Remember the Women as we Climb the Family Tree, part 2b

I made the decision to focus on the women when I head up our family tree.  So many family history books tell you about the vital records of the men, extol their deeds and adventures and maybe if we are lucky tell us the full names of their wives and a hint as to her family.  I feel that family history should be more than just birth, marriage and death dates -- to celebrate our families, we should include their stories, after all they were people, not just a list of dates, and thanks to them we are all here now.  Not all of their stories are going to include record-shattering achievements of world leaders, and most likely no one in the family is that famous person.

Last year I focused on three women in my grandmother's generation:  Adelaide Copeland Harvey Richardson, Marion Elizabeth Evans Dakin and Clarice Theodora Evans.

This year it is time to move on to my great grandmother's generation:  Mary Alice Smith Dakin, Caroline Matilda Helsten Evans, Mary Louisa Helsten Pomeroy, Martha Elnora Worthington Richardson, and Alice Copeland Harvey.

In the other half of this blog post, Remember the Women as we Climb the Family Tree, part 2a, I focused on the first three women who were all from my paternal side.  Now, I'm going to focus on the two women on my maternal side, both great grandmothers of mine.  The first three women all eventually lived in Gaylordsville, Connecticut; these two women eventually ended up in Oak Park, Illinois, neither was born there.

Alice Copeland Harvey

Alice Copeland Harvey (23 February 1860 - 24 April 1921) was born on the Copeland Family Marino sheep farm on the border of the town of Jefferson, Wisconsin.  It was in the early days of settling Jefferson, her father had come out from Bridgewater, Massachusetts and settled on land that his uncle, the congressman John Reed, had purchased.  Another uncle had also come from Bridgewater with a friend to start a shoe company, Copeland Ryder Schools (Jefferson Shoe Company).  She came from a hard-working family with lots of aunts, uncles and cousins -- likewise for her husband.  Alice married Joseph Elliott Harvey from the next town, Lake Mills on 24 October 1879.  He came from a family of seven, his mother died when he was 5 and his oldest sister stayed home to raise him.

Alice and Joseph had four children:  Katherine Mary Harvey (born 22 August 1881), William Riley (born 7 January 1884), Charles Copeland Harvey (born 3 March 1889), and Adelaide Copeland Harvey (born 4 November 1893).  When they were raising their children in Lake Mills there were always plenty of relatives nearby to help with the children or to play with them.  Joseph was a salesman when he worked, and sometimes he had other problems, so life had extra challenges.  When her two oldest, Kath and Riley graduated from high school, they both wanted to go to college.  Kath taught school in Lake Mills, then Alice moved the whole family to Madison, opened a boarding house near the University of Wisconsin so they could attend.  Kath graduated with a degree in education, Riley in engineering in 1905. Cope wasn't interested in college, he was a musician and wanted to be a Big Band leader.  Alice moved her family to Oak Park, Illinois and enrolled her youngest in school.  Riley found work and Cope was jobbing.  Kath taught in Madison and then moved to Iowa when she married.

Alice learned frugality back on the farm and how to get by, which stood her in good stead though out tough times in her life.  But, not just frugality, she was educated and loved to read.
Her granddaughter told me: "Grandma Harvey sewed so much 'making over and making do'  she had a  great gentle sense of humor--said her epitaph should read 'Let it rip!'   She had read all of Dickens by the time she was 12 years old."
She was known as the person in her generation who knew of the "good New England Stock" which they came from which included folks on the Mayflower and she joined the
D. A. R. when living in Madison.  Unfortunately, not all of the family history letters, etc. that folks say they sent to her are among the things that I have or have access to.

When her youngest child married Adelaide and Bobbie lived with her. Alice was helping Adelaide care for their two young daughters, when Alice had a cerebral hemorrhage and died at age 61 on 24 April 1921.  Alice outlived her husband by six years, lived to see all of her children married, lived to see six of her seven grandchildren born, and lived to see her son Cope first as a Big Band director and then to go off to World War 1, returning safely from France.  She was at Cope's wedding, he and Julie left on their honeymoon, and she died while they were gone.

Martha Elnora Worthington Richardson

Martha (Mattie) Elnora (Nora) Worthington Richardson (17 November 1865 - 25 April 1939) was born in Chicago and she was named for both of her grandmothers, Martha Searing Worthington and Elnora Esther DeLoss Cobb.  Her father, Robert, had moved from Albany, New York to a farm in Wisconsin with his father, Denison, after his mother, Martha, died. His father Robert went to the "big city" to for work.  Her mother, Elnora Esther, had come with her parents (Nathan and Elnora Esther) to Chicago from small towns near Rome, New York.  Robert S. Worthington was working in freight forwarding and his next door neighbor Nathan Cobb was running a planing mill.  Robert married Elnora Esther Cobb, the girl next door.  They had one child, little Mattie didn't have many children to play with, but since Robert was the oldest of 10 children, it was not unusual for Mattie to have an uncle living with them as each started out working in Chicago and providing entertainment at home.  The family was doing well enough to be building a house, nearby.

