everett linwood torrey and ethel french stoddard

When I first started this blog, I would write about my direct line ancestors on their anniversaries or birthdays. I quickly found out that I did not have the time to keep up with all the ancestors. I had to make a decision wether I would skip writing about people if I passed their date or simply write the person's name as the title and save the post as a draft to write about them later. I decided to do the latter, and I went forward a couple of months with ancestors to write about. I think it is at least a year later and I still have not gone through the second month of anniversaries and birthdays. I started with April 2010 and am now just in May 2010. The next date in line is the anniversary of my great grandparents, Everett Torrey and his wife Ethel French Stoddard.  Their story is a sad one, one that I really did not look forward to writing.

Everett and Ethel are my great-grandparents. I was not fortunate enough to meet them as they died before I was born. They lived during hard times, and their story reflects the difficulties of their lives.

From Pictures

They were married in Hanover, MA by Melvin S. Nash, clergyman, on May 1, 1906.   Everett was 21 years old and Ethel was only 18 years old. I am not sure how they met; my grandmother never spoke of her mother or father, and I did not have the interest to ask when she was alive. Even if my grandmother were still living, I am not sure I would even now have the courage to ask her about her parents, as I always felt there was this hush about them. My mother does speak sometimes of her grandmother Ethel, always praising how she was such a hard worker, that she managed a farm and her family mostly by herself.

At the time of their marriage, Ethel was living in Norwell, MA and Everett was living in the neighboring town of Rockland, MA.  As I mentioned above, I am not sure how Everett and Ethel met.  The only connection I have found is that both Ethel's father and Everett were shoe workers; which was very common during this time in MA.  Ethel's father most likely worked in Norwell or a neighboring town.  In 1902, four years before their marriage, Everett was living in Hanover, which is close to Norwell.  Perhaps Ethel's father and Everett worked together and that is how he met Ethel. 

I knew I had some additional information on Everett from family papers I have in my file that my mother gave me a while back.  Looking through these files, I found a piece of paper which looks like it came from, or was photocopied from, a small book.  It must have been from a book written for, or about, the Emerson Shoe Company. The Chaper title from the page I have is "Who's Who in the Factory", and on the top of the page is handwritten 1918. The subtitle of the chapter is "Everett L. Torrey, Dressing Department". The entire page is written about Everett. I wish I had a copy of the entire book or pamphlet, but I am happy to at least have this page about my great-grandfather. I did a quick search on google books for the book, but had no luck.  From this excerpt, I did learn that Everett, at the age of 14 (around 1898), worked for the J. E French Company in Rockland, MA.  If the handwritten date on the paper is correct, Everett worked at J E French until 1905, as the article states he left there 13 years ago to work for Emerson Shoe Company in Rockland, MA.  Maybe Arthur Stoddard, Ethel's father, was also working at J E French, as his mother-in-law was a French.  I will have to see if Lydia French was connected to J E French, which would make this scenerio more likely.   I did a quick search on who J E French may have been, but I did not find any additional information.  There does not seem to be a J E French In Lydia's immediate family tree.

From Pictures

About two years after their marriage, Ethel and Everett had a son, born March 9, 1908.  Unfortunately, they also experienced their first loss, as the child was born ill with kidney problems and died 6 days after he was born.  He remained unnamed, and is buried with Ethel and Everett as "baby boy".  The cause of death on his certificate from familysearch.org states he died of uremia.

Their next son, Kenneth, was born in June 1909.  He stayed in the Norwell and Weymouth area until his death in 1973.  I do not have a record of any children that he and his wife had, I will have to ask my mother to confirm. 

After Kenneth, another unnamed son was born; this time prematurely, in December of 1910.  The death record shows he died of atelectasis, collapse of a lung.  He died the day he was born, December 21, 1910; which would become a significant date for this family.  Three of Everett and Ethel's children died on December the 21st, including my grandmother.  Also, another close person to my grandmother, her husband's sister, (we called her Auntie), also died on December 21st.

Getting back to Ethel and Everett, they had their 4th son (second son that lived past infancy), Linwood (aka Ben).  Linwood also stayed close to home in Massachusetts throughout his life. The Social Security Death Index states he lived in Norwell, MA when he died in 1979.  I do not have any information on a spouse or possible children for Linwood. 

Some months after Ben was born Ethel experienced more grief in her life.  Her sister, Carrie, at the age of 23, committed suicide in November of 1913.  I am sure this was difficult for Ethel to deal with.  The newspaper article that I found on the matter explained Carrie was having some difficulty with her students in Brockton, MA, which led her to committ suicide.  A later article discounts this theory saying 300 students attended a memorial for Carrie.  The article states that Carrie committed suicide by gas inhalation.  According to the 1910 census, Carrie was living with her parents in Norwell on High Street.  I am not sure if Carrie was living there three years later at the time of her suicide. Ethel's other sister, Nellie, also lived on High Street with her husband and family.    At that time, Ethel and Everett were living close in Norwell on Main Street.

