From Amy Johnson Crow: "The theme for Week 19 is "Nurture," a good time to highlight the kind, helpful souls in the family tree. Another way you could interpret this is an ancestor who was helped by a nurturing, encouraging person, like a teacher."
Hmmm.....This week's prompt is a little tricky. I think I can manage to write something. There's so many people I can talk about. It's hard for me to pick just ONE nurturing ancestor. My parents and grandparents have always been nurturing, supportive and everything. This one is a bit tough to write as I really don't want to leave anyone out. So, here is what I am going to do instead. This post is going to be a sequel to Week 16: Out of Place.
During that blog, I alluded to how my great-grandfather, Austin Felker, was raised by his grandfather and topic for a Francis Ford Coppola movie, Jeremiah Felker. I didn't go into too much detail as I didn't want to make the blog overly long.
Austin was born to Wilfred Felker and his first wife, Gertrude Frances Stevens on September 25th, 1892. Wilfred and Getrude married really young as he was twenty and she was sixteen. Not long after they were married, the two divorced. She went on to marry a guy named Walter Howard Senter and settled in Kingston, New Hampshire. Wilfred, on the other hand, stayed in Haverhill and married a woman named Mary Anna Porter Pierce.
You would think that after the divorce one of his parents would be given custody of Austin. That wasn't the case. When I looked up Austin Felker in the US census, I found him in the 1900 US census living with his grandfather. He was aged seven and his parents were nowhere to be found (In Haverhill, anyway.) Austin was again living with Jeremiah in the 1910 census. That was the last time he was seen living with his grandfather as three years later he married Henrietta Legault.
And the rest as they say is history.
I can only speculate what happened as I don't know all of the facts. Why was Austin living with his grandparents for ten years while his father and step-mother lived in the same town and started a new family? I've asked a few DNA matches I have who descend from Wilfred and Annie if they knew anything. They don't. I've asked my mother and she doesn't really know. I guess Austin never told her. It's a puzzle and there's probably some drama involved here somewhere.
Still, it's great to see that Jeremiah and his wife, Elizabeth stepped up and took care of Austin in their later years. Will I ever know the reason why? I don't know. The answers may lay in the city records in Haverhill and I'd have to make a trip there to find out what happened. That would be one of the many things I'd be looking up if I ever went. I'd have to go in waves just to be sure I got everything!
It's good to know that there have always been some kind, nurturing people in the tree. I'm not sure what Wilfred's issue was. But, like my mother said. Skeletons in the closet pop out when you least expect it. I suspect I might not find out why he was living with his grandfather. But, it is fun to speculate. It all worked out in the end. However, it is a good reason to go to Haverhill!
See you next time!
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