THE QUESTION OF LIZZIE ELLINGWOOD BLANCHARD REVISITED

About a year ago I wrote a post concerning the mystery of my distant Ellingwood
cousin Lizzie (Ellingwood). It began when I was contacted by two ladies from New
Hampshire,  Karen and Carol. Karen and her husband had purchased a house in Berlin,
NH and during the course of the remodel had discovered some old letters. The home
had been owned in the late 19th century by Fred Blanchard and Lizzie Blanchard,and the
letters were written by or to the  three Blanchard children. Intrigued by what she had found,
Karen and her sister Carol had started researching the Blanchards, and that led them
to my blog because of my posts about my Ellingwood family.

What especially puzzled them was the question of what had become of Lizzie Ellingwood.
The letters Karen and her husband had found were written after her death and Fred Blanchard
had remarried. I was able to help with finding out information about the children and Fred
and Anna(Hutchinson) Blanchard. They all had eventually ended up moving to Rhode Island.
There was no hint of what Lizzie had died from, when she had died, and where she was
buried. But Karen and Carol didn't give up looking.

Lizzie's grandfather was my ancestor John Ellingwood, one of the first settlers of Milan,
NH and he is buried there in a family plot. Reasoning that Lizzie might be buried in
one of the Milan cemeteries, Karen called the Milan Town clerk who checked the town
records and gave Karen a surprise: Lizzie had given birth to a fourth child, a boy who had been
born on 14Feb 1883 and died six months later. Karen and a friend visited Riverside Cemetery
later and found the boy's headstone but had no luck finding a gravemarker for Lizzie.

Karen's discovery also narrowed down the years when Lizzie died. Fred Blanchard married his
second wife in Jan 1886/ So Lizzie must have passed away between 14Feb 1883 and 10Jan
1886. Given that Fred would have mourned his wife for a year or maybe two, that narrows it
down even more to sometime around 1884.

One thing I think I can say for sure: Karen and Carol haven't given up the hunt for the answer
to what happened to Lizzie!