According to Everett's WWI draft registration card, by 1918, Ethel and Everett had moved to High Street in Norwell also.  The 1920 Census enumerates Ethel and Everett, Ethel's sister Nellie and family, and Ethel's parents all on High Street living next to each other.  Ethel and Everett had not had any more children up to this point after having Ben in 1913; perhaps she was trying to deal with the loss of her sister.  In 1921 however, they had their first daughter, Ruth.  Ruth is one of my grandmother's siblings that I do remember.  We would visit her and her husband in Duxbury near the beach when I was younger.  They had two children, but they were older by the time I remember Ruth and John, and I did not know their children.  Ruth died from a car accident with her husband on that ominous day of December 21, 1994. 

From Pictures

Ethel with her son Ben (Linwood) and daughter Ruth

Ethel and Everett had a 5th son, Russell, who also stayed close to home.  His obituary of 2006 states he was from Norwell, MA.  Russell was married, and had at least three children who stayed close to the Norwell area, according to his obituary.

Their next and final son, Arthur, was born in 1926.  He was the only child that moved out of Massachusetts to New Hampshire.  He was married and had at least one child, who I have spoken to through email.  She had bought and was living in Ethel's house on High Street until 2001.  The Social Security Death Index has her father Arthur Torrey's death in Nashua, NH.  He died on December 23, 1995, only a couple of days after the infamous December 21st date!

The last child Ethel and Everett had was my grandmother, Helen, in 1929.  Ethel was 41 years old, Everett was 45 when they had her.  Soon after my grandmother was born, her father Everett moved to Millford, MA. Perhaps one of the reasons that my grandmother never talked about her father was that she really did not know him. The census records show that he was living in Millford as a boarder working in a shoe factory in 1930. Ethel and all her children were still living in Norwell at this time with her father, Arthur on High Street. My grandmother was only 1 year old at this time. It was obviously a tough time during this period with the stock market crash and the depression, so Everett probably went looking for work wherever he could find it.

I am not sure if Everett came back to visit and support his family, but I am sure it was a very difficult time for Ethel and her children.  I have been told that she eventually had to sell off most of her family farm in Norwell to support herself.  I will want to check the deed records to see whose land it originally was before Ethel was there and if she did sell some of it off.  My mother remembers visiting her grandmother Ethel, along with some unmarried older women who lived next door.  My mother believes these women were Ethel's sisters.  As mentioned above, her sister Carrie had died in 1913.  One of the women could have been Nellie, although she was married with at least 7 children.  At the time my mother would have visited though, her husband could have passed and her children moved away; therefore, my mother may have assumed she was an umarried woman.  The women could also have been some of Nellie's daughters, so they would have been my grandmother Helen's cousins.    About 20 years before my mother was born, the 1930 census shows that Nellie and her husband were living next door to Ethel and their farther Arthur.  I do not recognize the other names neighboring them. 

From Pictures

Ethel? at the Farm and House on High Street, Norwell,MA

It was fortunate that Ethel's father and sister were so close, as she would soon need their support when her husband, Everett, committs suicide in 1938.  I found some conflicting information about the location of Everett's death.  The death certificate states he hung himself near his home on High Street in Norwell, but the body was not found for about 4 months.  Another newspaper article states his body was found under a tree in  Saylesville, RI.  I cannot find a connection of him to that area of Rhode Island.  If he was still living in Milford, MA at this time, Saylesvill, RI is about 25 miles from there.  Everett did have a sister and a brother living in Rhode Island in 1930, but about 18 miles away in Warwick, RI.  I am not sure how to proceed to find the most accurate information on Everett's death.

From Pictures

Ethel's 75th birthday with children, Helen, Russel, Ben (Linwood), Ruth, and Arthur

Ethel lived for another 26 years after her husband Everett died. She stayed on High Street in Norwell, MA until her death in 1964. Ethel was buried with her husband at the Washington Street Cemetery, along with three of her sons.

From Pictures

To do list:

1. Find deeds to farm on high street in Norwell to see how land changed hands. Who bought the land first.
2. Find more about Everett's death location.
3. Fix picture of Ethel's 75th birthday
4. Find more living cousins - nellies children and grandchildren.

rhode island families

I have been trying to write a post about my great grandparents that lived in MA, but it is taking me longer than expected. In the meantime, while data gathering, I found a great grand uncle that moved to Rhode Island. I have not done much research yet in Rhode Island, even though my husband's family is from that state, so I searched to see what kind of online databases were out there. I found a very useful one on familysearch.org, Rhode Island Deaths and Burials, 1802-1950.

I was able to find the death of my great grand uncle mentioned above. I will write about that in another post; but since I was in this database I could not stop myself from plugging in some names on my husband's side of the family. I was so excited to find some new information. I wanted to note it all down here, even though I did also enter it into my family tree. I like to have a record of what I have searched and what new information I found; sometimes that can get lost in all the names in my family tree. 

