On Dec. 21, 1797 Leah and Charles Powell, Jr. are married in Mercer County, Kentucky. Over the next 21 years Leah gives birth to twelve children; two girls and ten strong boys.
In 1819, mysteriously to us, Charles Jr. meets an untimely death at the age of 45. Leah, just 43 years old, suddenly finds herself a deeply in debt widow with twelve children to support. Her youngest child, Goldman, is only two years old.
Unlike many widows of her time, Leah will not have her sons bound out to her neighbors for room and board. Stubbornly she holds all her children close. Her sons do work for the neighbors, but at night they come home to Leah's hearth. She and her ten sons keep the family together. In 1824, in hopes of bettering her situation, Leah takes Benjamin Viles as a husband. This marriage did not turn out as Leah had hoped.
By 1827, Leah's eldest daughter and three of her sons have married. She still has six minor children at home, the oldest being Cyrus, age 19 and she is a very sick woman. She is suffering form "dropsey." Today we call this congestive heart failure. She felt a heavy weight was pressing on her chest. She tried to breath deeply but was still starved for air. Her legs swelled. She had trouble walking. By February she had taken to her bed for the last time. Benjamin Viles, fearing he would be held responsible for Leah's debts, had already disappeared never to be heard from again.
Leah wasted away through the spring and summer, rarely if ever leaving that bed. By July it was readily apparent to all the family that she would not live long. Her family began to prevail upon her to move to her father's house where they could make her more comfortable.
She said "I will not leave until Jacob comes to take care of the children." Jacob, her 20 year old son, was working at the ironworks. Someone went to the ironworks and Jacob came to his mother's last call. She told Jacob her instructions for her property and caring for the children. Satisfied that Jacob would be there for her young ones, she went to the home of her father, Charles Hart, to await the end.
Less than two weeks later, on July 19, 1827 she drew her last struggling breath. Within the next day or two her family and friends stood over her grave and heard her father, Charles Hart, say "She was the best child I ever raised." This is the story of our greatgrandmother no. 6, she lived and died in Ky. Her children settled in MO. She was the daughter-in- law of Sarah Powell that I have posted about. these are the words my sister Fleta wrote about her.Charles Hart raised Leah but he was her Brother-in- law. Her fathers name was Henry Goldman.
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4 comments:
Ilove our history. And am proud to be one of them.
We actually think charles Jr. was
an alcoholic but it is only a guess.
The crosses were bear are heavy.
has someone in your famiy done research into your history or is it something which you've always known and told to each generation to keep safe?
Oh Claire, “The Three Sisters” have done an insurmountable amount of researching on our family’s history. The First Sister has spearheaded this effort and sucked the other 2 Sisters into this. Now they are as fanatical over dead people as she is. They have taken Family vacations and traveled to different states to view county records and visit dead people’s graves. I am a little surprised they have not dug someone up as of yet. If you ‘Google” Fleta Aday you will pull up several pages of her genealogy research. They all believe their data to be factual and do not want any proof that it is not because they do not want to start all over. They have even discussed having one of our brother’s offer up a DNA sample to post on the web with their research as proof the line is correct. I don’t think we have a willing brother ‘offering up’ as of yet tho…..
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