Tag: Michigan

Emaline Goff (Groff) Jones (1824–1897)

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Mrs. Emaline Jones died in Saginaw on 21 September 1897 at the age of seventy-three, her obituary noting that she had been born in New York on 3 April 1824 and had made her home in Michigan for most of her adult life.¹ Her death record gives a more sobering picture, stating that she died of asthenia, with poverty, lack of care, and old age listed as contributing causes.² Together, these records frame the story of a woman whose life followed the familiar nineteenth-century path from New York to the developing communities of central Michigan—and whose final years were marked by hardship.

Her name appears in the records in more than one form. While she is most often Emaline or Emeline Goff, some sources render the surname as Groff, a variation that likely reflects pronunciation rather than a true change of identity.³

Emaline was born in New York, the daughter of George Groff.⁴ Like many young women of her generation, she was in Michigan by her late teens. Her first known child, Sarah Thursa Hibbner, was born in Michigan in 1842, indicating an early migration westward.⁵ This movement fits the larger pattern of settlement into the interior counties of the state during the 1830s and 1840s.

By the early 1850s she had married Thomas J. Jones, and together they built their family in Genesee, Shiawassee, and Clinton Counties before eventually moving into Saginaw County. Their son Isaac was born at Flushing in 1853, followed by additional children over the next decade: George, Aaron, Elizabeth Ann, and Matthew Francis.⁶

The federal census traces the family through these years of growth and relocation. In 1860 they were in Middlebury Township, Shiawassee County.⁷ By 1870 and again in 1880 they were living at Ovid in Clinton County, where Thomas worked and the children grew to adulthood.⁸ These were years when Ovid was a small but active agricultural community, and the Jones family’s presence there places them among the settlers who transformed the region from frontier to established farmland.

Thomas died in 1893 in Spaulding Township, Saginaw County.⁹ His death marked a turning point. Within four years Emaline herself was gone, and the language of her death record suggests that widowhood brought real economic difficulty.

Her obituary nevertheless emphasized the family she left behind: sons Isaac, Aaron, and Matthew, and two daughters, identified as Mrs. Lester and Mrs. Showers.¹ This brief list reflects a common practice of the time—married daughters were named by their husbands’ surnames—yet it also shows that most of her children survived her, a significant fact in an era when child mortality was high.

She was buried on 22 September 1897 in Spaulding Township, beside her husband.¹⁰

Emaline’s life spans a period of enormous change. Born in New York in the 1820s, she came to Michigan when it was still a young state, raised her children as its towns and farms took shape, and died in the closing years of the nineteenth century in the industrializing Saginaw Valley. Her story is one of migration, family building, repeated moves in search of stability, and, at the end, the vulnerability that so often accompanied old age when family support or financial resources were limited.

Sources

  1. “Mrs. Emeline Jones,” obituary, The Saginaw News, 21 September 1897.
  2. Michigan death certificate, Emaline Jones, 21 September 1897, Saginaw, Saginaw County.
  3. Name variants as recorded in census and vital records, 1860–1897.
  4. Parent identified in compiled genealogical material and supported by surname usage in early records.
  5. Birth of Sarah Thursa Hibbner, Michigan, 1842.
  6. Michigan birth and marriage records for the children of Thomas J. and Emaline Jones.
  7. 1860 U.S. census, Middlebury Township, Shiawassee County, Michigan.
  8. 1870 and 1880 U.S. censuses, Ovid, Clinton County, Michigan.
  9. Michigan death record, Thomas J. Jones, 19 October 1893, Spaulding Township, Saginaw County.
  10. Burial record, Spaulding Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, 22 September 1897.

Lucy L. Wellington Wakefield (1801–1879)

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A Vermont mother on the Michigan lumber frontier

Lucy L. Wellington was born in Vermont in 1801, the daughter of Josiah Wellington and Polly Hutchinson. She grew up in Braintree and Randolph in Orange County and married James Wakefield there on 14 December 1820.¹

Their marriage began a family that would span the entire period of New England’s westward migration. Their first children were born in Vermont: George W. Wakefield (1821), Calvin Wakefield (1822), and Jefferson Wakefield (1823). They were followed by Matilda Wakefield (1825) and Luther Wakefield (1826). After a move within Orange County to Randolph, Lucy gave birth to Mary Jane Wakefield (1831), Jasper Wakefield (1833), Augusta Wakefield (1835), Levay Wakefield (1840), and Dana A. Wakefield (1842).² By the time the youngest child was born, Lucy had spent more than twenty years raising a large household in the hill towns of Vermont.

The family remained in Randolph through the 1850 census, but about 1855 Lucy and James joined the movement of many Orange County families to the Saginaw Valley of Michigan, settling in Albee Township.³

The Civil War years brought losses that touched Lucy directly. Her son Levay died in 1862, and her son Dana A. Wakefield died in 1864 while in service in Georgia.⁴

In April 1864, at more than sixty years of age, Lucy made a homestead entry at the United States Land Office in East Saginaw for 120 acres in Section 11 of Grant Township, Iosco County.⁵ Testimony preserved in the later federal land case established that she lived on this tract, built a house, cleared land, and planted an orchard.⁶ The Wakefield farm was remembered locally many years later as a well-known place in the township.

From the land record held at NARA for Lucy Wakefield.