I started with my husband's maternal line. I already knew his great great grandmother, Hilma Sofia Myrhman, had died in Rhode Island sometime after 1920, as that is the last census I found her in. I found her very quickly in the above mentioned Rhode Island database under the name Hilma Sofia Anderson, with a death date of July 23, 1947 in Coventry, RI. Now I can search for her in the 1930 census, and look for her obituary. The death record also listed her father's name, which I did not have, as Per Mirhman (a little different spelling). I will also look for any other of her children which could be listed in this database, although their deaths may have occurred after 1950. Perhaps she had siblings that came to the US though?

I also new my husband's other great great grandparents probably died in Rhode Island in the early 1900s, so I searched for their names. I found Alfrid Carlson's death on March 25, 1914 in West Warwick, RI. This date is a year off from the transcrition of his stone I found online from The Rhode Island Historical Cemeteries Transcription Project. I also found his wife in the database with a death date of July 25, 1935 in West Warwick, RI. I already had the names of both sets of parents, which was the same as I found in the database. I will next have to search for their nine children in this database.

My husband's paternal side of his family also has people I was interested in finding in this Rhode Island Death database. This side of his family is Portuguese, and I have had trouble in the past searching in online databases because I find the names unfamiliar and a little confusing. They seem to switch between two surnames in the census, and sometimes use a name as a middle name. I was a bit hesitant to search, but I think I did find some new information that seems to fit in with this family. 
Here is the family chart to refer back to if need be :



My first search on this side of the family was for my husband's great grandfather Ernesto Francisco, (he has the easiest name). I have only seen his name written a couple of different ways, Ernesto Francisco and Ernest/o Francis. In this database, he is listed as Ernest E Francis. I believe his middle name is Gilbert, the E may be a transcription error. According to this database, Ernest died on October 28, 1941 in East Providence, RI. I did not have Ernest's parents' names before I searched this database, so that was another great find. They are listed as Joseph Francis and Frances Mattos. I had some indication that his father's name was Joseph, when I found what I think are Ernest's sisters on a ship passenger list; naming Joseph as their father and Ernest as their brother. It does seem likely that these are his sisters that came to Rhode Island from Sao Miguel, Azores. I did a quick search for these sisters in the Rhode Island database, but was unable to locate them. Their names on the passenger list are Maria Conceicao Tereira and Maria Ernestina, arriving in Boston, MA in 1914. Strange that their father's surname of Francisco is not listed. They travelled with an older woman, but I am not sure of her relationship to them.

Ernesto's wife, Aldina Pereira, died in 1971, so she would not be listed in this database. I do already have her parent's names from Aldina's social security application. According to Aldina's passenger record, she traveled to Boston with her brother, Annibal, whose death date I do not have. I am not sure where he was living or if he died after 1950, but he is not listed in the Rhode Island Death database either.

The more confusing side of my husband's portuguese family is another set of great great grandparents, the Gouveia/Martin's. I have found this family listed as Joseph Gouveia, Joseph Govey, Joseph Martin, Joseph Martin Govey; the last entry is how he is listed in the Rhode Island Death database. I previously had not had a death date for Joseph or his wife Theresa. Joseph died February 1, 1901 in Cranston, RI. The birth date for Joseph does seem to be a bit off from what I have in my family tree, I am not sure why the discrepancy, but perhaps this is not the correct death information after all. My original source for Joseph's birth was the 1900 census, which gave his birth about 1854. His death record shows his birth as 1865. If the Rhode Island Death database is correct, then Joseph's parents are Manuel Gouveia and Theresa. In this database, there is also a Frank Martin Govey born in 1879 with the same parents, perhaps Joseph's brother.

Joseph's wife Theresa has been a little more difficult to find. I have Theresa's maiden name as Andrade, from her daughter Mary's social security application. The death database does list a Theresa Martin Amorel Govey with a death date of 24 Feb 1912 in Warwick, RI. The parents listed though do not match her maiden name of Andrade - but are Antonio and Clara Amorel. The birthdate of 1868 is also different than the Theresa from the 1900 census of around 1856. I am not sure I am finding the correct couple with these different birth dates, but I am now beginning to think that the census was incorrect. I checked to see if I had Theresa in the 1910 census, and I did. This census does list her birth date of 1870, much closer to the death record I found. She is also living in Warwick, RI, the place the "other" Theresa died only 2 years later. I am inclined to believe this is the correct death record of Theresa. Perhaps the social security application noted her maiden name incorrectly, or some Azorean naming custom which I do not understand has come into play. Once again, the Gouveia's/Martins are giving me some difficulty.

