52 Ancestors 52 Weeks Week 11 Susie Mae Young 1897-1937
How
I would have liked knowing you in person, Susie Mae Young. I could have called
you grandma, grandmother, Nana or maybe granny.
It was not meant to be in this lifetime but maybe in the next.
On my
journey, I’ve hunted for you and found: Your birth was 19 December 1897 in Jefferson County, Alabama. You married John Henry Woodard, on July
24, 1913 in Jefferson County, Alabama according to your Alabama Marriage
License. I interviewed our cousin,
Henry Ross and our adopted aunt, Bertha Hodge who attended your wedding as six-year
old children. They both remembered your
special day. I forgot to ask why the
memory was still in their minds in their senior years of life and they have
passed on now.
Your
older children remembered you loving flowers and planting them
in your garden. I wonder whether I
acquired my love of flowers from you. They
recalled you hating West Virginia, the soot and dirt of the Fairmont mining
community. I wonder whether your dislike
came after the death of your husband due to black lung in 1932. You bore him eleven children, seven girls and
four boys. Your youngest child, my
mother was born six months after his death and missed the relationship she
could have had with both of you.
You
moved to Pennsylvania to begin again within a few years of your youngest
child’s birth. The death of your husband
left you without a home since you could no longer live in the Coal Mining
Company’s house at 26 Franklin Street, Fairmont, WV. Eli, and his wife, Carrie Woodard, a miner
and in some way related to your husband took you in along with your seven minor
children. Somehow and in someway you amazingly
made the courageous move to New Kensington with your underage children around
1935.
Your
youngest son remembers that you spoke with your eyes and the look clearly
communicated approval or disapproval. He
remembers you being a tall woman with a kind firm manner and a religious
mother. Proof is in all of your children’s
names coming from the bible and your participation in a Christian camp outside
of Pittsburgh. While I’ve hunted and
hunted no picture of you has been found.
It
has been on this journey where I learned you and your husband, John along with
your children visited New Kensington, Pennsylvania in 1920 and stayed with John
Williams and his family. Were they
related or were you all exploring opportunity to move to New Kensington,
PA? Labor issues were going on in the
West Virginia mines and that certainly could be a consideration. Later I learned there was a John Young born
in Alabama same as you that might have been related. Moving to Pennsylvania with underage children
meant being away from the only parents you knew, Matildia (Harris) and George
Freeman that lived in Idamay, WV. You
moved, lived on Eighth Street and worked as a domestic in a private home.
Who
knew that you would leave your underage children much too soon? You came down with pneumonia shortly after
your move. According to your son, Bill,
who went to get Dr. Harris to attend you, Dr. Harris didn’t come in time to
treat you. During
your illness, you designated a middle daughter, Naomi to care for and raise the
younger children. You saw something
special in her and were right for she fought to keep her orphaned younger
siblings together. You died on the 6th of January 1937 and are buried at the Union Cemetery in New Kensington, PA.
So
while I haven’t uncovered your biological parents or a picture, I know more about you
through my journey. I’ve become the
family storyteller and feel compelled to share what I know of you. The journey continues and think I will call
you, Grandma. You’re more than dates and
places and have a place in my heart.
