I received a clothing catalog in the mail today - Victoria's Secret. I wonder what my mother would have thought about the pictures in it. The most risque catalog I ever remember her reading was the Sears Catalog. From everything I heard about my grandmother though, she wouldn't have been shocked and neither would one of my great grandmothers, my mother's mother's mother. They were both divorced in a time that divorce was not ever considered. I didn't even know divorce was an option back then. My grandmother was born in 1883 and was married at 18. My great grandmother was born in 1860 and was divorced from my grandmother's father whose name was Thackeray and married another man named Dunworth. They all lived in Waterbury, CT and Mr. Dunworth lived with his first wife a few houses down from the Thackerys. What does this suggest? More than friendly neighbors? Maybe a secret but not Victoria's.
The woman on the left is my grandmother but you can't really see her face very well. She was about 23 in this picture. On the right is my grandmother's mother and at the time of the picture already Mrs. Dunworth. My real grandfather is in front of my grandmother and Mr. Dunworth is in front of my great grandmother. She doesn't look very old but he looks ancient and mean. My mother is in the middle. My grandmother and grandfather had another child, my Uncle Carl after this picture was taken. My mother went to live with her grandmother after the divorce. I don't know where my uncle was, maybe still with my grandmother. I think she must have seen a lot going on in those years because she was always very ladylike and a real goody-goody the opposite of my grandmother. My great grandmother owned a tavern and they lived upstairs. My mother never drank or smoked or looked at any other man except my father. She said it was from all those years of seeing those drunks from the window upstairs. Those years must have had a profound effect on her psyche. There is more to the story of course.
3 comments:
I love stories about ancestors who didn't always walk the straight and narrow. Especially in my own family history, stories like this make me feel like the responsibility for our family's good name doesn't rest on my shoulders; it's too late for that.;-)
Velvet: I wish I knew more about all those years. My mother didn't talk to me about them very much, but she did tell my sister-in-law in the years after I left home. I love geneology and the chase to find out something about those that came before us. I found out life wasn't much different than it is now.
In the 1920 census, Ezra is listed as 70. Grandma Dunworth's age 44.
Mary E. Bates Foote, Grandma Dunworths mother was 14 years old when she married Hiram W. Bates who was 37. When he died she remarried and gave birth to 8 or 9 more children.
I guess since the women didn't have jobs outside the home, they needed to remarry just to be provided for.
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