Overall, I was happy with the information I found in this database. I am not done searching through it yet, but I do want to move on to my other task of writing about one set of my great grandparents.

cemetery at the green (parish cemetery), middleboro, ma

I happened to be going through Middleboro again last week, and took the kids on a letterbox that was located at the Cemetery at the Green, also known as Parish Cemetery. After looking up where Priscilla (Raymond) Glazier was buried, I knew we would be looking for her here. Luckily we found her pretty quickly. A friend brought me to an older section of the graveyard and we first came across her brother Zephania Ellis Raymond. I knew she would be close by, and there she was. I was so excited I instantly started snapping pictures.

in memory of / priscilla s / wife of benj a glasur / who died / march 24 1832 / aged 33 years

z. ellis raymond / died mar 31 / 1873 / aged 71 yrs

My goal in finding Priscilla was to find her parents Samuel and Sylvia Raymond or her sister Silvia (Raymond) McConihe. I have no idea which cemetery they are buried in, but was hoping they might be with Priscilla. However, I was not able to find them in our brief visit.

I have mentioned before that I feel there must be a connection to Harlows, Shaws, and Ellis surnames with either Sylvia (Dunham) Raymond or Samuel Raymond as they named some of their children with these middle names. In some of Sylvia's children's death records, her maiden name is listed as Shaw. I have been going by her marriage record, which lists her maiden name as Dunham, assuming that to be more accurate as she probably recorded her name herself. Of course there is always a possibility of error, so I am keeping both options open for her maiden name. I did notice around Priscilla and Zephania's headstones other stones with the names of Harlow and Shaw. I took some pictures and made some connections between this Harlow family and Shaw family that is buried around them, but I still have not been able to connect them to either Samuel or Sylvia.

Located in the same area of Priscilla and Z. Ellis were many Harlow headstones. I looked into vital records on familysearch.org to try to understand their relationship, and I came up with the following. William Harlow died in 1793 and is buried at the Cemetery at the Green with his wife, Hannah Bartlett.

in memory of / Mr. William Harlow / ?

in memory of / mrs Hannah Harlow / wife of / Mr. William Harlow / who died April 1787 / ?

I was also able to find 5 of their children also buried here:

Joseph (1739-1759)

Ezra (1741-1808)

Mary (1745-1829)

William (1748-1780)

Josiah (1750-1798)

William and Hannah Harlow also had at least two other children, Hannah and Ephraim, but I did not see their headstones. Hannah Harlow's married Josiah Clarke, and it is very possible I missed their headstones as I was not looking for Clarkes at this time. Their daughter (William Harlow's granddaughter), Deborah Clarke; however, is buried close to the Harlow family at the cemetery. The Shaw connection comes along when William's granddaughter, Deborah Clarke, marries Elijah Shaw.

deborah / wife of / elijah shaw / born mar 27 1770 / died mar 21 1864

in the memory of / elijah shaw / who died / dec 14 1840 / aged 77 years

Deborah and Elijah Shaw had four children that I found in the records, at least one of which, Elijah Shaw, is also buried at this cemetery:

elijah shaw / died / june 26 1858 / aged 62 years

The Elijah Shaw that marries Deborah would have been about the same age as my Sylvia (Dunham) Raymond. Since there is some evidence that Sylvia could be a Shaw, I looked at Elijah's family to see if he maybe had a sister Sylvia born around Sylvia's birth year. Elijah Shaw's parents are Elijah Shaw and Phebe Sampson. I checked some family trees on ancestry.com to quickly see if there was a Sylvia born to this couple. According to these family trees, they did have many children, but none named Sylvia. This obviously is not proof that Sylvia was not a child of theirs, I will want to find a probate record of Elijah to see if there is any mention of Sylvia or any Dunhams. I would also need to go a step further back and look to see if Elijah had any brothers that had children named Sylvia. I realize this is a reach, as I have not even looked at probate and land records for the Dunhams in Plymouth County, but I will eventually do that too. Maybe there is a Dunham out there that married a Shaw in Middleboro and Plymouth area. I have not found one yet, but that might explain why Shaw was listed as Sylvia's maiden name, maybe it was her mother's maiden name.

I am guessing someday I will find the connection between these families and perhaps Sylvia (Dunham) Raymond, but so far I have not. I did notice in the Cemeteries in Southeastern MA book, there is a small cemetery in Plymouth with many Harlows, Ellis, and Shaws buried together. That will be another stop next time we are in the area.

central cemetery middleboro, ma

Yesterday we were driving home from buying some very delicious peaches at Ashley's Peaches in Acushnet and we decided to stop at a cemetery in Middleboro on the way home. I was not sure which cemetery one of my Raymond ancestors was buried at (Priscilla (Raymond) Glaziur - my 4th great grandaunt), but I knew it was one in Middleboro.

