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Friday, March 13, 2009

Ripples in the pool of life





How long after you are gone
will ripples remain as evidence
that you were cast into the pool of life?
G.M. Bright


According to family tradition, 25-year-old Phoebe gave birth to a baby girl on the 17th day of January in the year 1874, presumably on the Merrill family home place in Maine . . . at that time, Phoebe had already been married and had a son, but for reasons we will probably never know, the new baby girl went home with Phoebe's older sister, to be raised by Lizzie* and Peter as their own daughter . . . that baby girl grew up to become the woman my Mom still refers to as her "Grammie Smith" -- Eva May Smith nee "Brackett" . . .


Eva was raised in the household of a veteran of the war between the states, who was himself a son of a Revolutionary soldier . . . as a result of her adoptive father's service in the Fifth Maine, Eva and her family had access to one of the sleeping rooms in the Queen Anne Style cottage built by the Fifth Maine as a reunion hall and summer cottage on Peaks Island . . . and there they went on frequent outings during the summers of Maine . . .

Eva married in 1894, and was partners with her husband in the family landscaping and florist business . . . Eva's "mother" (i.e., Aunt), Lizzie -- aka Elizabeth -- died in 1911, and in 1912 Eva gave birth to her 2nd surviving child, a baby girl she named Elizabeth Marilla . . . Eva continued to run the florist business following the 1920 death (at his own hand) of her husband . . . even after 1920, Eva would load up her widowed father and her children in the family car for a trip to Peaks Island . . . Eva's father, Peter Brackett, died in 1927 . . .




In July of 1929, a few months shy of her 17th birthday, Elizabeth married a handsome sailor from Texas . . . in 1930 their son was born in Lynn, Massachusetts . . . in 1931, following a 4-year stint in the U.S. Navy, her husband came "home" to the apartment they shared with Eva in Lynn . . . early in 1932 Elizabeth gave birth to her 2nd child, a baby girl named Roberta Mae . . . and three days later, Elizabeth was dead . . .


Roberta and her brother and father continued to make their home with "Grammie Smith" at least until the father remarried late in 1934 . . . Grammie Smith -- aka Eva May -- died in 1936 in Lynn . . . she was laid to rest beside her husband and daughter in Saco, Maine . . .


The ripples are still spreading, Eva . . .
Thanks for being a pebble in our family pool . . .







This blogography was prepared during National Women's History Month as A Tribute to Women for the Carnival of Genealogy which is being hosted over at Creative Gene.

Remembering . . . on this date in our family history . . . the 13th day of March . . . in the year 1821, Olive Jane Goodwin is born in Saco, Maine . . . she is the mother of Phoebe (Merrill) Morse Tripp who gave birth to Eva May [Brackett] Smith . . . and Olive is also the mother of Elizabeth (Merrill) Brackett who raised Eva May as her own child . . .


*P.S. . . . the image of the lady identified as "Lizzie" in the collage (above) was shared by a cousin in Maine . . . this woman was identified as "Lizzie Merrill" but the cousin is not sure if it is the Lizzie who married Peter Brackett . . . please do contact benotforgot if you are able to positively identify this woman . . .

4 comments:

Judith Richards Shubert said...

Yes, the ripples are indeed spreading! I enjoyed this so much, Vickie.

You mentioned in a comment to me not long ago that you created your scrapbook pages in Picasso. I've looked at my Picasso account and can't find a place to do this. Do you create them in something like Adobe Photoshop and then just put them in your blog and they are automatically added to the Picasso album of your choice?

I'd really like to try my hand at this if you'd be so kind as to give me a little more direction. Thanks, Vickie. You are a doll. Does flattery work? ;=)

Bill West said...

Wonderful post, Vickie and I enjoyed your photo montages!

Judith Richards Shubert said...

Reading again and still enjoying every word and beautiful picture! Thank you, Vickie, for sharing all of your "Ripples"!

BeNotForgot said...

Judith, thanks for sticking around for half a decade :) Texas misses you!

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Copyright © 2001 BeNotForgot.com. All rights reserved.