Lately I have been researching my Mother's family who lived in New York. Unlike my father's family that lived and moved in the southern States, her family stayed in and around the Keuka and Seneca Lake area. Predominantly in the towns of Geneva, Seneca of Ontario County and Penn Yan in Yates County are where I find these relatives. Even still, with names such as Grady, Kelly and Cummings it hasn't been easy. Because of this my husband has often found me muttering to myself as I bang my head on my desk.
Recently I started to look into Jeremiah and Mary (Ginty) Cummings my 2x Great-Grandparents. According to the 1870 U.S. Federal Census they are living in Fayette, Seneca County, New York. Jeremiah is a farm laborer and is 30 years old. Mary is 25 and she is keeping house as well as caring for two year old twin daughters, Maggie and Lizzie and a six month old daughter Mary, (my Great Grandmother). Also living with them is Mary's sister Ann Ginty who is 14 years old.
In the 1875 New York census they have moved to Geneva, Ontario County and Jeremiah is still working as a farmer laborer. Everyone is five years older and the family has grown, Anna is three years old, Richard is two and John is six months. But then something happens, for in the 1880 U.S. Federal Census Mary is 35 years old, a mother of nine children ranging from 13 years old to one years old and she's a widow! Can you imagine the overwhelming despair she must have felt? The anxiety of how she would provide for these children is unimaginable.
Searching through Fultonhistory.com for anything regarding Jeremiah was just a bit daunting. But then in the Geneva Gazette for January 9, 1880 I find this:
Andrew Desmond it turns out is a Grocer in Geneva. Did Jeremiah owe him a considerable amount of money or was there more to it? Nothing else was found online so I'll have to return to Geneva to search for any court records.
Searching further through the newspapers I then come across this in The Post-Standard, Syracuse New York, June 1 1908:
It reads: "Geneva May 31-Word was received in this city to-day of the death in a private sanitarium at Wichita, Tex., of Jeremiah Cummings, formerly of this city___of whom nothing had been heard in twenty years and who was supposed to have been dead. At the time Mr. Cummings disappeared it was though he met with foul play and the family and relatives used all kinds of means to end mention of his whereabouts but without success." It goes on to say he was 68 years old and that he is survived by a brother, a wife, three sons and five daughters. No burial information is given. Also notably he wasn't aware of the birth of his youngest daughter and ninth child.
My next step was to contact the Historian of the Town of Geneva for any burial information for Jeremiah. Unfortunately she did not have anything but she made contact for me with her counterpart in Wichita County Texas. She wrote back that in Riverside Cemetery there is a Cummings buried in Section Q, Lot 300. His burial date was May 28, 1908.
Why he left his young wife and children will probably never be known. Why he traveled to Texas will also be a mystery. But my guess is that the family said to heck with him, he can just stay in Texas and rot!
Mary's life was difficult after her husband left. From the various censuses from 1880 to 1910 she worked as a domestic, a laundress and a cook. The younger children lived with their older siblings as they married and started their own lives. Two of the younger sisters lived with their sister Maggie, the three brothers lived with their sister Lizzie. Mary eventually lives her with her youngest son, Jeremiah until her death in 1914.
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| Authors own picture; St Patrick's Cemetery, Geneva, Ontario, NY Rest in peace Mary, you deserve it!
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What a sad story. I can't imagine having 9 children (gasp to that alone!) & then my husband leaving. I hope Mary was a strong woman & the family thrived in the absence of their father. It must have been a tough life.
ReplyDeleteP.S. Great piece of investigating!
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