Lucy participated in the development of the community. On 23 December 1868 she signed a petition in support of aid for the Tawas City and Plank Road Company, a project intended to connect the interior settlements with the Lake Huron shore.⁷ In 1870 she was enumerated in Grant Township with her daughter and son-in-law.⁸

Local and land ownership sources associate her property with the Sand Lake Hotel on the State Road. While the federal records describe her as a homesteader, her household stood at a recognized location in a lumbering township where travelers and workers moved between the interior and the shore.⁹

On 3 August 1876 Lucy wrote her will in Grant Township, bringing to a close more than a decade on the homestead she had established in her sixties.¹⁰

She died on 1 June 1879 in Albee Township, Saginaw County, at the age of seventy-eight. The cause of death was consumption.¹¹ In the 1880 mortality schedule she appears as a widowed woman, born in Vermont, whose final residence was in Michigan.¹²

Lucy’s life began in the settled farming towns of Vermont and ended on the edge of the Michigan lumber frontier. Between those two places she raised eleven children, buried two sons lost in the Civil War era, and, in her later years, established a working homestead in a newly opened township.

Children of James and Lucy (Wellington) Wakefield

  • George W. Wakefield, born 7 June 1821, Vermont
  • Calvin Wakefield, born 15 January 1822, Vermont
  • Jefferson Wakefield, born 3 February 1823 – died 1905
  • Matilda Wakefield, born 10 February 1825
  • Luther Wakefield, born 11 October 1826 – died 1895
  • Mary Jane Wakefield, born 10 April 1831 – died 1888
  • Jasper Wakefield, born 6 December 1833 – died 1915
  • Augusta Wakefield, born 7 September 1835 – died 1899
  • Levay Wakefield, born 12 October 1840 – died 8 February 1862
  • Dana A. Wakefield, born 1 May 1842 – died 14 May 1864

Sources

  1. Vermont vital and town records; marriage of James Wakefield and Lucy Wellington, Braintree, 14 December 1820.
  2. Vermont vital records and compiled family histories for Wakefield family births.
  3. 1850 U.S. census, Randolph, Orange County, Vermont; Saginaw County settlement information.
  4. Military death information for Levay Wakefield and Dana A. Wakefield.
  5. U.S. General Land Office, homestead entry, Lucy Wakefield, East Saginaw Land Office, April 1864.
  6. Department of the Interior land case file, witness testimony describing residence, buildings, and orchard on the Wakefield homestead.
  7. Petition supporting aid to the Tawas City and Plank Road Company, Grant Township, 23 December 1868.
  8. 1870 U.S. census, Grant Township, Iosco County, Michigan.
  9. Iosco County early land ownership compilations and local historical sources identifying the Wakefield property with the Sand Lake Hotel site.
  10. Iosco County, Michigan, will of Lucy Wakefield, 3 August 1876.
  11. Michigan death record, Lucy Wakefield, 1 June 1879, Albee Township, Saginaw County; cause of death: consumption.
  12. 1880 U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedule, Saginaw County, Michigan.

Elizabeth “Betsy” (Foster) Munson (1820–1894)

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Elizabeth “Betsy” Foster was born 7 May 1820 in New York, the daughter of Nathaniel Foster and Mary Moore.¹ By the mid-1820s she was in Saginaw County, Michigan, where her father became one of the earliest settlers and built the first sawmill on the Saginaw River.²

She grew up in a pioneer environment as the Foster family established itself along the river in what was then a developing frontier community.

On 1 June 1839, in Bridgeport, she married Henry Munson.³ She was nineteen years old.

A life in the Saginaw Valley

Elizabeth spent her entire married life in Saginaw County. She and Henry first appear together in Bridgeport Township in the 1850 census with their young children.⁴ They remained in the same general area for decades, later settling in Taymouth Township.⁵

She was the mother of a large family:

  • James H. Munson (1840–1881)
  • Mary Emaline Munson (1841–1907)
  • Ransom W. Munson (1843–1853)
  • Frances Jane Munson (1845–1915)
  • Gardner N. Munson
  • Thomas B. Munson (1849–1934)
  • Alice A. Munson (1853–1916)
  • Charles Homer Munson (1855–1928)
  • Sarah E. Munson
  • Henrietta E. Munson (1858–1917)
  • Orrin E. Munson (1861–1929) ⁴⁻⁸

Her son Ransom died in 1853 after drowning in the Cass River, a loss that occurred while the family was still raising younger children.⁹

Through the decades she witnessed the transformation of the Saginaw Valley from a lumber frontier into an established agricultural community.

Daughter of a pioneer

The Foster family’s early arrival in the region was remembered locally. One of her death notices stated:

“She was one of the pioneers of Saginaw county.”²

Another noted her connection to the earliest lumbering history:

“Her father, Mr. Foster, built the first saw mill on the Saginaw river.”³

This identity as a pioneer’s daughter remained part of how she was described at the end of her life.

