52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 10 -- Strong Woman

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When I think of a "strong woman," I think of all the women in my family who lived their lives without "all mod cons."[1]

Florence Ellen Johnson (maternal grandmother; b. 1901, d. 1992) worked as a short order cook in small town cafes most of her life, and even ran a boarding house back in the 1930s. She became the sole income earner for the family after my grandfather was permanently disabled by the Spanish influenza he contracted during WWI.

Amanda Biddy (center)
and Gertrude Elizabeth Wallace (right)
I've heard many stories about my paternal grandmother Gertrude Elizabeth Wallace (b. 1893, d. 1969) washing clothes in a kettle over a fire with lye soap she made herself. When her father died in 1911, she purchased a Singer sewing machine to sew for a living and provide for the family. (She was 17 and the oldest daughter.)

Her mother, Amanda Biddy (paternal great-grandmother; b. 1862, d. 1941), was seven years old when her father was murdered in Mason County, Texas, by "Indians" raiding along the frontier. Her mother, Elizabeth Williams (b. ~1836), was left widowed with six children. She remarried a few years later but died in 1878, suffering a heart attack while giving birth to her third child of the new marriage.

Sarah Elizabeth Cheeves, maternal great-great-grandmother (b. 1831, d. 1917), gave birth to 17 children. Talk about strong.

Julia Alexander Brevard (maternal great-grandmother; b. 1869) died of complications from childbirth in 1912 after giving birth to her eighth child. Her oldest daughter, Ada Wren Jones (my great aunt; b. 1891) also died of complications from childbirth three years later at the age of 23.

Footnotes
[1] All Mod Cons is the third studio album by the British band The Jam, released in 1978. The title, a British idiom one might find in housing advertisements, is short for "all modern conveniences" and is a pun on the band's association with the Mod revival. [Note: I think this is the second time I've referenced The Jam in a #52ancestors post.]

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