Elizabeth Granger Bemis - Part 2

In the realm of strange coincidences, there was another Granger living in Littleton Colorado at the time of Elizabeth Bemis, Gershom Frank "Frankie" Ford.  Frankie was the daughter of Charles Edward Granger, the uncle of William Granger, her father, and half brother of her step-mother Louise Hill.

Frankie moved to Colorado with her widowed mother and an older brother and sister. She married Carrie Ford and moved to Littleton, Colorado. They had three children before she died in 1917.

Both Gershom F. Ford and Elizabeth Granger Bemis are buried in the Littleton Cemetery in Littleton Colorado.

Elizabeth (Lizzie Josephine) Granger Bemis

The Edwin A. Bemis Library recently published  a digital copy of So I Took An Apple, the Autobiography of Edwin Arnold Bemis, the son of Elizabeth Granger Bemis. Edwin is my cousin - our common ancestor is Daniel Granger - me through his third son, Henry Hinsdale, Edwin through his oldest son, William Foster Granger. 

In this autobiography, Edwin speaks briefly of his mother’s family and states she didn’t know much about the Grangers but spoke fondly of her foster father Luther Hill. She chose to live in Littleton because of Luther and named her first son Luther Hill Bemis after him. Luther Hill was very important in her life, and he and his wife Louise were for all intents and purposed her parents. She remembered very little of her birth parents, William Granger and Samantha Stone. 

Lizzie Josephine, as a Elizabeth was known, was born in Hardwick, Massachusetts, on March 3, 1856 to William Granger and Samantha Stone. William and Samantha had two more daughters - Nellie Maria, born February 9, 1859 and Cora Louise, born November 28, 1861. At the beginning of 1865 William had a wife and three little girls. Within seven months his wife and two of his daughters died of consumption, leaving a young widower with a four year old daughter.  Apparently, William placed his daughter into foster care with Luther and Louise Hill.

William Granger was related to Lizzie's foster father, Luther Hill through marriage:

• William is the son of William Foster Granger and Elizabeth Mead. 
• William Foster is the son of Daniel Granger and Catherine Johanna (Nicholls) Granger. 
• After Catherine died, Daniel Granger married Fanny Mead. 
• Fanny and Elizabeth Mead are sisters. 
• Luther Hill married Louisa Augusta Granger, the daughter of Daniel Granger and Fanny Mead.

So William, Lizzie's father, is both the first cousin of Louisa Hill since her mother and his mother are sisters and her nephew since she is also his father's half sister. So Luther Hill would be his uncle as well as the wife of his cousin. Luther and Louise only had one child, a daughter, Louise who only lived for about six weeks in 1861. 

I imagine, William, an overwhelmed grieving widower placed his daughter with a childless couple he knew, loved and trusted. They loved and cared for his daughter. When he remarried I imagine, he was unwilling to take his daughter from her home. I believe she had two sets of parents that loved and cared for her. 

If you would like to read more about Luther Hill, he has a biography in History and genealogy of the Kent family : descendants of Richard Kent, sen. who came to America in 1633 by Dale, E. I. and Kent, Edward E., 1899.

Puffer adventures

So there is this vicious, oft repeated rumor that Edward Cyrenus Bagley is the son of Esther Puffer, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. About six months ago, I had deleted the connection in Family Tree and about three weeks later one of my well meaning cousins ignored all the notes and discussions and conscientiously restored the link. OK, they are working with the best information they have and they've been told their entire lives this is the TRUTH. I threw up my hands and went on to work on other challenges.

So, I recently was lured back to the Edward Bagley parentage conundrum. I had this thought - what if I carefully documented Esther Puffer to show she never married, never had any children, in fact never left Vermont? Would that be good enough? I dug up the Puffer family history, linked her family to their page, looked up the family in various census records and found some very interesting things:

1. Esther lived in Grafton, Vermont in 1850 with an Ann Puffer - most assuredly her older sister, Anna.
2. She was still living with Ann in Grafton in 1860, and a Sally Darling had moved in - most likely younger sister, Sally Puffer who had married Roswell Darling. 
3. Esther died in 1863. 
4. Sally died in 1861. 
5. Ann continued to live in Grafton, and we find her in 1870 with Amos Puffer - her widower brother and his son Winchester Sydney.
6. Ann and Amos are again together in 1880 in Grafton and Amos is feeling the effects of old age.
7. Ann dies in 1881.
8. Amos dies in 1889.

Very nice story - siblings pull together and care for each other through old age - probably signifying they were close. It would be nice if we could be on good enough terms with our siblings that we could take care of each other after our spouses died. 

I found something interesting with Amos record. Someone had carefully married him to Ann (no known last name). Apparently, they saw the census records from 1870 and 1880 and assumed two people with the same name and different genders must be married. They must not have had the complete death records for Amos and Ann, which listed the same set of parents, nor did they notice the widowed marriage status for Amos and the single marriage status for Ann in 1880. I guess the moral of the story is be careful and be ready to change something if further evidence shows your assumption is wrong.

Correct 18 May 2015, original stated Esther's sister was Ann Bagley, not Ann Puffer.