - had served in the civil war, and had committed suicide in mid-life, leaving a pitiful estate to his widow and children. Her mother - Maria Bennet - died in her late seventies, a resident of a hotel in downtown Tunkhannock (she had eventually lost her home).
Bertha's sister, Mida, had been born "feeble of mind" (it ran in the family), and perished in the 1930's in a fire in the state home for widows and orphans of Civil War vets where she resided. The rest of the Crompton siblings were sent to the Soldiers' Orphans School in Harford, where they received education and board, as their own mother could not care for them.
Her paternal grandfather - Matthew Crompton - had been an immigrant from England (interesting note: this is the most recent immigration in my family - most of 'em that I can trace came over during the 1600's), and his wife, Temperance, had the unfortunate heritage of coming from New Jersey. But she overcame this and moved to Pennsylvania.
Bertha's mother's family (William Bennet b~1817 and Maria Comstock b ~1817) hailed from Northeastern PA, but disappear into history. I can't track where the Bennets or Comstocks came from that produced this family. But, the Bennet family itself had a few strange stories. The two youngest sons, in particular, had a hard time.
Benjamin was either fond of drinking or fighting or both. His only appearance in the annuls of history, besides census records, are the newspaper items detailing his death at age 22 as the result of a (bar) fight.
Zorah Bennet, though, is the tragic figure in the family. He was, also, feeble minded, as noted in several documents. At his mother's death in 1889, he was sent to the newly-opened Danville Hospital for the Mentally Insane. He passed the rest of his life there and died in obscurity, no one claiming kinship or responsibility for him. His corpse was donated to science (at the time, this was extremely insulting. In many civilized places, it was still illegal to study cadavers.) I find it particularly sad, because, of course, he had relatives living. He had to. I'm his relative, and I'm alive.
But life was different then. As poor as this family was, they probably couldn't afford the fees of Zora's care, and had to consign him to being without family. And they probably did it with heavy hearts.
Stories like these remind me that "the good old days" don't exist. They make me thankful to live now, where infant and child mortality rates are low, where "feeble mindedness", often the result of bad pre-natal care or harsh birth, is sometimes preventable or treatable. Where you can marry "up" (I certainly did) and people don't really raise an eyebrow.
But still, they are interesting to read, and they bring history alive to me in a way that textbooks never did.
(*)>
The Tunkhannock paper reports:
Mar 1 1889
Bennett, Zora, of Meshoppen, was judged insane by the commission, and was taken to Danville.
Thursday, 13 July 1911
d) Zora Bennett in Danville, a county charge. No record of relatives could be found. By law, the body was sent to the Anatomical College of Philadelphia. Zora Bennet was the 6th patient on the roster of the hospital.
(neither of these are worded exactly, the records are at the Wyoming County Historical Society. )
Kinship of Birdwoman
Name Relationship with Birdwoman Civil Canon
Bennet, Zorah 2nd great-granduncle VI 5
posted by birdwoman | 10:53 AM
2 Comments:
Hi. My cousin and I are beginning some genealogy research, and this blog mentions many names that are related to us. We would like to confirm their identities, privately. Not sure if there is a way to do this. I created an eblog account in case that
facilitates our contacting each other. Please let us know. Thank you.
Well, robinseggbleau (blue robins egg? I like birds too!) It won't let me contact you, so I hope you come back and look at this comment. If you do, you are welcome to email me at... birdies95 at hot mail dot com. If you know what I mean. (trying not to put my email in here due to spam bots)
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