Life changed when Mattie was five in October of 1871 with the Great Chicago Fire. Originally it looked like it was far away, but it grew closer and they spent the night on the North Avenue Beach, where Mattie met Emmy Sharp, another little girl her age and size -- they became life-long friends as did their parents.  When her family rebuilt, it was out "in the country" and nearby to where the Sharps also built a home.  This "country village" was Oak Park, which became one of the fastest growing suburbs of Chicago, thanks to the Fire.  The box of china which melted together in the fire, was taken as a lump and put into the yard of the new home when they built.  As awful as the Chicago Fire was, it was fortuitous in that is why her future husband's family moved to Chicago to help with the rebuilding.

Her parents were very involved with the Episcopal Church, first in Chicago, then in the mission in Harlem, and then with the founding of Grace Church Episcopal in Oak Park. Mattie was very proud that she knew the general confession backwards and would hit the middle word exactly when the priest did.

Mattie married Harry Bogart Richardson on 5 December 1889; and once married, started calling herself Nora [her mother Elnora Esther was still alive and her grandmother Elnora Esther had just died, so "Elnora" would be confusing, I suspect].  Nora and Harry had two boys:  Robert (Bobbie) Worthington Richardson (born 18 October 1890) and Harold Bogart (born 21 April 1894).  Harry worked downtown Chicago for his father's insurance agency or a local bank selling stocks and bond and insurance -- except for a couple of years --SURPRISE-- when he was in the Secret Service, one chasing counterfeiters in Denver. Nora was busy raising her boys and at one time traveling occasionally to see her husband who took the job out of financial necessity, then having Bobbie live in Denver with her husband and Harold with her in Oak Park..

Nora grew up in a household with her father quoting the classic poets, she loved learning.  As an adult, she never went to college but she was always furthering her education or volunteering for charities in the community.  She joined the XIXth Century Club, went to their meetings initially to learn and years later became one of the entertaining speakers there and at the Grace Episcopal Church mentioned in the newspaper.  She would study the issues, and so when she and her husband had a difference of opinion on the presidential candidates, there were "dueling" posters in the front parlor windows of the house in 1928.

In her final years, times were tough, her husband had died, as had her son Harold.  She did not have much income beyond the rent from next door.  She was hired by the W.P.A. [Works Progress Administration set up during the Great Depression to put local unemployed folks to work in their communities].  Six people were hired hired to help catalog and research the history of the town of Oak Park -- a perfect job for her.  She knew the town when it was a few hundred people and saw it grow into the thousands, she knew how to research, and how to write.  In 1937, the Historical Survey of Oak Park Illinois was published -- many of the chapters are authored by her [her initials appear on them] and the "Local History Index" became available in the Public Library.  The book is still being used by the Librarians when someone comes to the desk asking about the History of Oak Park!

Nora died on 25 April 1939 at the age of 73 from chronic myocarditis with emaciation and exhaustion contributing factors.  She outlived her husband and one son.  But she did live to see her oldest granddaughter start medical school and her youngest start college.  She must have been so proud of their education opportunities that she probably wished she had had.

Nora and Alice knew each other -- they met through their children who married, Bobbie and Adelaide.  Clearly they were also friends.   When Alice died in 1921, it was Nora who wrote the obituary in Oak Leaves, the local paper.

ALICE COPELAND HARVEY

Death of Oak Park Woman Brings Memory of a Life Devoted to the Service of Others

    Alice Copeland, wife of the late Joseph E. Harvey, entered into rest on Sunday, April 24, after a brief illness.  Mrs. Harvey was born in  Jefferson, Wis., her married life being spend in Lake Mills and Madison, Wis., before coming to Oak Park about fifteen years ago.  She was essentially a home-maker, a woman of unusual charm and fine mentality, who lived a life of unselfish service to others.  A keen sense of humor carried her over many of the rough places of life, and her beautiful serenity of expression showed the power within. 

    Mrs. Harvey was a member of the Oak Park D.A.R., having a fine ancestry of which she was justly proud.  Her four children--Mrs. Alfred Rhodes of Esterville, Iowa; William Riley Harvey of Rogers Park; Charles Copeland Harvey, and Mrs. Robert W. Richardson of Oak Park, are left with the blessed memories of an unusually beautiful life of devotion to others, cheerfully given.

