Robert T. Bosomworth and Hannah Porter

Robert and Hannah Bosomworth
courtesy of Sarah Schorfheide Erwin

The above photo of Robert and Hannah Bosomworth, my three times great grandparents, is the “oldest” photo on my tree. That is, I have no other photos from any other of my three times great grandparents, and nothing beyond. Again, my thanks go out to Sarah Schorfheide Erwin for her contribution of this photo.

Robert T. Bosomworth, was born November 8, 1808 in Thirkleby, Yorkshire, England, and was baptised on the November 15, 1808 in the Ebenezer Independent Church in Sutton by Thirsk, which was Primitive Methodist. His parents were George Bosomworth and Alice Wright, and was the second eldest of a family of about eleven children, including Mary, Ann, Elizabeth, Hannah, George, Esther, Jane, John, Harriet, and another Elizabeth, born two days after the death of the first one. He married Hannah (also known as Anna) Porter on May 10, 1829 in Thormandy, Yorkshire. She was born on June 30, 1805 in Carlton, Yorkshire, and baptised on July 6, 1805 in Sand Hutton Near Thirsk, Yorkshire. She was the eldest child of Robert Porter and Mary Skipsey, the others being Robert, Ann, William, John and Mary.

Robert and Hannah appear to have had eight children, George, John, Robert, Charles (my great great grandfather), Mary B., Alice B., William P., and James. Robert senior worked in England as an “agricultural labourer” and then as a “coal merchant”. On December 19, 1853, they arrived in New York, on the ship George Washington out of Liverpool, with all of their children, except for John, who had died in 1845. With them, was Robert’s brother, John, and John’s wife Harriett and children. Also on board is Robert and John’s fourteen-year-old niece, Amelia Bosomworth, who is the daughter of their sister, Hannah, apparently born a year before Hannah’s marriage to George Fothergill in 1840. I don’t believe as others do that the George Bosomworth on board with them, listed as being “55”, was Robert and John’s father, George, who would have been about 76 at the time. It is much more likely to have been Robert’s son George, whose wife Hannah and children are on board. However, this George would have been about twenty-three. There is evidence of George the younger having been in America, but none that I have seen that the elder George was ever there. However, this fifty-five-year-old George Bosomworth could have been someone else, but I have yet to find another candidate. (Please let me know if your records show something different). There also seems to be some confusion among researchers about the identity of the Harriett Bosomworth, age twenty-four, on the passenger list, i.e. some people think she is John and Robert’s sister, Harriett. The Harriet on the passenger list is John’s wife, Harriet Oastler, who later married James Puckett after John’s death in 1864. The Puckett children on the 1870 U.S. census all have the first names and ages of the John and Harriett Bosomworth children.

The 1855 Illinois State Census shows Robert and his family living in Morgan County, and by the 1860 U.S. Census, they are living in Edwardsville, Madison County, where Robert is a farmer. He appears to have lived here for the rest of his life. Hannah died on July 6, 1888 in Edwardsville, and Robert died six years later on January 3, 1894. They are buried in Oak Lawn Cemetery, Glen Carbon, Madison, Illinois.

Faith Saunders' Pumpkin Pie Recipe

I’m happy to report that I found my only other family heirloom recipe, which is my great grandmother Faith Cook Saunders’ recipe for pumpkin pie. (She and my grandmother Lena Sarah Weyman happen to have been born one year apart). This is the recipe my mother always used when making pumpkin pie, and she used the pie crust recipe for all her other pies. Mom was a good pie maker, and I remember she always made three of any kind of pie at a time. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever tasted a better pie crust than hers. Her pies didn’t last. As you will recall, Faith was referred to as “Ma” in her later years.

Ma’s Custard Pumpkin Pie

One tin pumpkin 28 ounce

One teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon each: cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves

Four eggs, well-beaten

One cup white sugar

One cup yellow sugar

Four cups milk

Butter about the size of a walnut

Combine first three ingredients. Add eggs well-beaten with all of the sugar. Slowly add milk and then butter. Mix well and put in uncooked pie shells. Hot oven to start and cook until brown on top and set.

