This old photograph was found with a few others in a box of yarn and embroidery floss given to me by my grandmother many years ago. I was told that the lady was "Aunt Jen" and the little boy was her son, "Roderick". It wasn't until decades later when I rediscovered the photo that I was able to really identify the subjects. Clara J. Long, born in 1870 in West Boylston, Massachusetts, was my great-grandmother's younger sister. She was called Jennie and at the age of twenty-three (sometime after the family had moved to Detroit, Michigan) she married Henry H. Hamilton, and they had a son, Roderick. However, the child supposedly died young and according to subsequent census listings, Jennie and Henry were divorced. Jennie died many years later in the care of a neice, elderly and suffering from dementia.
No other records exist on Jennie - the book is closed on her sad life. But she and Roderick will not be forgotten as long as this haunting image remains.
No comments:
Post a Comment