Later years

Elizabeth was widowed when Henry Munson died 12 December 1886 in Taymouth Township.¹⁰
She continued to live in the township, appearing there in the 1880 census and remaining in the community where she had spent nearly her entire life.⁶

She experienced the deaths of both her husband and her eldest son during her later years.¹⁰⁻¹¹

Death

Elizabeth died 29 March 1894 at Taymouth Township at the home of her son, Charles H. Munson.³ She was 73 years old.²

Her obituary reported that she left:

  • sons Thomas, Orrin, and Charles H. Munson
  • daughters Jane Rivers and Etta Parker

and that she also had a surviving brother, Gardner W. Foster.²

She was buried in Taymouth Township, Saginaw County.¹²

Sources

  1. Birth date calculated from age at death and death record; Michigan death records.
  2. “Fosters,” The Saginaw News, 4 April 1894, p. 5.
  3. “Betsy Munson, wife of the late Henry Munson…,” The Saginaw News, 30 March 1894, p. 6.
  4. 1850 U.S. census, Bridgeport Township, Saginaw County, Michigan.
  5. 1860 U.S. census, Bridgeport Township, Saginaw County, Michigan.
  6. 1880 U.S. census, Taymouth Township, Saginaw County, Michigan.
  7. Michigan vital records for children of Henry and Elizabeth Munson.
  8. Michigan marriage and death records for Munson descendants.
  9. Saginaw County death record, Ransom W. Munson, 1853.
  10. Saginaw County death record, Henry Munson, 1886.
  11. Saginaw County death record, James H. Munson, 1881.
  12. Find a Grave index, Saginaw County, Michigan.

Nancy J. Whitney (March 1843 – 27 October 1906)

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Nancy J. Whitney was born in March 1843 in Ohio, the daughter of John P. Whitney and a mother whose identity remains unresolved in the surviving records and has been discussed in earlier research.¹ She spent her early childhood in Clinton Township, Wayne County, Ohio, where she appeared in the 1850 census with her father and her younger sisters Mary Belle and Lucretia.²

By the end of the 1850s the family had moved to Saginaw County, Michigan. Nancy’s mother died about 1859, and the 1860 census captures the family in a changed arrangement. Seventeen-year-old Nancy was living in East Saginaw in the household of Loton Eastman, where she was employed as a servant, while her father and youngest sister were enumerated elsewhere.³

Marriage and the Early Years

On 25 March 1866 Nancy married Martin V. Lacy in Taymouth Township, Saginaw County.⁴ Their first child, Emma, was born later that year, followed by Alice in 1869 at Montrose in neighboring Genesee County.⁵ The 1870 census shows the young family there, part of the movement of Saginaw Valley residents between the river towns and the farming communities that supplied them.⁶

By the mid-1870s they had returned to the Saginaw Valley for good. Their younger children, Mary Belle and William Henry, were born in Michigan, and by 1880 the family was established in Kawkawlin Township, Bay County.⁷

A Long Residence in Kawkawlin

From 1880 through 1900 the censuses place Nancy and Martin in the same township, reflecting decades of continuity in one community.⁸ The 1900 census records Nancy as the mother of five children, three of whom were living, and gives her birth as March 1843 in Ohio.¹

Land and Legal Standing

Bay County land records show Nancy as more than a farmer’s wife in the census columns. A deed transferred property from Martin V. Lacy to Nancy in her own name, and she later appears as the mortgagor on a mortgage of that land. Other mortgages were executed jointly by Martin and Nancy as husband and wife.⁹ These entries place her directly in the legal and financial record of the township and demonstrate her recognized interest in the family’s property.

Losses

In 1897 Nancy’s eldest daughter, Emma, died in Bay County.¹⁰ Seven years later, on 8 August 1904, Martin died in Garfield Township.¹¹ After nearly four decades of marriage, Nancy entered widowhood in the community where she had spent most of her adult life.

Death in Virginia

Nancy died on 27 October 1906 in Charles City, Virginia.¹² The record gives the date and place but does not explain her presence there. Her life had been centered for many years in the Saginaw Valley, where she had worked, married, raised her children, and held property in her own name.

Sources

  1. 1900 U.S. census, Bay County, Michigan, Kawkawlin Township, Martin V. Lacy household; Nancy J. Lacy, birth March 1843, Ohio.
  2. 1850 U.S. census, Wayne County, Ohio, Clinton Township, John P. Whitney household.
  3. 1860 U.S. census, Saginaw County, Michigan, East Saginaw, Loton Eastman household, Nancy Whitney, servant; John P. Whitney in a separate household with daughter Sabria.
  4. Saginaw County, Michigan, marriage records, Martin V. Lacy and Nancy J. Whitney, 25 March 1866.
  5. Michigan birth records, Emma Lacy (1866); Alice Lacy, 1 June 1869, Montrose, Genesee County.
  6. 1870 U.S. census, Genesee County, Michigan, Montrose, Martin V. Lacy household.
  7. Michigan birth records, Mary Belle Lacy (1875) and William Henry Lacy (1878); 1880 U.S. census, Bay County, Michigan, Kawkawlin Township.
  8. Michigan state census, 1884 and 1894, Bay County, Kawkawlin Township; 1900 U.S. census, Bay County, Michigan, Kawkawlin Township.
  9. Bay County, Michigan, Register of Deeds, index to deeds (Martin V. Lacy to Nancy J. Lacy) and index to mortgages (Nancy J. Lacy; Martin V. Lacy and wife). mgt Martin to Nancy Nancy lacy mortgage 2 Nancy Lacy Mortgage2 Martin Lacy & wife mortgage Nancy Lacy Mortgager
  10. Michigan death records, Emma Lacy, 1897, Bay County.
  11. Michigan death records, Martin V. Lacy, 8 August 1904, Garfield Township, Bay County.
  12. Virginia death record, Nancy J. Lacy, 27 October 1906, Charles City.