This makes three or four small pies.

Ma’s Pie Crust Pasty

1 ½ cups pastry flour

½ cup of shortening

¾ teaspoon salt

¼ cup ice water

Makes enough for two crusts, or one pie, top and bottom.

              

Lena Sarah Weyman's Pineapple Delight

I decided that when I wrote about my grandmother, Lena Sarah Marlow Smith Hart Weyman, that I would also post the only recipe I have of hers which has come down in the family to me, “Pineapple Delight”. This was a family favourite growing up. I will probably be posting more recipes from other family members as time goes on, including Faith Saunders’ pumpkin pie recipe, which will be my next blog. Recipes are another way of connecting with the past, particularly the women, as they have tended to have had less written about them over the centuries. If you, gentle reader, are in possession of such recipes, and would like to share them with me, and possibly this blog’s audience, I would be grateful if you passed them along.

Lena Sarah Weyman’s Pineapple Delight

½ Package of Dad’s coconut cookies crumbled in the bottom of a well-buttered dish.

Then put over this a mixture of:

¼ pound of butter

1 ½ cups icing sugar

A bit of vanilla

Two eggs, well-beaten

Over this, put:

½ pint of whipping cream, whipped with

A dab icing sugar and vanilla

Mixed with:

One tin of crushed pineapple, well-drained

Sprinkle remainder of half the package of crumbled Dad’s cookies over the top.

Make this the day before and keep in the fridge. Keeps well if hidden.

Lena Sarah Marlow Smith Hart Weyman, Part Two

As you will recall, my widowed grandmother, Lena Sarah Smith, (nee Marlow), had purchased her father’s farm in Lougheed in about 1929. As it happens, her father’s farm was next to the farm of my grandfather, George Leslie Hart, one of the most prosperous and well-respected farmers in the area. George and Lena were married in 1930 when Lena was forty, and George was fifty-three. On July 7, 1930 a terrible hailstorm struck the community, destroying everything in a strip ninety miles long and twenty-eight miles wide. This included everyone’s crops, and much property. Three days later, my grandfather was found dead in the hayloft of his barn from a gunshot wound to the abdomen. According to his obituary, the wound was self-inflicted. His son, my father, Harold Leslie Hart, was born later that year.

Of note, something positive involving the Marlow family did come out of the devastating hailstorm. Lena’s brother, and my great uncle, Joseph Robert Marlow, known as “Tom”, on realizing that the families of the area were now going to have a difficult time paying the doctor, came up with the idea of a health care plan. He had read about one being considered in a community in the U.S., and shared this with the local physician. It was thought to be a good solution, and on July 8, 1931 the Flagstaff Municipal Health Plan came into effect. It is my understanding that this was the very first public health care system in North America.

Lena, too, distinguished herself. She was elected to the school board in 1937, and was elected School Board Chairman in 1939, the first and only woman to hold this position on that particular board. My mother has told me that her mother-in-law was a very intelligent and “down to earth” woman, who was loving and not judgmental. I am also told that she and her children were all known for their senses of humour. This is certainly true of my father, (and my mother’s family, for that matter).

Lena Hart became Mrs. Thomas (“Tom”) Weyman on November 15, 1937, when she was forty-eight years old, and he was fifty-five. Tom was born in Whitehaven, Cumberland, England in 1882--an Englishman like her father. His wife, Catherine, had died in 1933, and they had had seven children: Donald, Doris, Mabel, Percy Douglas, John “Jack” Haig, Margaret, and Thomas Jr. Lena and Tom moved to Calgary in 1940, where Tom worked at the “Ogden Shops”, a huge rail yard that built and repaired locomotives and train cars. They lived there until at least 1950, when Tom retired. (Of note, Tom’s daughter Mabel married Lena’s nephew and adopted brother, Arnold, in 1943). I remember “Gramma Weyman” and “Grampa Weyman”. Here is a photo of me and my grampa:

Grampa Weyman and Yours Truly

Tom died in 1960, and Lena died on February 23, 1968, both in Alberta, and both at the age of seventy-eight. I am hoping that family members will read this blog, and contact me with more details of the lives of Lena and her family. Any help or feedback would be much appreciated.

