52 Ancestors (2020) – Week 10: Strong Woman

This is my third year working on this year-long prompt, hosted by Amy Johnson Crow. I will write each week in one of my two blogs, either Mam-ma’s Southern Family or at My Trails Into the Past. I have enjoyed writing about my children’s ancestors in new and exciting ways.

This week’s theme is strong women. What makes a woman strong? Does having more than ten children? How about losing a child or two to disease or accident? Or perhaps raising a family without a husband? How about traveling from place to place and making a new home at each?

Mary Nicholas Davey had fifteen children during her lifetime, with only seven living to adulthood. I image that would make a person strong. How does one carry on after losing so many children to early childhood diseases. She and her husband Thomas had three sons they named Edward, probably after her father, who all succumbed to some unknown ailment. After that, they did not try to name another child Edward, though they lost the next three boys, James, Charles, and Samuel, too. In all, they had five daughters and two sons lived to adulthood.

Anna Sullivan Hork raised four children, three daughters and one son, alone after separating from her husband, William Cyril Hork due to his drinking. It was her faith that kept her going. Prayers, Mass, and working hard, provided for her children. She had some help from her brother-in-law, Virgil Quigley at first, but did manage on her own, and with the help of her oldest daughters, who watched after the youngest son.

Elizabeth McCormack Johnston moved several times in her lifetime, from where she was born in South Carolina to someplace in Alabama where her children were born, to Yalobusha County, Mississippi where her husband, Samuel bought land and raised crops, to Titus County, Texas, where he died, and finally to Comanche County, Texas, where she lived with her unmarried sons until her death. Each move meant starting over but also the hope for a better life. Her family thrived in Texas, with five of her seven children finding spouses and raising families.

I may not know much about these women, who did not leave diaries or journals, but they lived their lives to the fullest and their offspring benefited from their strength.

Alphonse Legros (1837 – 1911) “Little Shelter (Le petit hangar)” 

imaged at images.nga.gov

Copyright © 2020 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.