Mary Emaline Munson Wickham (1841–1907)

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A Life Spent in One Place

Mary Emaline Munson was born 30 July 1841 in Richfield, Genesee County, Michigan, the daughter of Henry Munson and Elizabeth “Betsy” Foster.¹ Within a few years the family had moved into Saginaw County, settling in Bridgeport Township along the Cass River, where Mary spent her childhood among a growing circle of brothers and sisters that included her younger sister, Frances Jane.²

She came of age in a household that was part of the earliest wave of permanent settlement in the area. By 1850 she was living with her parents in Bridgeport, in a community still very much in the process of being built.³

Mary Emeline Munson

Marriage and a household of her own

On 26 April 1858, Mary married Reuben Thomas Wickham in Tittabawassee Township.⁴ She was still in her teens, and like many young women of her generation moved directly from her father’s home into one of her own.

The couple remained in Tittabawassee Township for the rest of their lives. By 1860 they were established there with their first child, beginning a pattern of continuity that would define Mary’s story.⁵

Five children were born to Reuben and Mary between 1860 and 1876:

Isadora Wickham
Elizabeth Loella Wickham
William H. Wickham
Ettie I. Wickham
Alice Mary Wickham⁶

All were raised in the same township where Mary herself had grown up.

The center of a farm family

The 1880 census captures Mary in the busiest years of her life. Her husband was working as a farmer, and the household included two adult daughters, a teenage son, and two young girls. Mary’s occupation was recorded simply as “keeping house,” a phrase that understated the scale of the work required to manage a farm home and family in nineteenth-century Michigan.⁷

This was not a family that moved on in search of new land or new opportunities. Through every census from 1860 to 1900, Mary remained in Tittabawassee Township, surrounded by familiar roads, neighboring farms, and an extended network of Munson and Wickham relatives.⁵⁷⁸⁹

Family ties that remained close

Those connections deepened in the next generation. Mary’s youngest daughter, Alice Mary Wickham, married Gardner Rivers, the son of Mary’s sister Frances Jane Munson. The marriage joined the two Munson sisters’ families even more closely, ensuring that the bonds formed in their childhood home continued into the lives of their children and grandchildren.

Mary also lived to see the passing of her parents—Henry Munson in 1886 and Elizabeth Foster Munson in 1894—events that marked the end of the founding generation of the family in Saginaw County.¹⁰¹¹

Later years and widowhood

After nearly forty-five years of marriage, Mary was widowed when Reuben died on 16 January 1903.¹² The 1900 census, taken only a few years earlier, shows the couple still together in their longtime home, by then the parents of grown children.⁹

Death and burial

Mary died 23 May 1907 in Tittabawassee Township at the age of sixty-five.¹ Her death certificate records the cause as erysipelas, an acute infection that was often fatal in the years before antibiotics.¹

She was buried on 26 May 1907 in Owen Cemetery, beside the husband with whom she had shared her entire adult life.¹⁴ Her obituary in the Saginaw Evening News noted her long residence in the township and the family who survived her there.¹⁵

She had lived her entire adult life in the same community where she began it as a young bride, surrounded by children, grandchildren, and the extended Munson and Wickham families whose histories were inseparable from her own.

Sources

  1. Michigan Death Records, 1867–1950, Mary Emeline Wickham, death certificate, 23 May 1907, Tittabawassee Township, Saginaw County.
  2. 1850 U.S. census, Saginaw County, Michigan, Bridgeport Township, Henry Munson household.
  3. Ibid.
  4. Saginaw County, Michigan, marriage records, Reuben T. Wickham and Mary E. Munson, 26 April 1858.
  5. 1860 U.S. census, Saginaw County, Michigan, Tittabawassee Township, Reuben T. Wickham household.
  6. Michigan birth records, children of Reuben T. and Mary E. Wickham.
  7. 1880 U.S. census, Saginaw County, Michigan, Tittabawassee Township, Reuben T. Wickham household.
  8. 1870 U.S. census, Saginaw County, Michigan, Tittabawassee Township, Reuben T. Wickham household.
  9. 1900 U.S. census, Saginaw County, Michigan, Tittabawassee Township, Reuben T. Wickham household.
  10. Michigan Death Records, Henry Munson, 12 December 1886.
  11. Michigan Death Records, Elizabeth Foster Munson, 29 March 1894.
  12. Michigan Death Records, Reuben T. Wickham, 16 January 1903.
  13. Owen Cemetery, Saginaw County, Michigan, burial record and gravestone, Mary E. Wickham.
  14. Saginaw Evening News, 24 May 1907, p. 10, obituary of Mary Wickham.

Margaret Jane Lawhead (1872–1936)

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The girl who became the matriarch

Margaret Jane Lawhead was born 2 July 1872 in Michigan, the daughter of George Washington Lawhead and Emma Mae Stiles.¹

Margaret Lawhead Jones

She spent her childhood in Albee Township in Saginaw County, where the family appears in the 1880 census — a farming household with young children and the ordinary rhythms of rural life.²

It did not last.

Her mother died on 6 April 1886.³
Margaret was thirteen years old.

Two months earlier, on 7 February 1886, she had already become a wife.

She married Aaron Jones in Saginaw County while still a child herself.⁴

A mother before she was grown

Before most girls of her generation had left school, Margaret had begun raising a family.

Mathew F. Jones was born 9 November 1887.⁵
Jessie Amelia Jones followed on 7 June 1889.⁶
Rhoda E. Jones was born about 1891.⁷

Three children before she turned twenty.