    Funeral services were held on Wednesday, with burial at Lake Mills, beside her husband.

    The one who sends this brief tribute feels that it has been a privilege to have known Mrs. Harvey, and that she has been enriched by having been one of her friends.

            N.W.R.

The stories here are quite condensed from the last 200 pages devoted to these two women's lives in my book Remember the Women! Heading up the Branches of our Women's Family Tree, Part 2.
Enjoy.


©2018, Erica Dakin Voolich
The link to this post is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2018/01/remember-women-as-we-climb-family-tree_29.html

Remember the Women as we Climb the Family Tree, part 2a

I made the decision to focus on the women when I head up our family tree.  So many family history books tell you about the vital records of the men, extol their deeds and adventures and maybe if we are lucky tell us the full names of their wives and a hint as to her family.  I feel that family history should be more than just birth, marriage and death dates -- to celebrate our families, we should include their stories, after all they were people, not just a list of dates, and thanks to them we are all here now.  Not all of their stories are going to include record-shattering achievements of world leaders, and most likely no one in the family is that famous person.

Last year I focused on three women in my grandmother's generation:  Adelaide Copeland Harvey Richardson, Marion Elizabeth Evans Dakin and Clarice Theodora Evans.

This year it is time to move on to my great grandmother's generation:  Mary Alice Smith Dakin, Caroline Matilda Helsten Evans, Mary Louisa Helsten Pomeroy, Martha Elnora Worthington Richardson, and Alice Copeland Harvey.

Last year I knew all three women.  This year I've heard a few stories about these women, but all of them died before I was born, so I did not personally know them.  I have relied on what I was able to find in my research, and what I could confirm from family stories, and what I could find by following the clues found in "stuff" left in my grandmother's home when she died in 1974.

Starting with the women on paternal side, two great grandmothers and a great great aunt....

Mary Alice Smith Dakin (1855-1931)

Mary Alice Smith Dakin (30 April 1855 - 13 November 1931) was born and raised on the Smith family farm in South Kent, Connecticut.  Her uncle Orange Smith, who lived with her family, volunteered for the Civil War.  When she was eight, she received a letter from him from Louisiana.  Orange writes about feeling tried -- he doesn't say it, but they had lost a major battle just before he wrote.  There were two other letters to her father from Orange -- he was in the War till the end and his letters are revealing and interesting when compared to the documentation of the battles for his outfit, the Connecticut 13th.  But there was more to her life than her uncle's war experience and letters home.

Mary grew up to be the local school teacher who married Edward Dakin, the general store owner/postmaster for South Kent in 1880 -- that was definitely a home-based business with the store and postoffice downstairs and their family's rooms upstairs.  She was a farm girl, he had worked as a farmhand before purchasing the store and so they sold the store and bought their own farm in Gaylordsville and settled into their life on their animal-driven farm.  Her son Robert Edward (Rob) Dakin was born on 2 July 1888 and while he was growing up, a man with a vision approached farmers in Gaylordsville whose farms bordered on the Housatonic River.  He envisioned the power of water to generate electricity -- Mary and Edward sold a rather zig-way path across their farm, right past their home and barns, that the canal for the Bulls Bridge Power Plant would follow.  On the farm were tents housing the Italian immigrants who were hand digging the canal.  Unfortunately, the power plant was finished without bringing electricity to the surrounding neighbors who had put up with disruption to their quiet farm and small town lives. Her son Rob went to college -- first in the family to go-- and became a civil engineer who helped build the addition to the power plant and bring power to the community.

Some of Mary Alice Smith Dakin's quilts.

Mary was a talented quilter.  When I visited my grandmother Marion Evans Dakin, Mary's daughter-in-law, years after Mary had died, there were always hand-made quilts on the four beds in the house.  What I didn't discover until after Marion died, was there was a trunk full of quilts from her mother-in-law Mary.  When Marion was living in a nursing home, we brought her home for a weekend visit.  She collected Mary's quilts off of her beds and took a couple from the closet to put on a quilt show at the nursing home.  The quilts she collected included Mary's sampler quilt.

Mary Alice Smith Dakin's sampler quilt which was
donated to the New Milford Historical Society.

Mary was known as a traditional quilter.  In her church quilt group, individuals would bring square they sewed to contribute to samples for sale to raise funds.  If someone contributed a machine-sewn square, she'd take it home and take out the machine stitching and replace it with hand-sewn stitches.

There is more about Mary in Remember the Women!  Heading up the Branches of our Women's Family Tree, part 2.

