Week 5 of 52 Ancestors - Mary Elizabeth Adkins Sargent

This is week #5  of 52 Ancestors for 2015 sponsored by Amy at No Story Too Small.  The theme this week is Plowing Through and my ancestor is Mary Elizabeth Adkins.

I come from a long line of farmers.  It would be easy to take the plowing theme and apply it to one of them.  But I think I will choose my paternal great grandmother Mary Elizabeth Adkins. I had thought about telling her story a couple of weeks ago when the theme was “Tough Women.” She met a lot of hardships and plowed right through. I also had to plow through a lot to get her story and I’m not finished yet.

Her story begins in May 7, 1859, in Indiana when she was born to Nelson and Jane (Williams) Adkins. She was the fifth of six children and she had two brothers and three sisters. Her father died in the Civil War when Mary was five years old. .  Her brother Henry was eleven at the time and quit school to help on the farm since he was the oldest son. In the 1870 census Mary is attending school. Most like her future husband is also attending the same school. In 1878 her brother Abner married Jane Sargent and the next year Mary married Jane’s brother Jasper Sargent.

Jasper and Mary’s first child, Etha, was born in 1878. In the 1880 census Jasper is listed as a farmer and they are living next to his parents. In 1881 their second daughter Emma Jane is born and a year later a son, Asa. Then at two year intervals comes Johanna, James, and Donald  In 1889 Jasper is appointed Postmaster at Keck’s Church, Martin Co., Indiana. In 1894 he runs for Sheriff of Martin County but is defeated. He does, however, become a deputy sheriff.  That same year their daughter Emma died of diphtheria,. Their seventh and last child, Hobart, was born in 1896, eight years after Donald and Hobart  is 18 years younger than his oldest sister, Etha,  who had married the year before he was born. In fact Mary’s baby was born just seven months after her first grandchild, Luther Taylor was born.  

In July 1897 Mary’s first grandchild dies. Just six months later in October 1897, Etha’s second grandchild, Erna, is born.  Mary went to help out when the baby was six months old because Etha’s husband, Luther Taylor, was ill with tuberculosis.  Mary was doing dishes and Etha was in the bedroom nursing the baby.  Suddenly Etha yells out for help, Mary rushes in thinking there is a problem with the baby, and there was Etha lifeless on the bed. Mary has now lost her second child and takes the grandchild to raise; Erna is just a year younger than Mary’s own son, Hobart.Tragedy strikes Mary again just nine months later.  Her husband Jasper dies at age 41. Family stories are that he died of a gunshot wound, that was not fatal, but he developed blood poisoning from it. It was also rumored that Jasper was shot by a jealous husband because he thought that Jasper was “seeing” his wife. I have not found an obituary for Jasper and cannot confirm the story.  The only newspaper article states that “Jasper is ill with high fever and not expected to survive.” Jasper was buried in Old Salem Cemetery in Martin County, Indiana.

Mary had gone to help her daughter and now Mary’s mother, Jane Adkins, at age 72, is living with Mary and helping with the four children still in the house. So there are four generations living in the house. Johanna had gotten married in 1900.

In 1901, Mary married George W. Green in Martin County, Indiana. Other than a marriage record in Martin Co., I can find nothing about him or their life together which was apparently very short.. One possible record is a 1903 directory for Evansville, Indiana, showing a Mary Green, widow of George livng at 106 U. 2d. Don't know what that address means and more work needs to be done.  As I mentioned earlier, there are still stories to be discovered.

Mary’s son Asa also was married in 1901 in Martin County, Indiana followed by her son James in 1905 in Linton, Greene, Indiana. But again tragedy strikes in 1908 when her son Asa was involved in a mine accident,  a mine car broke loose, hit him in the leg, and broke it in several places. He contracted blood poisoning and died leaving a wife and three children.

In 1909  Donald married Bertha Houchin. Bertha met Donald while she was helping her sister Amelia after the birth of her daughter in 1906 in Linton. So it appears that Mary was living in Linton at least by 1905. But I cannot find her in the 1910 census. 

Then in 1913 Mary’s  daughter Johanna died during childbirth, leaving four children ages 12 to 1 day.The infant Ruth, was raised by Mary’s son and his wife, Donald and Bertha Sargent.  A year later Johanna’s husband dies. So Donald and Bertha take their nephew to raise and the other children go to other relatives. Erna, the granddaughter Mary raised,  married in 1916.

For years I have searched for a picture of Mary Elizabeth. Just recently, while going through my Dad’s genealogy papers, I found a photo copy of a picture.  As far as I know, it is the only picture that he or my Aunt have seen.  It is a picture of Mary holding her first great grandchild, the son of Erna Taylor Duncan - Morris Donald Duncan, born in 1918.

Hobart’s 1918 World War I registration says his mom is living in Linton, Greene, Ind.and is using the last name Sargent not Greene. In 1919 the youngest child Hobart marries and a year later, Mary is enumerated in the 1920  census living with Hobart and his new wife in Evansville, Vanderburgh, Indiana . Mary’s last name is Sargent and she is listed as widow.

The two Christmas cards below tell us where Mary was living in 1921 and 1924. The first card sent in 1921 is from her sister and addressed to Mary in Evansville. The second one if from a grandchild ad addressed to Mary in Linton and in care of her son James. Both cards are very hard to read but the addresses are clear.

Then in 1927 Mary is living with her son Donald in Linton, Indiana. Her obituary states she was living there at the time of her death 18 January 1927.

So Mary, like many farmers wives, gave birth to a large family, then lost her husband at an early age. She also saw the death of several of her children and raised a grandchild. She remarried and was widowed again or divorced and then alternated living with her three sons. She plowed through and I will continue to do the same to find more of her story.