I had borrowed the book, Old Cemeteries of Southeastern Massachusetts, from the library a couple of months back and found Priscilla listed. I was hoping that if I found Priscilla I may also find her parents, my 5th great grandparents, Cynthia (Dunham) Raymond and her husband Samuel Raymond. From memory, I thought the cemetery was Central Cemetery, so we stopped there and walked around looking for any Dunhams, Raymonds, or Glaziurs. There were some Dunhams and some Raymonds, but they were not familiar names to my tree and the deaths were more recent than what I was looking for. We did not find Priscilla either, but we had all four of our children with us and it was a hot day. Needless to say we did not look at every headstone.

I took some pictures of the headstones but none are in my family. I looked up my notes for Priscilla, and found we were at the wrong cemetery anyway. Priscilla is buried at the cemetery at the green - which I believe is now Parish Cemetery. I had my iPhone with me at the time and could have looked this information up on my previous blog post, but I did not. That is fine though, as no cemetery walk is wasted. Next time I will stop at the Parish Cemetery though and hopefully find Priscilla.

Here are some pictures of some Dunhams and Raymond headstones:

google+

I have been trying to stay current in genealogy - I usually read genealogy blogs of interest to me through my google reader on my iphone. This has worked very well when I find the time to read, but I think right now I have almost 200 blog posts to read. I recently also joined Google+, and have added some geneabloggers to follow. I just watched the webinar from Legacy Family Tree, Google+ the Next Big Thing and found ways to search for geneabloggers on Google+. I added a few to my circles and look forward to seeing the information added to my stream. I did find an interesting post from Joan Miller, a video on explaining relationships between people, Consanguinity - Made Simple by Lisa Lee. I am sure I will be looking back to this video frequently as cousin relationships still confuse me.

george clinton cowing and lydia helen french

George Clinton Cowing married Lydia Helen French on May 1, 1863, in Hingham, MA; they were both about 22 years old.  They were married by George Lincoln, day preacher. Their marriage was recorded in both the South Scituate town records and Hingham. There is a little bit of information on their preacher, George Lincoln in the Hingham 1893 book vol. 1 part 2. 

George and Lydia are my third great-grandparents. George grew up in the town of Weymouth. His father, Joshua, was a farmer on Commercial Street in East Weymouth in the year 1873, according to that years Weymouth Directory; but both George and his father were listed as boot makers in Weymouth in the 1860 Census.  Lydia grew up in South Scituate (later known as Norwell).  Before Lydia and George were married, she worked as a boot fitter in Scituate (1860 census p1; p2).  I wish I knew the story of how their lives crossed paths from different towns and how they eventually met, but I do not have these little details. Perhaps they worked at the same shoe factory, although I would think they worked closer to their homes as there were many shoe factories in the area.

Around the time George and Lydia were married, the civil war draft was enacted. This was the first time the US enacted a mandatory conscription, for men the ages of 20-45. I was not able to find George in the database on ancestry of U.S., Civil War Draft Registrations Records, 1863-1865 - I am not sure why. I tried browsing, but I found it difficult to find the congressional district for Weymouth or Hingham. Also, the names do not seem to be in perfect alphabetical order or by town. I tried searching for George C without Cowing, and I tried searching for Weymouth, but there were no results. I am not sure if George even registered for the draft, but I would think that he would have had to legally. I know you could pay someone to take your place as a substitute but I think this only happened if you were called from the draft register; so you would still have to register. A person could also pay 300 dollars to stay out of the war; but again, you would still first have to register and only pay if your name was called.

I did find an article from NARA's publication, Prologue, (Winter 1994, Vol. 26, No. 4) which explains these records. In this article, it does state that the consoloditated lists were not always complete and some records were lost. Perhaps this is why I am unable to find George in this ancestry database. George's brother, Charles G Cowing, and some of George's uncles did fight in the Civil War, as they are listed in another database on ancestry, U.S. Civil War Soldiers, 1861-1865. I was not able to find any of these men in the Civil War draft register either; but they could have enlisted on their own, rather than register for the draft. I do find it interesting that George did not enlist in the Civil War on his own, as the Cowing family did seem to be interested in slaves' rights and abolitionism (see previous posts), but maybe as a newly married man, he was looking forward to starting a family and did not want to risk his life in a war.

Even though George did not fight in the Civil War, I am sure he heard many battle stories from those he knew that fought. His brother in law, Charles Hayward, his sister Elizabeth's husband enlisted at the age of 19 (before he met Elizabeth). According to his death record in 1892, Charles was imprisoned at Andersonville during the war. I did not know anything about this prison until I looked it up on Wikipedia - very troubling description and images. It would be interesting to obtain Charle's Civil War pension, to see how he ended up at the prison and how long he was there.

