While I was putting together the previous post on the descendants
of Jonathan Phelps West, I was struck by a few thoughts.
One was about the number of instances where West siblings married
siblings from other families:
Asa Atwood West married Matilda Barker Marston, sister of Abel Gage
Marston who had married Ann Matilda West.
Brothers John Cuvier West and Paul Leroy West married the Enman
sisters, Emily and Josephine.
Sisters Vienna Ames West and Clarinda Britton West married brothers
Willliam Russell Goodwin and Charles Henry Goodwin.
I'm not sure yet about the reason. A lack of more possible choices due
to the diptheria epidemics of the 1860's and the Civil War, perhaps?
Another line of thought started with the discovery of the World War 1
draft registration card for Paul Leroy West. He was 42 years old at the
time he registered, considerably older than his cousins Floyd E.West Sr.
(my grandfather) and David Richards. Was this because of the Spanish
Influenza outbreak among the American troops made it necessary to draft
older men?
Finally, while putting the list of descendants together I had occasion to look
at a letter I'd always attributed to Florence O'Conner.I posted the image of
it here back in 2007. As I read it again, I spotted something I'd manage
to miss before. The notation "my mother" appears twice next to the name
of Josephine Matilda Goodwin (Hanscom). So the typewritten pages weren't
from Florence O'Conner, who was not a West descendant. She comes from my
Ellingwood and Dunham line and I have a letter from her that was handwritten,
not typed. Whoever sent this information to us some thirty to forty years ago
was one of the Hanscom children.
I wonder if I can find out which one?
No comments:
Post a Comment