Lena Sarah Marlow 1889 to 1968 Part One

Lena Sarah Marlow about 1910
Courtesy of Deb Ewanchuk

My paternal grandmother, Lena Sarah Marlow, was born on October 9, 1889 in Lynnville, Morgan, Illinois. She was the eldest daughter of Joseph H. Marlow and Anna Belle Bosomworth. (Her siblings are described in my posting on Joseph and Anna Belle). She married George Arthur Smith, likely in Illinois, between 1910 and 1912.

George Arthur Smith, born April 18, 1892 in Medora, Illinois, was the son of Martha Loretta Smith, (Smith was her maiden name). He possibly had a twin sister, Heneritta, (not "Henrietta" it seems), who died in 1899. Besides Heneritta, he had six other siblings, Della, Harris Russell, James Leslie, Estella, Joseph Milford, and Harry Andrew. These were all the children of his mother and her husband, William Asbury Cox, whom she married in about 1898.The first record I have of George Arthur is in the 1900 U.S. census, where he is living with his mother and stepfather, and his last name is Cox. He is the only child living with them at this point, as all of his younger siblings are born later. (There may have been a daughter born to the Coxes in 1899 who died the same year). His mother had married Wallace W. Gafney on March 1, 1893, and he is therefore a much more likely candidate to be George Arthur's biological father than William Cox. That George Arthur did not take the name Gafney seems to indicate that Wallace may not have been his father, or that he did not care for him, as Wallace and his mother did not remain married, as the the records show that he married another woman in 1903. His mother Loretta's family seem to have been among the first settlers in Macoupin County, Illinois, and prior to that to have come from North Carolina. So far, in a very preliminary way, as I have just started to look more closely at this line today, the Smith family seems to go back in America to the mid 1700's, and some lines to the mid 1600's. Other lines lead to Virginia and Kentucky, with some ancestors having fought in the American Revolution. I expecting to find that George Arthur's ancestors go back to the earliest days of America on his mother's side. I will add updates as I keep investigating the Smiths, mainly for the sake of my Smith cousins. (Based on this brief look at the data, it is starting to appear that it if George's descendants are interested in exploring his paternity, that they might find it helpful to do a family history oriented DNA test, utilizing the Y chromosome, on one of the male Smiths to see what surnames pop up). Although Lena's own family was newly American from England, the two men she married and had children with, George Arthur Smith and George Hart, both seem to have had deep roots in Colonial America.

Before Lena and her new husband starting having children, they followed her parents to Lougheed, Alberta in 1913, with the apparent intention of living there and taking up farming, but returned to Illinois. This may have been partly because his mother's husband may have abandoned the family to live with his mother around this time. (This is speculation based on the data and on a report from another Ancestry member). It appears that Lena and Arthur (as he was called) returned to living in Medora, Illinois, where they had their first four children Glenn Marlow, Joseph Vernon, Wilbur, and Roberta. Arthur worked on H.C. Warner's farm near Medora, and later worked for the railroad. They returned to Lougheed to stay in September 1919, where they had four more children, Dorothy, Byron William, Elwood, and Ralph. There is a good account of the Smith family story in Verdant Valleys In and Around Lougheed, written by my Aunt Roberta, at the following link: http://www.ourroots.ca/e/page.aspx?id=3517428. There is also an early picture of the family there. Unfortunately, Arthur drowned in Phouts Lake while fishing on May 14, 1928. That fall, the family's house burned down. Lena then bought her father's farm (he had passed away), and the older boys did the farming, but they were "dried out" in 1929.