Lydia and George were about 23 years old when they had their first child, Mary Elizabeth born about 1864. The next year they had another daughter, Helen (my 2nd great grandmother); then their first son, George, in 1868. The 1865 Massachusetts Census has George and Lydia enumerated below Freeman and Joanna French, Lydia's parents.  They may have been living with them or maybe next door; but by the 1870 census it seems they moved a little down the street onto Washington street to a place of their own. The 1879 South Scituate map shows the location of George C Cowen residence. The map also shows Lydia's father Freeman, near the pond, still very close by. George and Lydia stayed in South Scituate, George working in the shoe industry, for the rest of their married life.

1879 South Scituate map shows the location of George C Cowen residence


George and Lydia did have a fourth child, but not until 1880, 12 years after their third child.  Lydia and George were about 39 years old when they had this last child, Percy. I would imagine that was tough to have another baby 12 years after your last one. I am sure their daughters Mary (age 16) and Helen (age 15) were helpful in raising Percy for the years before they were married in 1884 and 1885. At age 16 in 1880 Mary was no longer in school according to the census and would be at home the most.

I found an interesting bit of information on George when I searched for him and his family in the Massachusetts City Directories database on ancestry.com. George C Cowing is listed in the Hanover 1898 directory as belonging to the organization of The Temple of Honor, Corner Stone Lodge, no. 22. (He was living in Norwell, but the meetings were at Union Hall in Hanover, MA). I did not know anything about this organization, so I did some google searches. Most of the search results included information on the Odd Fellows organization, as I believe part of their organization was Temple of Honor and Temperance. I was not sure this was the right club that George belonged to as the Hanover directory also lists separately an Odd Fellows Organization and their members, which would have met at the Odd Fellows building in Hanover. I decided to look in google books for any references to The Temple of Honor, and I believe I found what I was looking for in a couple of books. One book, the History of the temperance reform in Massachusetts, 1813-1883, by George Faber Clark page 72, has an entire chapter on the Temple of Honor.




This excerpt triggered my memory of a document my mother gave me some time ago about an ancestor pledging not to drink alcohol.  I could not remember who signed this, until I looked up the document in my small box of family papers.  My scanner does not seem to be working, so I took a picture of it. 

This document is for Ethel F. Stoddard, George's granddaughter (my great grandmother).  It is from the Massachusetts Abstinence Society, signed in 1894.  Ethel would only have been 6 years old, I cannot imagine that she actually signed it.  It does seem that George and his family however felt very strongly against consuming alcohol that they would have their granddaughter at only age 6 pledge to not drink.  I did not know my great grandmother Ethel, nor did my grandmother talk much about her, but I wonder if she continued with her grandfather's strong beliefs.

George and Lydia had many losses in the late 1880s. In 1887, Lydia's mother Joanna died. Less than a year later, George's father, Joshua Cowing died in February of 1888. The following year Lydia's father also died in 1889. George's mother would live for another four years after her husband Joshua dies.

Unfortunately, George only lives 7 years after his mother's death. George died on October 4 1899, in Norwell, MA at the age of 58. The town record of his death states he died of heart disease, dropsy. I fould George's gravestone at the Washington Street Cemetery in Norwell with his daughter Helen and his son in law Arthur Stoddard. Sadly, George's wife is not buried with him, or at least there is no stone or engraving for her.

I am not sure when Lydia died, but I was not able to find her in the Massachusetts Vital Records online through familysearch or americanancestors.org. The records only go up to 1915, perhaps she lived past this date. She also could have married again, and listed under her new married name, although I was not able to find a new marriage record for Lydia either.   Her other daughter Mary is buried at Fairmont Cemetery in East Weymouth.  A volunteer from findagrave.com took a picture of Mary's stone for me, which is multisided.  I am not sure if Lydia is on another side of the stone, but it does look to be a family stone for Mary's husband's family, the Gardners.  I will have to visit the cemetery and check to see if Lydia is buried with them.

stone of Mary Cowing Gardner (George and Lydia's daughter) at Fairmount Cemetery, East Weymouth

photo by hammer on findagrave.com

I also have to search for her other two children to see if she is buried with them.   I did find her parent's gravesite at Liberty Plain cemetery in Hingham, but I did not see Lydia there either.   (See Update under to do list)


to do list:

1. Find where Lydia Helen French Cowing is buried (and when she died) (UPDATE: Ancestry.com has added a new database since I wrote this post - Massachusetts, Town and Vital Records, 1620-1988 - which is an index created by the Holbrooks of vital records throughout the state of Massachusetts.  I was able to find Helen L Cowing, which states she died in 1919 and actually is buried at Washington Street Cemetery in Norwell, MA.  So she did not remarry, and maybe she is buried with her husband and her name just is not on the stone.  Or maybe she is buried at another plot.)
2. Find if George did register for Civil War - also interesting to note that the 1870 census he lists his name as John Cowing - was he hiding his name.
3. Find land records for George C Cowing in Scituate, Plymouth County. Probably moved to own house in Scituate between 1865-1870. County Boundaries can be determined at this website : Historical County Boundary Maps - BETA
4. Find George's probate 1899 Norwell, MA - plymouth county (UPDATE: found probate docket - see post here)

joseph labrecque and marie anna raimond

Joseph Labrecque and Marie Anna Raimond were married on April 29, 1851 on the Ile D'Orleans, Quebec, in the parish of St. Jean. They were my 3rd great grandparents, and the first generation of Labrecques in my direct line to move off the small island to the mainland area of Quebec. I was not able to locate the marriage contract from the Marriage Contract website of the National Archives Quebec.