Over the next twenty-eight years she would give birth to nine more:

Roy Recine (1895)⁸
Ola May (1896)⁹
Archie Jarried (1898)¹⁰

A son born on Christmas Day of 1900 who lived only two weeks¹¹

Herbert Edward (1901)¹²
Oscar Edgar (1904)¹³
Thurlo Edward (1909)¹⁴
Marie Irene (1912)¹⁵
Laverne (1915)¹⁶

Twelve children in all.

The losses that never left her

The records separate the tragedies by years.

A mother does not.

Her infant son died in January 1901.¹¹
Her oldest boy, Mathew, was gone before the 1910 census was taken.¹⁷

And in the summer of 1917 came the loss that changed the shape of her household.

Her daughter Rhoda died in Taymouth Township at the age of twenty-six.¹⁸

She left two small children:

Ralph, not yet four.
Iola, just two.¹⁹

Margaret and Aaron took them in and raised them.

Margaret Lawhead Jones, Iola Reikowsky and Aaron Jones. Photo taken in late 1920’s.

After more than thirty years of child-rearing, Margaret began again.

The same place, the whole life

While her father’s later years were spent in northern Michigan, Margaret remained in Saginaw County for her entire married life.

In 1910 the family was still in Albee Township, with children filling the household.²⁰
By 1920 they were in Taymouth Township.²¹
They were still there in 1930, older now, with the next generation already begun.²²

She did not move on.

She became the constant.

Widowhood

Aaron Jones died on 8 June 1933 in Fosters.²³

They had been married for forty-seven years.

Margaret lived less than three years without him.

She died on 2 February 1936 in Taymouth Township at the age of sixty-three. The death record gives the cause as cardiac failure.²⁴ She was buried beside Aaron in Taymouth Township Cemetery on 5 February.²⁵

Looking at her life as a whole

She was thirteen when she lost her mother.
Thirteen when she married.
Fifteen when she became a mother.

She bore twelve children.
She buried three of them.
She raised two grandchildren as her own.

And she stayed — in the same small Michigan community — while generations spread outward from her.

Some of the women in this family died young.

Aaron and Margaret Lawhead Jones and their large family.

Margaret did not.

She lived long enough to become the center — the steady place everyone else came from.

Every descendant who comes through her children passes through her life.

Not because her life was dramatic.

Because it endured.

Sources

  1. Michigan birth records, Margaret Jane Lawhead, 2 July 1872.
  2. 1880 U.S. census, Albee Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, household of George W. Lawhead.
  3. Michigan death records, Emma Mae Stiles Lawhead, 6 Apr 1886, Saginaw County.
  4. Saginaw County, Michigan, marriage record, Margaret J. Lawhead and Aaron Jones, 7 Feb 1886.
  5. Michigan birth records, Mathew F. Jones, 9 Nov 1887, Albee Township.
  6. Michigan birth records, Jessie Amelia Jones, 7 Jun 1889, Albee Township.
  7. Census and death records, Rhoda E. Jones (b. ca. 1891; d. 1917), Taymouth Township.
  8. Michigan birth records, Roy Recine Jones, 14 Mar 1895, Taymouth Township.
  9. Michigan birth records, Ola May Jones, 20 Jul 1896, Burt.
  10. Michigan birth records, Archie Jarried Jones, 19 Sep 1898, Saginaw.
  11. Michigan birth and death records, unnamed Jones child, 25 Dec 1900 – 8 Jan 1901, Albee Township.
  12. Michigan birth records, Herbert Edward Jones, 26 Dec 1901, Albee Township.
  13. Michigan birth records, Oscar Edgar Jones, 2 Jan 1904, Burt.
  14. Michigan birth records, Thurlo Edward Jones, 19 May 1909, Burt.
  15. Michigan birth records, Marie Irene Jones, 24 Jan 1912, Taymouth Township.
  16. Michigan birth records, Laverne Jones, 26 Dec 1915, Burt.
  17. 1910 U.S. census, Albee Township, Saginaw County, Michigan.
  18. Michigan death records, Rhoda E. Jones Reikowsky, 25 Jul 1917, Taymouth Township.
  19. Michigan birth records, Ralph Reikowsky (1913) and Iola Evelyn Reikowsky (1915).
  20. 1910 U.S. census, Albee Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, household of Aaron Jones.
  21. 1920 U.S. census, Taymouth Township, Saginaw County, Michigan.
  22. 1930 U.S. census, Taymouth Township, Saginaw County, Michigan.
  23. Michigan death records, Aaron Jones, 8 Jun 1933, Fosters, Saginaw County.
  24. Michigan death records, Margaret Jane Jones, 2 Feb 1936, Taymouth Township; cause: cardiac failure.
  25. Taymouth Township Cemetery records, Margaret Jane Jones, burial 5 Feb 1936.
  26. Saginaw County, Michigan, marriage record, Marie Irene Jones and Raymond L. Hickmott, 26 May 1930.

Anna Wortman Conklin Hickmott (1876–1914)

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Seven births in thirteen years

When I first wrote about my great-grandmother Anna Wortman in 2018, I knew the basic facts of her life. What I did not yet understand was the order of her children, the circumstances of her death, or what happened to the family afterward.

Those details turn a timeline into a story.

