Cousin Emily Identified

With the help of clues in the Wood-Vincent photo album, I have been able to identify the Cousin Emily who, in 1870, wrote the letter to Mary Wood that I posted some years ago.

On one page of the album, I came across two captions: "Cousin Mary Ann Low" and "Cousin Emily Lowe." Both of those given names (Emily and Mary Ann) appeared in the letter. With the surname Low(e), it was easy enough to track down their household in Andover, Essex County, Massachusetts.

Emily's letter describes the death of her sister, Hattie, on May 11, 1870. The 1870 Census, taken in June, shows the diminished household:


(Click on image to enlarge)

A page from the paperwork dealing with Harriet's estate gives a fuller picture of the surviving family:


(Click on image to enlarge)
Ancestry.com. Massachusetts, Wills and Probate Records, 1635-1991 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015.

Two years later, Emily's mother Sally Low died. The record of her death states that her parents were Moses and Salley (i.e., Sarah) Wood,[1] meaning that she was a sibling of John Wood. That accounts for the cousin relationship between Emily Low and our Mary Wood Vincent.

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The photo album includes the caption, "Emily Lowe," but the photo it was written for had disappeared by the time the album reached me.


(Click on images to enlarge)

Mary Ann's photo remained.



The photo is undated, and I can't see enough to her dress to help me estimate a date; judging by her apparent age, I'd place this photo at circa 1885 or later.

Here's a puzzler:



There is obviously no Charles in that photo!

I'm guessing that this lady is Mary Low, the wife of cousin Daniel Low (cousin Emily's brother, mentioned in the probate paper above). She and Daniel did have a son named Charles. The family lived in LaPorte County. Unfortunately, the photo is a tin plate with no photographer's name on it. (According to information posted with Daniel's entry on findagrave.com, he was an interesting guy.) Mary's dress has the dropped shoulders and full skirt of the Civil-War era. Mary was about 55 years old when the Civil War broke out.

Two more missing photos:



I suppose this would be Joseph and Sally (Wood) Low; I'm just wondering why Alice Vincent Nesbit would describe them this way instead of calling them "Great-Aunt Sally" and "Great-Uncle Joseph."


This concludes our little side trip to visit the Low family.


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[1] New England Historic Genealogical Society; Boston, Massachusetts; Massachusetts Vital Records, 1840–1911, via Ancestry.com.