The Forgotten
When I go to a cemetery to take photographs, I'm always drawn to the headstones of the people who seem forgotten. In Albany Rural Cemetery, there are many, many forgotten ones. I have taken pictures of quite a few headstones there that have not yet been added to Find-a-Grave (most of the cemetery is well-documented there). It makes me wonder if they have any family out there, anyone looking for a record of their life. It's sobering to think that one day all that may be left of your life is a solitary headstone in a single plot with no family around you.
I spent a fair bit of time on Saturday uploading pictures, adding new entries, and trying to find out if the person in question was forgotten, or had family to remember them. When I see a person's headstone with no inscription and no fanfare, it makes me wonder if they were impoverished or if they had no one to give care to the creation of a headstone that reflected their life. Take this one, for example:
It's a fairly nice stone, so I would think someone had to have a little bit of money to give toward it. If the family was penniless, there likely would be no marker at all. But it's very simple, and not in a plot with other family members. Maybe she was a simple person and really wouldn't have wanted an inscription or fancier stone. She could have picked this out herself and it was exactly what she wanted... no more, no less. When I pulled up her burial record, the only indication that she might have had a family is that she's listed as "Mrs." indicating she was married, at least at one time. Usually these burial cards have some indication of the family... a spouse, children, whether they are single or married, the name of the person whose plot the person is interred. In this case, there is none of that. Only that she died of pneumonia at age 61. According to the dates on the stone, though, she would have been 63. So obviously whoever created the stone didn't really know what year she was born (the burial record says she was born June 13, 1867).
Margaret O'Brien is a fairly common name, so I don't have much to go on to figure out who she was. The address listed on the burial card is different from any of the addresses I've found for Margaret O'Brien in the census records, but since it was nine years between the 1920 census and her death, it's entirely possible she would have moved. I do find a Margaret A. O'Brien in the 1920 census, widowed, renting a home at 54 Delaware Street. I have no evidence as to whether this is the same person, but if so that Margaret had three children, Alexander Rice (different last name is a clue), Margaret (working as a saleslady in a music shop at age 16), and Micheal (age 14). They also had a boarder named Alvie Lapont, a widower who worked in a factory as a paper cutter. They were one of three families who lived in this multi-family home, built in 1910, which still stands today (the white one with burgundy trim).
By the time of her death (if this is the same Margaret A. O'Brien), she was living at 43 Mulberry Street in Albany. That street doesn't actually exist anymore, but according to my handy dandy street history of Albany (Cradle of the Union by Erik Schlimmer), Mulberry Street was once in the neighborhood of Cherry, Plum, and Vine Streets, which are just a few blocks east from the Delaware Street location. So, it's entirely possible that a renting Margaret O'Brien might have moved from one street to the other over the course of nine years.
Now, again assuming that we are looking at the right Margaret A. O'Brien, I follow her son's name, Alexander Rice (which is slightly less common than hers) to an entry in the 1910 census. He is listed as a carpenter, and his mother Margaret is listed as a laundress with an additional two Rice children, Frances and Mabel. They are renting a house on Schuyler Street, just a couple of blocks from their subsequent addresses on Delaware and Mulberry (an elementary school stands there now).
I could continue on this path for quite a while, but by this point you may be wondering... why? This is a question my sister asks of me often. The honest answer is: I don't know. I just have a curiosity about people and their history.... who they were in life and how they ended up resting peacefully in the beautiful Albany Rural Cemetery under their nondescript headstone. Margaret A. O'Brien, laundress, widow of at least two husbands (Rice and O'Brien), daughter of Germans, renter, mom of at least five kids... I'm sure she never dreamed that 89 years after her death a stranger would be interested in the life she led. She probably worked very hard to support her children as a single mom and never asked for much. It was undoubtedly much harder for a single woman then than it is now.