Anna E. Wortman was born 10 October 1876 in Dryden, Lapeer County, Michigan, the daughter of John T. Wortman and Eleanora D. Gibbs.¹ Her father died when she was very young, and she grew up in a widowed household.²

On 25 March 1899 she married George Conklin in New Haven Township, Shiawassee County.³ The marriage ended in divorce less than a year later, on 16 January 1900.⁴

She married again on 22 August 1900, this time to Bert Hickmott.⁵ That second marriage would define the rest of her life.

The children, in the order they came

Anna’s first experience with motherhood ended in loss.

A baby born 5 May 1901 lived only briefly.⁶
Another, born 15 February 1902, survived just one day.⁷

Then came five children who lived:

  • Charles Frank Hickmott, born 15 January 1903 in Owosso⁸
  • Raymond L. Hickmott, born 15 October 1904 in Gratiot County⁹
  • Kenneth Hickmott, born 2 August 1909¹⁰
  • Della Hickmott, born 25 May 1911¹¹
  • John Hickmott, born 4 January 1913 in Owosso¹²

In thirteen years of marriage, Anna carried seven pregnancies to term.

The eighth ended in tragedy.

On 26 January 1914 she delivered a stillborn child.¹³ The hemorrhage that followed never stopped, and she died in Owosso on 2 February 1914 at the age of thirty-seven.¹⁴ She was buried there two days later.¹⁵

Five children without a mother

At the time of Anna’s death, her surviving children ranged in age from eleven years old to one year old.

Their father was unable to keep them.

The family’s circumstances had fallen into such poverty that the children were taken from Bert and placed in other homes. The five brothers and sister who had been born into the same household were separated.

Raymond, as an adult, searched for them.

He found Charles.
He found Kenneth.
He found Della.

Raymond, Charles, Della and Kenneth Hickmott
Raymond, Charles, Della and Kenneth Hickmott

But he never found his youngest brother.

John becomes Donald

That youngest child had been born John Hickmott on 4 January 1913.¹²

After Anna’s death he was raised by Anna’s half-sister. In that home his name was changed, and he grew up as Donald Riopelle — a different surname, a different identity, and a different story from the one his brothers and sister knew.

The separation was so complete that Raymond’s search never reached him.

What those thirteen years hold

From her marriage in August 1900 to her death in February 1914, Anna’s life was measured in pregnancies, births, and children to care for.

Two babies lost at the beginning.
Five children who lived.
One stillbirth that took her life with it.

Seven living children were never gathered around her at the same time.
Five children grew up without her.
And the family she created was scattered almost immediately after she was gone.

Looking at her again

The earlier blog post told me who Anna was.

The records — and the stories that survived in the next generation — tell me what her life cost.

She was thirty-seven years old.
She had been married not quite fourteen years.
Everything that came after her — every Hickmott, every Rivers descendant in this line — exists because of those years.

And because she did not survive the last one.

Sources

  1. Michigan birth record, Anna E. Wortman, 10 Oct 1876, Dryden, Lapeer County.
  2. Michigan death record, John T. Wortman, 11 Mar 1878, Dryden, Lapeer County.
  3. Shiawassee County, Michigan, marriage record, Anna Wortman and George Conklin, 25 Mar 1899.
  4. Shiawassee County, Michigan, divorce record, Anna Wortman and George Conklin, 16 Jan 1900.
  5. Shiawassee County, Michigan, marriage record, Anna Wortman and Bert Hickmott, 22 Aug 1900.
  6. Michigan birth and death record, unnamed Hickmott child, 5 May 1901, New Haven Township.
  7. Michigan birth and death record, unnamed Hickmott child, 15–16 Feb 1902, New Haven Township.
  8. Michigan birth record, Charles Frank Hickmott, 15 Jan 1903, Owosso.
  9. Michigan birth record, Raymond L. Hickmott, 15 Oct 1904, Elba Township, Gratiot County.
  10. Michigan birth record, Kenneth Hickmott, 2 Aug 1909, Genesee County.
  11. Michigan birth record, Della Hickmott, 25 May 1911, New Haven Township.
  12. Michigan birth record, John Hickmott (later Donald Riopelle), 4 Jan 1913, Owosso.
  13. Michigan stillbirth record, Hickmott child, 26 Jan 1914, Owosso.
  14. Michigan death record, Anna E. Hickmott, 2 Feb 1914, Owosso; cause: postpartum hemorrhage.
  15. Owosso burial record, Anna E. Hickmott, 4 Feb 1914.

Mary Jane Wakefield Stiles (1831 – before 1888)

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Mary Jane Wakefield was born 10 April 1831 in Randolph, Orange County, Vermont, the daughter of James Wakefield and Lucy L. Wellington.¹ She grew up in a Vermont family that was later divided by westward migration and by the Civil War, in which two of her brothers, Levay and Dana Wakefield, died in Union service.²

She married Wilbur F. Stiles on 15 June 1850 in Roxbury, Washington County, Vermont.³ By about 1851 their first child, Edward Eugene Stiles, was born in Michigan, marking the beginning of the family’s move west, although their daughter Emma Mae Stiles was born in Braintree, Vermont, in 1854.⁴ By 1858 they were again in Michigan, and in 1861 they were living in Albee Township, Saginaw County, where two of their young sons, Ervin and David, died.⁵

In 1864 Mary Jane’s mother purchased land near Sand Lake in Iosco County and established a household there.⁶ By 1870 Mary Jane and her children were living in Grant Township, Iosco County.