Joseph and Marie Anna were both born and grew up on the Ile D'Orleans. Marie Anna Raimond's family may have moved to the island before she was born, but her father was born in St. Louis, Kamouraska, Quebec; not on the island. The Labrecques; however, had lived on the island since the 1600s.

Soon after Joseph and Marie-Anna were married, they moved off the island. Joseph was 22 years old and Marie Anna was just 19 years old. The 1851/1852 Census of Canada East has Joseph and Marie living in the sub district of St. Flavien, Lotbinière county, in the area that was then known as Canada East (Quebec). They were living in a one story house with another couple, Gabriel Valliere (age 45) and Calostique Metaye (age 27). Although this couple was older, I am guessing they knew at least Calostique fairly well, as she was also born on the Ile' D'Orleans. By 1852, parish records show Joseph and Marie Anna belonged to the parish of St. Croix, Quebec, where they had their first four children baptised between the years of 1852 and 1856. St. Flavien and St. Croix are only about 6 miles apart; both parishes must have been fairly rural as Joseph is listed as a "cultivateur", or farmer.

In October of 1856, there is one record of their son Joseph's death recorded in the parish of St. Roch, Quebec. It looks like they left the area of St. Croix in 1856, heading a couple of miles north, closer to the island they grew up on. Around 1857, they may have moved back to the parish of St. Jean on the island, as their 5th child, Joseph, was baptised in the parish there. They did not stay on the island long as their next child, Achilles, was baptised in the Beauport section of Quebec City in 1859, a year and a half later. Their next child, Moise, was christened in the parish of St. Roch in 1861; however, their last 6 children's baptism's were recorded again at the the parish of La Nativité de Notre Dame, Beauport, Quebec.

Beauport and St. Roch sections of Quebec


View Joseph Labrecque and Marie Anna Raimond in a larger map

The later census records I have found for this family support that they lived in the sub district of Beauport from 1861 to at least 1881. [1] I am not sure why their children were baptised in different parishes unless they moved back and forth between areas. Perhaps they were renting and moved to where they could afford. The area of Beauport and St. Roch are close though, so maybe they did not move and just baptised Moise at a different parish. Maybe that is where his godparents attended mass and they decided to have him baptised there. The record does however state, "de cette paroisse" (of this parish). Beauport and Saint Roch are both close to the Il D'Orleans, just on the west side of the St. Lawrence River. They may have moved to this area to be closer to the island where their parents lived. Even though the bridge to the island was not built at this time, perhaps they took a boat to the island sometimes to visit family.

Joseph's occupation also changed with this move by 1856 from farmer to "menusuir", or carpenter [2]. Maybe moving closer to the city of Quebec provided better working opportunities as a carpenter, or maybe he changed professions because they moved away from farming land. His employment did not seem to stay consistent though, as it changed frequently within the parish records of his children. The 1861 Census has Joseph as "journalier', day laborer. By 1871 his job is listed as "meunier", which is miller; apparently still working with wood. The records starting in 1873 have a new job listing, mecanicien. According to babylon.com, translates to mechanic, a bit different than a carpenter or miller. By the 1881 census, and up until the 1901 census, Joseph has an occupation of "charretier". I have found a couple of translations of this profession as wagoner, carter or teamster. The 1901 census states he was an employer, not an employee. The 1881 and the 1901 census also list education information. According to these censuses, Joseph was unable to read or write, I am guessing in either French or English. I did find this a little surprising, but I am not sure what education was available to him. Marie Anna; however, was able to read and write, and the 1901 census also states she could speak English. She must have been a great source of guidance to her husband with her knowledge.

While Joseph was out supporting his family financially, Marie Anna gave birth to at least 13 children. The last child was born in 1876, when Joseph was 47 and Marie Anna was 43. Since there were so many children I created a one generation descendant report from my Legacy software. I am not sure I am happy with the Google Sites format, although I have not had the chance to play with it much. I am usually a big fan of all things Google, so I will have to work on this. I am also not sure the descendant report itself is the best way to display all the information on their children - I think a more concise view may be better, listing only children's names and birth and death dates.