So, I dedicate this blog post to Margaret and all the forgotten, hard-working moms who did their very best to make ends meet. I'm sure that Margaret's descendants are all the better for it. Maybe one day I'll take the time to figure out who they are and determine that she'd be proud of them. I hope so.
Forgive me missing a post yesterday... it took a little longer to write this one.
I spent a fair bit of time on Saturday uploading pictures, adding new entries, and trying to find out if the person in question was forgotten, or had family to remember them. When I see a person's headstone with no inscription and no fanfare, it makes me wonder if they were impoverished or if they had no one to give care to the creation of a headstone that reflected their life. Take this one, for example:
It's a fairly nice stone, so I would think someone had to have a little bit of money to give toward it. If the family was penniless, there likely would be no marker at all. But it's very simple, and not in a plot with other family members. Maybe she was a simple person and really wouldn't have wanted an inscription or fancier stone. She could have picked this out herself and it was exactly what she wanted... no more, no less. When I pulled up her burial record, the only indication that she might have had a family is that she's listed as "Mrs." indicating she was married, at least at one time. Usually these burial cards have some indication of the family... a spouse, children, whether they are single or married, the name of the person whose plot the person is interred. In this case, there is none of that. Only that she died of pneumonia at age 61. According to the dates on the stone, though, she would have been 63. So obviously whoever created the stone didn't really know what year she was born (the burial record says she was born June 13, 1867).
Margaret O'Brien is a fairly common name, so I don't have much to go on to figure out who she was. The address listed on the burial card is different from any of the addresses I've found for Margaret O'Brien in the census records, but since it was nine years between the 1920 census and her death, it's entirely possible she would have moved. I do find a Margaret A. O'Brien in the 1920 census, widowed, renting a home at 54 Delaware Street. I have no evidence as to whether this is the same person, but if so that Margaret had three children, Alexander Rice (different last name is a clue), Margaret (working as a saleslady in a music shop at age 16), and Micheal (age 14). They also had a boarder named Alvie Lapont, a widower who worked in a factory as a paper cutter. They were one of three families who lived in this multi-family home, built in 1910, which still stands today (the white one with burgundy trim).
By the time of her death (if this is the same Margaret A. O'Brien), she was living at 43 Mulberry Street in Albany. That street doesn't actually exist anymore, but according to my handy dandy street history of Albany (Cradle of the Union by Erik Schlimmer), Mulberry Street was once in the neighborhood of Cherry, Plum, and Vine Streets, which are just a few blocks east from the Delaware Street location. So, it's entirely possible that a renting Margaret O'Brien might have moved from one street to the other over the course of nine years.
Now, again assuming that we are looking at the right Margaret A. O'Brien, I follow her son's name, Alexander Rice (which is slightly less common than hers) to an entry in the 1910 census. He is listed as a carpenter, and his mother Margaret is listed as a laundress with an additional two Rice children, Frances and Mabel. They are renting a house on Schuyler Street, just a couple of blocks from their subsequent addresses on Delaware and Mulberry (an elementary school stands there now).
I could continue on this path for quite a while, but by this point you may be wondering... why? This is a question my sister asks of me often. The honest answer is: I don't know. I just have a curiosity about people and their history.... who they were in life and how they ended up resting peacefully in the beautiful Albany Rural Cemetery under their nondescript headstone. Margaret A. O'Brien, laundress, widow of at least two husbands (Rice and O'Brien), daughter of Germans, renter, mom of at least five kids... I'm sure she never dreamed that 89 years after her death a stranger would be interested in the life she led. She probably worked very hard to support her children as a single mom and never asked for much. It was undoubtedly much harder for a single woman then than it is now.
So, I dedicate this blog post to Margaret and all the forgotten, hard-working moms who did their very best to make ends meet. I'm sure that Margaret's descendants are all the better for it. Maybe one day I'll take the time to figure out who they are and determine that she'd be proud of them. I hope so.
Forgive me missing a post yesterday... it took a little longer to write this one.
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