On 21 May 1870 her husband died there by suicide, having swallowed poison.⁷ He was recorded in the 1870 mortality schedule, and a notice in the Jackson Citizen reported the death of “William Stiles” near Sand Lake, ten miles west of Tawas City — a location that corresponds to the family’s residence.⁸ The mortality schedule and the Iosco County death record identify him as Wilbur (or Wilber), confirming the identity.⁹

When the 1870 census was taken, Mary Jane appeared as head of household in Grant Township. She was forty years old, born in Vermont, and keeping house. In the home were three of her children: Edward Eugene, working on the farm; Emma; and six-year-old William. Also living with them was George Lawhead, a twenty-five-year-old farm laborer born in New York. The family held real estate valued at $200, and the post office was listed as Tawas.¹⁰

By 1880 Mary Jane had returned to Albee Township, Saginaw County, where she was enumerated as head of household, a widow born in Vermont with both parents also born in Vermont.¹¹ In the previous year she had lost both of her parents.¹²

Her daughter Emma Mae died in Saginaw County on 6 April 1886.¹³ Mary Jane herself died sometime before 1888, when she no longer appears in the records.

Sources

  1. Vermont Vital Records, 1720–1908, birth of Mary Jane Wakefield, Randolph, Orange County, Vermont.
  2. U.S. Civil War service and death records for Levay Wakefield and Dana A. Wakefield.
  3. Vermont marriage record, Roxbury, Washington County, 15 June 1850, Wilbur F. Stiles and Mary Jane Wakefield.
  4. Birth records and later census records for Edward Eugene Stiles; Vermont vital record for Emma Mae Stiles, Braintree, 11 May 1854.
  5. Michigan death and burial records for Ervin Stiles (1861); David F. Stiles deceased before the 1870 census; residence in Albee Township, Saginaw County.
  6. Iosco County land purchase by Lucy L. Wellington, 1864.
  7. 1870 U.S. mortality schedule, Iosco County, Michigan, entry for Wilbur (Wilber) Stiles; Michigan death record, Iosco County.
  8. Jackson Citizen, 31 May 1870, notice of the suicide of “William Stiles” near Sand Lake.
  9. Correlation of mortality schedule and county death record identifying the deceased as Wilbur Stiles.
  10. 1870 U.S. census, Grant Township, Iosco County, Michigan, household of Mary Stiles.
  11. 1880 U.S. census, Albee Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, Mary J. Stiles.
  12. Death records for James Wakefield and Lucy L. Wellington, 1879.
  13. Michigan death record, Emma Mae Stiles, 6 April 1886, Saginaw County.

Emma Mae Stiles (1854–1886)

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Emma Mae Stiles was born 11 May 1854 in Braintree, Orange County, Vermont, the daughter of Wilbur F. Stiles and Mary Jane Wakefield.¹ By 1858 the family had moved to Michigan, where her brother Ervin was born in Davison, Genesee County.² Within a few years they were settled in Saginaw County, the place that would remain associated with Emma for the rest of her life.

On 22 January 1866 Emma appeared before the Saginaw County Board of Supervisors and was paid $1.70 in witness fees, along with her father, Wilbur F. Stiles, and her brother Eugene.³ She was about eleven years old. This entry places her in Saginaw County at that date and shows her participating in a county court proceeding with other members of her family.

Emma married George Washington Lawhead on 31 January 1869 in Albee Township, Saginaw County.⁴

The following year brought a major change. Her father, Wilbur F. Stiles, died in May 1870 in Grant Township, Iosco County. The 1870 mortality schedule records his occupation as carpenter, his birthplace as New York, and the cause of death as suicide by poison.⁵ In the same year Emma and her husband were enumerated in Grant Township, where members of the Stiles family had gone as part of the movement into Michigan’s lumbering region.⁶

Emma became the mother of three children. Her daughter Margaret Jane Lawhead was born 2 July 1872.⁷ A son, Renaldo, was born 16 August 1877 in Albee Township and died there on 14 October 1877.⁸ Her youngest child, Effie M. Lawhead, was born 26 July 1879 in Albee Township.⁹

In 1880 Emma was living in Albee Township with her husband and daughters Margaret and Effie.¹⁰

Emma Mae (Stiles) Lawhead died 6 April 1886 in Saginaw County at the age of thirty-one.¹¹ No burial place has been identified.

Her life spans the migration of her family from Vermont to mid-nineteenth-century Michigan, her childhood in Saginaw County, the move north to Iosco County at the time of her father’s death, and her return to Albee Township, where she spent her married years and where her children were born.

Sources

  1. Birth date and place from Michigan death record of Emma Mae Lawhead, 1886.
  2. Birth of Ervin Stiles, 19 May 1858, Davison, Genesee County, Michigan.
  3. Saginaw Courier, proceedings of the Saginaw County Board of Supervisors, 22 January 1866; witness fees for W. F. Stiles, Emma Stiles, and Eugene Stiles.
  4. Saginaw County, Michigan, marriage record, George W. Lawhead and Emma M. Stiles, 31 January 1869.
  5. 1870 U.S. mortality schedule, Grant Township, Iosco County, Michigan, Wilbur Stiles; cause of death “suicide by poison.”
  6. 1870 U.S. census, Grant Township, Iosco County, Michigan, George W. Lawhead household.
  7. Birth of Margaret Jane Lawhead, 2 July 1872, Michigan.
  8. Birth and death of Renaldo Lawhead, Albee Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, 1877.
  9. Birth of Effie M. Lawhead, 26 July 1879, Albee Township, Saginaw County, Michigan.
  10. 1880 U.S. census, Albee Township, Saginaw County, Michigan, George W. Lawhead household.
  11. Michigan death record, Emma Mae Lawhead, 6 April 1886.

