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.