Tombstone Tuesday:

Walking through Saint Vincent's Cemetery looking for monuments to fulfill photo requests we came upon this stone. No other stones close and no clue as to where J. F & E. F. BRIDGE are buried is seen.

Now I can hardly image having 12 children let alone losing 12 children. 

J.F. & E. F. BRIDGE lost just that many in a span of 28 years.

The deaths of these children started in 1862 with a one year old child dying. In 1865 two children, a 9 and a 7 year old were gone. A 19 year gap is broken by the 1884 deaths of four children. Four children in one year. They were a 7 year old, an 8 year old, a 9 year old and a 10 year old.  I checked for epidemics in the 1800's none are listed for 1884 all though TB, Malaria or Scarlet fever could happen at any time none were listed as significant that year.

By now the Bridges had lost 6 children between 10 and 1 year(s) of age at the time of their deaths.

A reprieve for 6 years allowed the rest of the family to continue to age.

But then came 1890 and the death of 5 more of the children.

An 8, a 10, a 12 a 19 and a 20 year old all died in 1890. 

Can you even imagine going through that after a gap of 6 years to recover from the loss of the last 4 deaths?

There was a flu epidemic in 1889 and one of Diphtheria in 1890 that continued through until 1895. Typhoid Fever was a problem in these years, also.

The couple continued to have new births through out this time with the last birth of the expired children in 1882.

How many children did this family have? Did any make it through adulthood to have their own families?

One of my ancestors had 16 children and 1 died in infancy, two I don't know their death dates yet. Another ancestor had 14 children and 3 died before adulthood. In all my genealogical research I've never seen this many from one immediate family.  I do know there is a story that my family had a history of herbalists to treat patients and mid wife. The chemicals/medications we currently used had their start from natural items.

We know childhood diseases were more prevalent before chemotherapeutic treatments were discovered and used. Penicillin was first used in 1942 for soldiers.No matter the problems and controversies over immunizations they have decreased childhood deaths significantly.

I understand families lost babies and it was an expected loss but I can't fathom the devastation of  losing 12 children.

Please, comment if you know of other diseases of these years. I'd like to know more!

Thanks for reading our post.

Have a good healthy day!

Update on: Its not always what it seems or it pays to dig deeper...

The day my husband found this marker at West Newton Cemetery he called me and together we did the "Happy Dance"!  On it is my 3rd great grandfather and grandmother, and my 2nd great grandfather and grandmother.

 I was always told our path to DAR was through Simon McGrew. It is actually through Simon McGrew Cochenour and then his mother Elizabeth Mains then on through Mains until we find Robert Means, our Patriot.

By looking at the stone,  it is relatively new and in great shape. So we thought that some one had placed a new stone on the family plot to replace an old weathered most likely unreadable stone(s) of those buried there. But that's not what this story is about. If you've followed our blogs on R.I.P. you know we did the "Happy Dance" when we found my third Great-Grandmother's, Eliza Duff Frew, marker in the Laurel bushes.    
http://restinginwestmoreland.blogspot.com/2011/09/surname-saturday-finding-frews.html

We had done so much research and got to the point we needed to meet with a family member that has collected all the family data and pictures of our family on my mom's side. So we  visited with the family member to compare notes. We told her we found Eliza Frew, mother of Catherine (Frew) Cochenour, on the pictured stone. She was of the opinion that one of Eliza's great grandchildren (a Davis baby) was buried with her! So off to the cemetery we go.

Going through the old cemetery books with the most helpful caretaker we realized there were 17 people in three different plots.

First at checking Eliza's and her husband J G Frew's site we found 3 adults and two babies interred there. . But the babies were the Frew's two infants  not their great grand child. (We hadn't known about them) The third adult was their married daughter, Olive Caddis. We know in the 1880 census Olive and her three children were living with her parents. Where is Mr. Caddis, Olive's husband? To top that off, the monument only had Eliza Frew's info engraved on it. It had three blank sides. Is this monument for all 5 of them?Or is the blank, weathered and sugared marble monolith beside her's the babies? Olive's? More questions.

So to the next plot we go: the Cochenour's.(as shown in the first picture) We find out there are actually two separate groups of burial's.

One belonged to Catherine Frew Cochenour, Eliza's daughter. 

In The Catherine (Frew) and Simon McGrew Cochenour lots were two adults and 6 babies! Three of these babies are their grandchildren, by their daughter Neva Pearl (Cochenour) Davis, the three Davis babies are Robert, Brynley and Chester Davis.. There were 3 other babies:  George W. Cochenour (baby), Kate Cochenour  (baby) and a baby boy Yukanalis ??. Two were children of Catherine and Simon we never heard of before now and one listed as baby Yukanalis! Who was this? There hasn't been anyone by that name in all of our genealogy research!

In the adjoining lot, the second group of burials: 

I was surprised to find out that Daniel Cochenour and Elizabeth (Mains) Cochenour where buried  with a baby Cochenour  and a Mrs.Kelly ??. Who is Mrs. Kelly?


 If you've been doing your genealogy, as you have come upon much sought information, and done that 'happy dance", you will usually find the very best info almost always comes with more questions that lead to more paths of info to pursue. We now have more questions than we started with at the beginning of this quest. So keep in mind in your genealogical research things may not always be as they appear.

Thank you for reading our blog. See you next time!

Update on baby Yukanalis!

Went to our family reunion this weekend and got new info on the baby with Catherine (Frew) & Simon McGrew Cochenour.

The baby was a child of Alice Cochenour & Thomas Paul Yuknalis.
They, too, are buried in West Newton Cemetery.

We have looked but have not found the names of her parents and exactly how she is related to Catherine Cochenour.

So another mystery solved but more questions.

We'll keep on looking for the answers...

Again thank you for visiting our blog. And don't underestimate all kinds of sources for genealogy research. Happy hunting!