Eleanora D. Gibbs (1854–1914)

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Eleanora D. Gibbs, daughter of Lester Gibbs and Mary Conly, was born 19 February 1854 in Sterling, Cayuga County, New York.¹

By 1860 she was living in Dryden Township, Lapeer County, Michigan, in the household of her uncle, Philo Gibbs, and his wife, Mary Jane.² Her father, Lester Gibbs, was also in the household.² In 1865 she was in Sterling, Cayuga County, New York, in the household of her mother.³ She returned to Lapeer County before her marriage.

On 22 August 1869 she married John T. Wortman in Lapeer County.⁴ In 1870 John and Eleanora were living in Dryden Township in their own household.⁵ The adjacent households were those of her mother, Mary Hilliker, and her paternal grandmother, Abigail Gibbs.⁵

Three children were born to John and Eleanora in Lapeer County:

Melvin David Wortman, 7 May 1873;⁶
Anna E. Wortman, 10 October 1876;⁷
John H. Wortman, 10 October 1878.⁸

John T. Wortman died 11 March 1878 in Dryden.⁹ Their youngest child was born later that year.

On 3 August 1879, in Dryden, she married John Henry Hand.¹⁰ In 1880 they were living in Dryden Township, where he was a farmer.¹¹ In the household were Melvin, Anna, and John H. Wortman.¹¹ The adjacent household was that of her uncle, Philo Gibbs.¹¹

Two children were born to John and Eleanora (Wortman) Hand:

Carrie G. Hand, 21 April 1881 in Lapeer County;¹²
Ezra Lessia Hand, 27 January 1891 in Lapeer County.¹³

By April 1888 the family was residing at 221 West Kinzie Street in Chicago, Illinois.¹⁴ They later returned to Michigan. John Henry Hand died 30 January 1891 in Lambs, Lapeer County.¹⁵

In 1900 Eleanora was living in New Haven Township, Shiawassee County, Michigan, where she appears in the federal census as head of household.¹⁶ Living with her were her children Anna E., John H., and Ezra L. Hand.¹⁶

By 1910 she was living in Fenton, Genesee County, Michigan, where she appears in the federal census as a widowed head of household.¹⁷ In the household was her youngest son, Ezra L. Hand.¹⁷

Her daughter Anna E. (Wortman) Hickmott died in Owosso on 2 February 1914.¹⁸

Eleanora D. (Gibbs) (Wortman) Hand died 18 August 1914 in Fenton of apoplexy.¹⁹ Her funeral was held at the Fenton Baptist Church, with services conducted by the Rev. Robert Davis.²⁰ She had lived in Fenton for the last fourteen years of her life and was a member of the Baptist church and of the Woman’s Relief Corps.²⁰ She was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Fenton.²¹

She was survived by one daughter, Mrs. Andrew Riopelle of Detroit; one son, Ezra L. Hand of Fenton; and two sons, John and Melvin Wortman.²⁰ The obituary also names two sisters, Mrs. Lillie Morrow of Holly and Mrs. Hattie New of Detroit.²⁰

Sources

  1. Birth date and place from Michigan death record and census records.
  2. 1860 U.S. census, Lapeer County, Michigan, Dryden Township, household of Philo Gibbs; includes Lester Gibbs and Eleanora Gibbs.
  3. 1865 New York State census, Cayuga County, Sterling, household of Mary Garner.
  4. Lapeer County, Michigan, marriage record, John T. Wortman and Eleanora Gibbs, 22 August 1869.
  5. 1870 U.S. census, Lapeer County, Michigan, Dryden Township, households of Mortimer Hilliker, John Wortman, and Abigail Gibbs.
  6. Michigan birth record, Melvin David Wortman.
  7. Michigan birth record, Anna E. Wortman.
  8. Michigan birth record, John H. Wortman.
  9. Lapeer County, Michigan, death record, John T. Wortman.
  10. Lapeer County, Michigan, marriage record, John Henry Hand and Eleanora Wortman, 3 August 1879.
  11. 1880 U.S. census, Lapeer County, Michigan, Dryden Township, households of John Hand and Philo Gibbs.
  12. Michigan birth record, Carrie G. Hand.
  13. Michigan birth record, Ezra Lessia Hand.
  14. Chicago, Illinois, residence record, 1888, 221 West Kinzie Street.
  15. Lapeer County, Michigan, death record, John Henry Hand.
  16. 1900 U.S. census, Shiawassee County, Michigan, New Haven Township, household of Eleanora D. Hand.
  17. 1910 U.S. census, Genesee County, Michigan, Fenton, household of Eleanora B. Hand.
  18. Shiawassee County, Michigan, death record, Anna E. (Wortman) Hickmott.
  19. Genesee County, Michigan, death record, Eleanora D. Hand, 18 August 1914.
  20. “Mrs. Hand Buried,” Flint Journal (Flint, Michigan), 21 August 1914.
  21. Oakwood Cemetery, Fenton, Genesee County, Michigan; Find a Grave memorial and gravestone.