Caroline Matilda Helsten Evans

Born a few miles away in Gaylordsville, Connecticut, and a couple of months before Mary Alice Smith, was Caroline (Carrie) Matilda Helsten Evans (13 February 1855 - 9 December 1918).  She and her siblings grew up not on a farm, but in front of the family tannery on the Wimisink Brook leading into the Housatonic River.  When she was growing up, her home always had not only Carrie and her siblings but also any apprentices working in the family business.  Her parents were immigrants from Sweden and Ireland -- both having come to the USA, both looking for work and a better life in the mid-1840's.

As a young adult, Carrie worked as a seamstress taking in piece work and sewing clothes for families in Kent between 1876 and 1880.  On 26 May 1881, she married Charles H Evans who lived at the top of the hill, just over the townline into Sherman.  Her father was a local businessman and so was her husband.  Her husband was building homes and buildings, including the new Town Hall for Sherman.  Charles and his brother Edward went into construction business together and built houses next door to each other in Sherman where Carrie and Charles started raising their family.  She had four children:  Harold H (born 8 January 1883), Clarice Theodora (born 21 April 1884), Marion Elizabeth (born 11 February 1886) and Howard Eric (born 1893).   In 1888, Carrie and her husband moved their family to Great Barrington, Massachusetts when Charles and his brother saw a business opportunity with the building boom up north.  Carrie raised her children there while coming back to Gaylordsville as her parents needed their help.  She and Charles moved eventually moved back and took over the family's business ventures in Gaylordsville when her parents died.  While in Great Barrington, Carrie joined the currents events group but she was a woman caring for others -- her children, her parents and then her grandchildren.  When her daughter Marion was married with two children in Danbury, her son-in-law got sick with the flu.  Carrie went to Danbury to help Marion nurse her husband and care for the children.  They sent the oldest child, Teddy to stay with Carrie's sister Mary in Gaylordsville.  Soon, Carrie was also sick.  In a 5 day period, Carrie, her grandson Edward and son-in-law Rob Dakin had all died from the flu, in the 1918 Flu Pandemic.

Mary Louisa Helsten Pomeroy

Carrie's older sister, Mary Louisa Helsten Pomeroy, was born in Haviland Hollow, Patterson, New York (7 June 1850 - 23 May 1942).  Her Irish mother, Mary Hearty, survived the coffin-ship trip across the Atlantic to to marry Swedish immigrant father Eric Helsten.  They both worked for Benjamin Cowl; he as a tanner, she as maid.  Mary and Carrie's thrifty parents saved their money and bought their own tannery across the border in Gaylordsville, Connecticut, moved to the house in front and raised their family there.  Mary was the oldest of four, so she was busy helping her mother in the household that also included apprentices who worked in the tannery.

Mary and Carrie's father was an entrepreneur.  Eric ran the tannery, but seeing there were other opportunities, he built a dam on the Wimisink and closed the tannery and opened a mill.  Now he was a dealer in grain and lumber.  Eric even published and sold a pamphlet on how to say a man from drowning after doing so himself.  Eric partnered with another local businessman, Charles Pomeroy for a while.  Then Charles Pomeroy partnered with Charles H Evans, who Carrie married.  The Charles and Charles partnership ended when Carrie's husband went into the Evans Brothers Construction business with his brother.  Gaylordsville and Sherman were small towns that bordered each other and so everyone seemed to know everyone else.  Charles Pomeroy was a widower with a teenaged son and Mary married him on 6 March 1878, even though he was sixteen years older.  Charles Pomeroy was also entrepreneurial, he sold lumber out of the barn on their farm, bought teams of oxen to sell, and opened a hardware store.  He was a very busy man, and close friend to Mary's father and mother.  This closeness is possibly what brought about some of the concerns and distance of Mary and Carrie's other two siblings, William and Sarah (you'll have to read the book for details).  He was so close that Eric named him executor of his estate.

Mary and Carrie's parents died four months apart, Mary in September 1902 and Eric January 1903.  Mary was still mourning the death of her parents when her husband died suddenly in July 1903.  She applied to the court to take on the job of administratrix for her parents' estate and she did so with a co-administrator.  She took on the job of running the family's home-based business of the lumber yard and hardware store for a number of years until her step-son and grandson took over many years later.

This is just a hint about the lives of these three women, born mid-1800s, before the Civil War and lived through World War 1.  They met the challenges of the first half of the 20th century.  The events of their lives fill about the first 200 pages of Remember the Women!  Heading up the Branches of our Women's Family Tree, Part 2.

My next blog post will be about the two women filling the last 200 pages of Remember the Women, part 2.

©2018 Erica Dakin Voolich
The link to this page is http://genea-adventures.blogspot.com/2018/01/remember-women-as-we-climb-family-tree.html