The last several weeks have been fun, busy and stressful….anything but conducive to writing a blog. Please forgive me for my absence. I had to giggle when my mom asked me what was wrong with my blog. She said all she could see was pictures but no articles and she wanted to know why! Thank goodness somebody missed my babbling.
Dear reader I would like to take you back several months. I previously mentioned that I had found a DNA match with a descendant of one of my great grandmother’s sisters and that he kinda gave me The Fuller (brushed me off, for the young ones in the crowd). He had never heard of Angelica Fritcher and since his grandmother didn’t mention Angelica in her writings, he seemed a bit non-plussed by my insistence of her and her extended family tree. Our conversation was not unlike a Geico commercial. Him: Everyone knows there are Fritcher’s Me: Yes, but did you know your great grandmother died in the state mental institute?
You can imagine the response that I got. Truthfully, he didn’t respond at all and that only served to spur me into action.
If you really wish to research your family tree, you can’t be a fearful researcher. You can turn up ANYTHING. Even in the smallest of families there are always skeletons of some variety or another. If you are a bit on the twitchy side and hopeful that unicorns and rainbows ruled your ancestry, it is best if you just step away now. Seriously move on!
Several years ago my dear friend Hannah (not her real name) approached me about a falling out that she had with her eldest daughter. She explained the convoluted circumstances of her first marriage and subsequent birth of her daughter. Turns out that her new “husband” was already married….Hannah moved on with her life, remarried and for all her daughter Casey (not her real name either) knew, the second husband was her father. At some point Casey discovered her birth certificate with her birth father’s name and she wanted to know what happened to him. Hannah told Casey she didn’t know much but shared what little bits and pieces of information that she did have. The daughter thought that since Hannah wasn’t honest about who her birth father was, that she might also be withholding additional information. They approached me about locating this man and I let them know on the front end that things could either end well or very badly.
I began searching with scraps of information and since it had been over 40 years since Hannah had seen Karl (an alias) the facts were slow to come. But the more we chatted, the more Hannah remembered. Sadly, Karl was all too easy to find because of the notoriety that he created. He murdered someone, was sent to jail; escaped, raped and murdered someone else. Ultimately, he died in jail but at a suspiciously young age. As I discovered each piece of disturbing information I asked: “Do you want to know what I have found?” It wasn’t for the faint of heart and I was empathetic towards Casey and her desire to know who her father was but also to show that Hannah hadn’t misled her because she was equally shocked at the findings. The “ugly” helped mother and daughter heal their wounded relationship and they thank me each time they see me. While there were no tearful reunions or happy photo ops with a long lost parent, Hannah and Casey were grateful for the answers no matter how unflattering and shocking they may have been.
I have no doubt that there were/are some naughty people in my ancestry, but I can’t tell you offhand who they are. But I do know that there were some issues with the Fritcher girls. Real or imagined, trumped up or rooted in undiagnosed medical conditions, at least three of the Fritcher sisters suffered from mental debility. I am loathe to call it mental illness since it is difficult, if not impossible to know what the underlying cause of their aberrations were. Did they have brain tumors, strokes, uncontrolled diabetes or epilepsy or perhaps even alzheimer’s?
Henrietta Fritcher was the 5th daughter of John Fritcher and Jane Hogle Fritcher born 19 November 1830 in New York, most likely Oneida county. She married Spencer Gibson, a stone mason, circa 1850 in Sangerfield, Oneida, New York. They would be the parents of 10 children; Lafayette, Blanche, Edith, Milton Spencer, Jennie, Henrietta, Alvin, Ida Mae, Ellen and Fidelia, with 4 of them dying before 1895. Sometime between 1863 and 1868 they removed to Clinton County, Iowa from Sangerfield, New York. In the 1870 census, Henrietta is living with her husband Spencer Gibson in Liberty, Clinton, Iowa with their children Lafayette, Edith Adel, Milton Spencer, Jane (Jennie), Ida, Clara Ellen and she is pregnant with her last child Fidelia. Blanche, Henrietta and Alvin did not live to see their first birthdays. By 1879 her eldest son Lafayette is a victim of a diptheria epidemic and one month after his passing, her husband Spencer dies.
Pause here
Imagine bearing 10 children…..losing 3 of them before their first birthday. Move halfway across the country from New York state to Iowa and rebuild your life. Have a baby at 40 and then before your youngest child celebrates her 9th birthday you lose your eldest son AND your husband within 30 days time. Plus both of your parents and at least two of your siblings are deceased. There are no cars, telephones, support systems or answers. Just tell me that your state of mind wouldn’t be fragile, because life has been anything but easy.
I am not entirely sure what happened with Henrietta and her family from 1880 until 1890. The records have yet to reveal anything of any interest and of course the 1890 census is non-existent. But by late 1895 there had been a sea change in the family and in Henrietta.
To be continued…….