As I mentioned in my last blog post I was contacted via Ancestry by another 3rd cousin of my mother-in-law’s. This person is descended from a sister of Emma Burke. Emma was the wife of James Lawder.
Emma had an interesting life. Her parents were Grace Watson and Peter Burke. Grace was born in Liverpool, England and lived in Preston, England. Peter was born somewhere in Ireland, but had moved to England. Peter and his father Michael were both tailors. Grace’s father Richard was a saddler. Grace and Peter were married in Preston in 1840. It is believed that they had 8 children. Apparently Peter left Grace several times during their marriage and left for good when she was pregnant in 1859. Both Grace and her child died at the time she gave birth. It is thought that Peter also sometimes went by the name Phillip Brown, so perhaps he also had another family that hasn’t been discovered yet.
After Grace died some of her children ended up in workhouses and some died there. From the cousin in England: “Preston in the 1860s was struck very very hard by the cotton famine in the American Civil War. The cotton workers supported the blockade of the cotton from the south at the cost of their own lives and the poverty in Lancashire at that time was dire.” You can read about the Lancashire Cotton Famine at http://revealinghistories.org.uk/the-american-civil-war-and-the-lancashire-cotton-famine.html.
Between the cousin in England’s research and my research we think that Grace and Peter had the following children.
- Jane – Feb 26, 1843 (Assume she died young and her younger sister was named after her)
- Emma – April 13, 1845
- Ann Amelia – Sept 2, 1849 (She may have been called Hannah)
- Richard Watson – Dec 28, 1851 (He may have died in the workhouse in the early 1860s)
- Jane – Nov 20, 1853 (This is who the English cousin is descended from)
- Eleanor – 1856 (Haven’t found any birth records for her yet. She may have died in the workhouse in May 1861)
- John Henry – July 11, 1858
- William – Sept 12, 1859 (Baby who died with his mother Grace when he was born)
Peter Burke died in 1862, but before that, when he became ill, a letter was written presumably intended for Grace, not knowing she had died. It is not known what that letter said, but Hannah Watson, Grace’s sister, wrote back explaining that Grace had died and mentions some of the children. If you go by the children listed in the letter, Emma was the “eldest daughter” who was living with Peter’s sister (Mary) in Manchester. Hannah (Ann Amelia) was the “second girl” living with an unnamed sister of Grace’s (We think the unnamed sister was Jane Watson Baines who was married Feb 7, 1861 and in her mid 20s). The “boy and next girl at the workhouse” would seem to be Richard and Jane. And “the baby and next youngest” who had died would be William and John. Or had John already died before Grace did and Eleanor is the “next youngest” referred to in the letter? There is definitely room between Jane and John for Eleanor to fit, but no christening record for her has been located yet. If the letter was written in 1862 then Richard must have still been alive at that point. Note: Emma’s second oldest son was named John Henry, possibly after her brother who had died young.
When her mother died, Emma went to live with her father’s sister Mary in Manchester, England. Emma married James Lawder in 1866 and according to the 1900 US census he came to the US in 1867 and she followed in 1868, so not all that long after the Civil War ended in 1865. Emma may have been pregnant when James left because their son John was born in 1867 or 1868. Thankfully her husband didn’t abandon her like her father did to her mother. Another little tidbit of information: It does look like Emma was pregnant with their first child Edward when she and James got married. Looking at the marriage and birth certificates, they were married on June 17, 1866 and Edward was born on November 25, 1866, making her 4 months pregnant when she got married. Good thing James was a good guy.
Emma and James went on to have 15 children. I have only been able to identify 7 of them so far, so I assume that the other 8 died young. By the time Emma passed away in 1926 at the age of 81, only 3 of her 15 children were still living.
James and Emma’s son Charlie died after falling from a tree in 1901. Besides the tragic story about Charlie, the newspaper article I found about this yielded two other interesting pieces of information. First it confirmed that Emma had indeed had 15 children. The US census record from 1900 said she had 15 children with 6 who were living and the 1910 US census said she had 15 children with 5 still living. But the newspaper article confirmed that those numbers were indeed true. (Emma’s sister Jane had 12 children, 9 of whom lived to adulthood.) The second revelation in the newspaper article was a big shock. The article states that Emma had been blind for 30 years! That would be since 1871. Her oldest two children Edward and John were born in England and possibly one more of the 15 children, but at least 12, maybe 13 were born in the US. I know her son James was born here in 1870. So at least 4 of the 7 children I know about were born after she went blind in 1871, and most likely several of the other 8 I haven’t yet identified were also born after she became blind.
Emma and James traveled back to England, presumably to visit with family, in 1904 with their daughter Mary(Mamie) and again in 1907 with their daughter Katherine. On the 1907 trip they were listed as being “Third Class” passengers so I did some digging and found some information about what the conditions would have been like. Apparently third class(steerage) conditions greatly improved in 1907 and the cost went down. Maybe that’s why they decided to go back again. They sailed on the Cedric, a ship on the White Star Line. From the website https://www.gjenvick.com/Brochures/WhiteStarLine/WSLServices/1907/ThirdClassAccommodations.html “In former days, the accommodation consisted entirely of what might be termed open dormitories, whereas now it includes good separate airy cabins; and the Third Class passenger is better off in most respects than the Intermediate of twenty years ago, while the fare is not more than was paid by his predecessor in the Steerage.” I think the conditions when they first sailed to the US in the late 1860s must have been much worse. The 1907 trip took 8 days. They left on July 18 and arrived in Liverpool on July 26.
James died in 1911 and Emma died in 1926. By the time she died she had been blind for 55 years. I don’t yet know what caused her blindness or what illness she died from. I haven’t been able to locate an obituary for her yet, but I plan to keep searching. The people listed as her heirs in her probate records were her 3 surviving children, Edward, Joseph, and Mary, and the children of her son John. I assume her other grandchildren were not given anything because their parents got money. Since John had already passed, what would have been his portion went to his children.
She must have been a very strong woman to survive her less than pleasant childhood and then have 15 children, only 3 of whom outlived her, and to have lived so many years without her eyesight. I think she is now my favorite family member on my mother-in-law’s side of the family right up there with my fascination with Peter Doxtater on my father-in-law’s side.
I’ll be taking some time off from blog writing until I have something new to post. Happy Holidays!