Charles Bosomworth and Ann Dickenson

Charles Bosomworth and Ann Dickenson
courtesy of Sarah Schorfheide Erwin

The parents of my great grandmother, Anna Belle Bosomworth--Charles Bosomworth and Ann Dickenson, were both born in Thorton Dale, North Yorkshire, England. They both came with their parents to the same county in Illinois within four years of each other. Charles was born October 23, 1834 in Pickering, Thornton Dale to Robert T. Bosomworth and Hannah (a.k.a. Anna) Porter. He was baptised on November 23, 1834 in Thornton Dale. He was the fourth child in a family of eight, which also included George, John, Robert, Mary B., Alice B., William P. and James. Charles arrived in New York on December 19, 1853, on the ship, the "George Washington", with his parents, his siblings, and his uncle, John Bosomworth, and John's family. The Robert Bosomworth family first settled in Morgan county, Illinois, where Charles married Ann Dickenson on May 24. 1856. Ann was also born in Thornton Dale, Yorkshire, but on May 5, 1837, and was baptised there on May 7, 1937. Both Charles and Ann are living in Pickering in the 1841 census. Their families are therefore likely to have known each other in England. Her parents were Thomas Dickenson and Mary Piercy. She was the sixth of ten children, including John, George, Joseph, Thomas, Francis, Hartas, Samuel, Piercy and Hannah.

Ann arrived in New York on June 7, 1849, with her parents and siblings on the ship, Tyringham, having left England on May 3, 1849. They travelled via the Erie Canal, the lakes, and the Illinois River, to Naples, Illinois. From there the family settled in Lynnwood, Morgan, Illinois, where Ann married Charles in 1856. Her father bought a farm there, and her older brothers bought land adjoining, for a total of three hundred acres. Some of her brothers fought in the Civil War, including Hartas and Piercy, Piercy having fought at Vicksburg.

Ann had been something of a "brick wall" on my family tree for quite a while. The Bosomworths were all "low hanging fruit", particularly as several other researchers had already found out a great deal about them. The Dickenson family remained a great mystery until I started searching all permutations of the name "Dickinson" and "Dickenson" and even "Dickins", particularly on www.familysearch.org. I had had her as "Dickinson", but started having more success with "Dickenson". I was able then to find more records, including the whole family's passenger records. I even found a biography of her brother, Piercy, in a local history, Historical encyclopedia of Illinois and History of Morgan County, in which the family's journey from England was described, and his mother's maiden name was given, "Piercy".

Charles, known as "Charl" (pronounced "Sharl"), and Ann continued to live in Illinois until after the birth of their first child, Albertus Hartas, likely named after Ann's brother. They had a total of seven children, the others being Alice, Mary J., Irene B., Joana, Anna Belle, and Jessie. They moved to Springfield, Clark, Ohio by 1858, where Charles worked as a blacksmith, which was his lifelong occupation. They moved back to Illinois by 1867. In 1870s, they are living in Jacksonville, Morgan, Illinois, in 1880 they are living in Chesterfield, Macoupin, Illinois, and just before Charles's death, on July 17, 1905, he is living in Modesto, Macoupin. They apparently had lived there for several years, and Charles had acquired the village blacksmith shop. He was sandy-haired and known for his quick temper. He was said to be a good workman, and "would put shoes on the meanest horses in the county". Ann died on February 24, 1904 near Rohrer, Macoupin, at the home of her daughter, Mary J. Bosomworth Shepherdson, of the effects of a paralytic stroke incurred the summer before. They are buried together in the Blue Grass Cemetery In Modesto. (You can view the headstone at: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=BO&GSfn=c&GSpartial=1&GSbyrel=all&GSdyrel=all&GSst=16&GScntry=4&GSob=n&GSsr=1601&GRid=42915882&df=all&.

Many thanks to Sarah Schorfheide Erwin for providing the above photo, and for the delightful details about Charl from the text from her wonderful scrapbook.