I have spent some time on ancestry.com trying to find records for Joseph and Marie Anna's children. Sadly, many of their children died at very young ages. Their first daughter died at age 11, their third child died at age 2, their fourth child died before the age of 5. Their 8th child died at age 1, their 10th child died before the age of 12. Their last three children died before their first birthdays, one at birth and was unnamed. The French Canadian parish records are a great resource for vital records in Quebec, but the death records do not list the cause of death. I am guessing that the cause of most children's death were some common childhood diseases. I could not imagine losing 8 children. How sad it must have been to experience all these losses. (the deaths occurred in the following years : 1856, before 1861, 1863, 1864, 1871, 1873, 1877, and one before 1881) [3].

Not only did Joseph and Marie Anna lose many children from death, but at least three of their children also left Canada to go to the United States before 1900. One was my 2nd great grandfather, Achilles Labrecque, in addition to his older brother Eugene and his younger brother Moise [4]. As a result of all the childhood deaths and emigration, Joseph and Marie Anna would have only 2 out of their 13 children living in Quebec after 1900, Marie Virginia Mathilda and Joseph.

Joseph and Marie Anna's ninth child, Marie Virginia Mathilda (Labrecque) Senechal [5] is living in Beauport, Quebec in 1891; the same district her parent were living in, in 1881. She is the only member of this family I have been able to find in the 1891 census, but I assume her parents are still living close by. I was not able to locate Marie Virginia in the 1901 census, but I did find her death recorded in the Beauport parish record in 1908.

Their fifth child, Joseph Labrecque and his family were living in Beauport, Quebec in 1881; the same district as his parents at that time. Joseph and his growing family did move out of Beauport to the ward of Jacques Cartier by 1901, while his parents Joseph and Marie Anna had moved to the St. Vallier district of Quebec, on the other side of the St. Lawrence River. (Marie Anna's mother, Justine Turcotte Raimond was still living until 1899 on the Island, in St. Jean parish; directly across the river from St. Vallier - maybe the moved to be closer to her.) By the 1911 census, Joseph and Marie Anna's son, Joseph, had moved to the St. Vallier district also. Joseph and Marie Anna are not recorded in the 1911 census; however, as they were not living at that time. Both of their death records are recorded in the Beauport parish, not St. Vallier. Perhaps they moved back to Beauport, or maybe they were just buried in Beauport, at the church they spent most of their lives with. Marie Anna died at the age of 74 in December of 1906, and Joseph died only a month later, in January of 1907 at the age of 77. They were fortunate to spend 55 years together.

Map of joseph labrecque and maria anna raimond family
1851-1907


View Joseph Labrecque and Marie Anna Raimond in a larger map

The Roman Catholic church at Beauport was the La Nativité de Notre Dame de Beauport. According to the eglisesdequebec.org website, the church that is standing now was built in 1917-1918, and is the 5th church built at Beauport. This is not the church that was standing while Joseph and Marie Anna were sill living. As their death records are from La Nativité de Notre Dame de Beauport, I assume they are both buried at this cemetery. There is a website that lists burials from this church, interment.com. I am not sure if all the names were recorded at this cemtery, but I do not find Joseph and Marie Ann Labrecque. I look forward to visiting someday to try to locate them.

links of interest:
1. Wikipedia's Timeline of Quebec history (1867 to 1899)
2. Wikipedia's Timeline of Quebec history (1900 to 1930)

notes:
1. I was not able to find them in the 1891 census.
2. breakdown of Joseph's occupation throughout the records:

marie's baptism - cultivateur: farmer
no occupation stated for eugene, joseph (1st), marie hermine, achilles, charles jean
baptist, joseph alphonse baptisms
Moise, joseph (2nd), marie virginia mathilda baptisms, joseph (1st) death - menusuir:
carpenter
marie florine baptism, Marie Florine death - meunier: miller
unnamed labrecque bapt, joseph arthur baptism and death - mecanicien: mechanic?

1852 cultivateur: farmer
1856, 1857, 1861,1867 menusuir: carpenter
1861 census journalier: day laborer
1871 census meunier: miller
1871 meunier: miller
1873, 1876, 1877 mecanicien: mechanic?
1881 - 1901, charretier: wagoner, carter, teamster

3. I was not able to locate entries for death in the parish registers for their children Marie Florine or Joseph Alphonse, but they were not listed as children in their next census with Joseph and Marie Anna's family - most likely had died by the time the census was taken.
4. Joseph and Marie Anna's oldest son Eugene was in Cook County Illinois by 1897, they year he was married. He was an oiler for a railroad. He died in Illinois in 1931. Their son Achilles, my 2nd great grandfather, was in Massachusetts by 1888 when their son George was born in Cambridge, MA. Achilles died in Quincy, MA in 1937. Joseph and Marie Anna had one more son, Moise, move to the United States. I found a record of birth for a son of Moise, Harry, in Amesbury, MA in 1894. I have lost track of Moise after 1894, I am not sure if he moved back to Canada, but I could not find census or death records for he or his wife, Sarah. I found their son Harry living with his Aunt and Uncle (his mother's brother) in Wisconsin when he was only 16 in 1910.
5. It seems she was called Exilda or Esilda in the records.