Joseph Marlow and Anna Belle Bosomworth, Part One

Having written about all of my other great grandparents, I decided to write about Joseph and Anna Belle, not because I know a great deal about them, but because I don't. I have done quite a bit of research on them, and have broken down some "brick walls" on their lines, but I never knew anything about them until I read about them in the Lougheed, Alberta local histories, Verdant Valleys In and Around Lougheed, and Cambridge School District Memories. I hope to get to know them better over time. You can read the section about them from Verdant Valleys on line at the following link: http://www.ourroots.ca/e/page.aspx?id=3517328. There are biographies of other Marlows in the same book, but no photos of Joseph and Anna Belle. There are photos of both in Cambridge School District Memories, which is not yet on line, but I cannot reproduce them here due to copyright restrictions. It is notable in that both Joseph and Annabelle are descended entirely from Yorkshire families—Joseph having been born there himself, and both of Anna Belle's parents. In fact, they are all from the same general vicinity in North Yorkshire, which makes me wonder if there was some connection between them in the home country. This recent English, and more specifically, North Yorkshire, connection was surprising to me, as I always thought of my paternal grandmother's parents as Americans with longer roots in the U.S. It is also interesting to note that Joseph seems to have come to North America by himself, whereas Anna Belle's parents immigrated with a large extended family. All of them came to Illinois in the nineteenth century.

Joseph H. Marlow was born in Hawsker Cum Stainsacre, near Whitby, Yorkshire on August 16, 1853, (or 1854), the son of William Marlow, an agricultural labourer, and Elizabeth Johnson Marlow. He appears to have been the eldest of five children, the others being Mary Jane, Elizabeth, Benjamin, and Maria. It appears that all of his immediate family stayed in England. He arrived in the United States in 1875 or 1885, more likely the latter, and married Anna Belle Bosomworth in Modesto, Macoupin, Illinois on November 30, 1887. Anna Belle was born on May 5, 1867 in Woodson, Illinois, and was the daughter of Charles Bosomworth, who was a blacksmith, and Ann Dickenson, both born in North Yorkshire. Her parents had come to America with their own parents. She was the second youngest of a family of seven children, the others being Albertus Hartas, Alice, Mary J., Irene B., Joana, and Jessie E. (female). Joseph and Anna Belle were living in Polk, Macoupin, Illinois in 1900 and 1910 with their nine children, Lena Sarah, (who was my grandmother), Winnifred Anne, Maud Elizabeth, Joseph Robert, Dolly Belle, William Benjamin, George Johnson, Charles Frederick, and Zella Melba. (They later adopted their grandchildren, Arnold and Ruby, who were the children of their daughter Dolly, after her death giving birth to Arnold). Joseph was a "farmer" and Anna Belle was a "laundress" in 1910, with their two eldest daughters working outside the home as "housekeepers". Polk is in the same county as Carlinville, Illinois, where some of the children were born.

In 1912, Joseph and Anna Belle moved to Lougheed, Alberta, Canada, with all of their children, except for the eldest, Lena Sarah, who had married George Arthur Smith since 1910. (The Smiths came in 1913, and went back to Illinois, only to settle permanently in Lougheed in 1919). The Marlows purchased one of the ready-made farms from the Canadian Pacific Railroad, which came with a house, a barn, and planted fields. I strongly recommend that you click on the link above for the Joseph H. Marlow Story told in Verdant Valleys In and Around Lougheed by Sadie Gordon Marlow, his daughter-in-law and one of the teachers in the area, for a full account of how the Marlows came to the Lougheed area, and for an account of the lives of his children. It is brief, but full of details, and definitely worth reading. What I will add, and it is of note, is that the Marlow farm, located at Township 42, Range 11, Meridian 4, was right next to George and Melvin Hart's. I could not find the Marlow family on the 1916 Census of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta. I happened to be looking at the original census data for my grandfather, George Hart, and lo and behold there were the names of the Marlow family listed above. I did some searching, and I discovered that Ancestry had mistranscribed their last name as "Cardow", which I drew to Ancestry's attention. It is significant to our family history that the two families were next door to each other, as they would have known each other from 1912 onward as neighbours. It is also significant that after the death of Joseph, the death of her husband George Arthur Smith, and the burning down of her own home, my grandmother, Lena Sarah Marlow Smith, purchased her father's farm. She was thus in proximity to my future grandfather, George Hart, whom she married in 1930.

Joseph died on June 7, 1927 in Lougheed at the age of seventy-three, and Anna Belle twenty-six years later at the age of eight-six on September 4, 1953. It is likely that they are buried in the Lougheed Cemetery. (I would appreciate it if anyone reading this could verify this for me). Joseph and Anna Belle's story is still a work in progress for me, as are the stories of all my ancestors, and I hope to add updates as I go along.