Annie Eliza (Jose) Crane (1846 - 1941) Memoir

The Emery Homestead in Buxton, Maine

Every once in a while I get email from someone who finds a “cousin connection” to my family tree via my blog.  Sometimes they send me interesting stories, but this time it was so fascinating that I wanted to post it on my blog.   Emery Schweig of Danbury, Connecticut connected to me through our common ancestor Anthony Emery (1601 – 1680) of Newbury, Dover, Kittery and Portsmouth.  Her grandmother Annie Eliza Jose was born in Buxton, Maine which was settled by Emery descendants.   Emery introduced herself in her email as my “one millionth cousin”, but if I figured out the kinship correctly we are eighth cousins.

This memoir was written in 1930 by Annie Eliza (Jose) Crane when she was 74 years old.  It was a letter to her son Walter Sanger Crane, who was Emery’s great uncle.  Annie was born in Buxton on 28 February 1846 and died in Brookline, Massachusetts on 29 January 1941.  Emery was especially proud to share Annie Eliza’s proto-feminist attitudes and abolitionist beliefs.  She was also amused by the Annie Eliza's views on religious differences.

If you also find a “cousin connection” to this lineage, please leave a comment for Emery on this blog post.  I’ll make sure she sees all the messages. 

Here is Emery Schweig’s lineage:

Anthony Emery m. Frances  (our common 9^th great grandparents)

James Emery m. Elizabeth (our common 8^th great grandparents)

James Emery m. Margaret  Hitchcock (I descend from James Emery’s sister, Sarah Thompson)

Thomas Emery m. Susannah Hill

Thomas Emery m. Hannah Harmon  (lived in the house pictured above)

Sally Emery m. Alexander Jose

Mark Emery Jose

Annie Eliza Jose m. Joshua Crane

Mary Crane

Louis McClennen

Emery McClennen Schweig

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                                           The year of our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Thirty

Dear Walter:

I was born in the town of Buxton, Maine, a small village fifteen miles from Portland.  I well remember the house, as it stood for many years after I was married.  It was on the road to Saco, a modest little home.

I think I must have a good memory, as I do remember sleeping in a trundle bed which was pulled out from under the high bed where my parents slept.

My father ran a stagecoach from the town of Limington to Portland.  This was the only means of transportation in those days.

I was born on the twenty-eighth of February 1846, and I think I must have been about three years old when my parents moved to Portland, as being more convenient for his occupation.  I must have been knowing what happened in the next three years, as I remember about the house we lived in on Brown Street off Congress, the main thoroughfare of Portland.  It had a yard and shed which I used to play in.  I remember perfectly one night when my mother undressed me for bed, of her leaving only my little chimmy on me and of dancing and singing for the amusement of my mother’s sisters who were visiting her.

My father was taken seriously ill with an attack of cholera Morbus and was always a delicate man after that, and died when I was twelve years old.  But in spite of the drawbacks of weakness he was evidently a man of ambition, and so he was obliged to give up the stage driving he went into the hotel business, as he knew many people who had traveled with him on the stagecoach.

The first house was called the Casco House (Indian name of that vicinity) a small hotel back of where is now (or was the last time I went on Middle Street) a main business street of Portland, the Casco Bank.

There was a path or road, which led up to the Hotel, and there my father began his hotel life.

We had a number of regular boarders who used to pet me a good deal.  I had a little bank they used to put pennies into.  My mother was very helpful in the business, looking after the kitchen and care of the building.  A very capable woman.

We must have been there only a year or so, as Pa (we always said Pa and Mother) moved into a larger house on Congress Street on a corner of Elm Street.  I think his former boarders must have gone with him, as well as having transients, and he was apparently, from what Mother told me, doing a lucrative business.  This was called the American House.

We were there only a short time as the house and stable were burned down.   I remember perfectly that night.  My sisters Mary and Sarah had a party of young people in our rooms, which were on the corner of the house.  I was allowed to stay up, and after the young people had left (hours must have been earlier then) I went down to the office to get a drink of water.  The clerk, named John Crocker (I always called him Johnny Trotter, and remember him perfectly, as he always petted me) was just helping me when he looked out of the window which was overlooking the stable on Elm Street, and cried “My God, the stable is on fire”.  I remember it perfectly.  I ran upstairs and told Mother, and she at once began to gather belongings.  I remember perfectly well she had just had a tippet muff of Fitch fur, which she was bound should be saved.  I remember of seeking her throwing things out of the windows on the sidewalk, and think people must have been very honest in those days, as I do not remember that we lost things.  The house must have been of wooden construction, as most of the city was built of wood, as it burned quickly, and many houses were burned.  Our good neighbors and friends of the United States Hotel on the corner diagonally opposite, took us in but my Father at once began to plan, and we went down for a few months to a small hotel opposite the original Station House of the Boston and Maine R. R. on Fore Street.  I don’t seem to remember anything of our sojourn there, but Pa got a chance to go to Bath, Maine and take charge of a hotel there, called Sagadahoe House, an Indian name.

I remember perfectly well that hotel and our rooms.  And it was there that Pa had our crayon portraits done by a Boston artist named Alfred Ordway.  I can remember perfectly well sitting in a high chair for him, and when he thought I would be tired keeping so still, would tell me to get down and run about in the hall.  I was then about six years old.

I remember that Tom Thumb, the famous dwarf, was then going about the country, and that I sat beside him on the sofa, as he was staying there with his manager;  and of seeing his little pair of Shetland ponies drawing about a gay carriage, with him driving.  An advertisement of course.

I think we only stayed there about a year or a little over, as Pa wanted to get back to Portland, and we went to the Elm House when he was, as he always seemed to be, successful.  He evidently had a faculty of making friends, and kept a good hotel.

I think we must have been there about two years when his health gave out, and he, with three other men whom we knew, built a block of four wooden houses on Congress Square.  We had the corner house on Congress and High Streets.  They were built on leased land, which was to run for 99 years, and belonged to the Preble family.  The block is still there, in a very dilapidated condition.  Pa always kept a horse and carriage, and I used to go out with him near Portland to see Madam Preble on business.  Our horse was white and named “Romeo”, - a beauty.

Just before the Civil War Jefferson Davis came to Portland visiting a family who were Democrats.  I can see him now as he passed our house - a tall, thin man, wearing a tall hat and a frock coat.  It was said afterwards that he came North to find out about the forts in our harbor.

One episode before my Father died was rather interesting.  I was about eleven years old.  Mother was a strong Abolitionist and Pa a Democrat.  When Buchanan was elected, there was a great torchlight procession, and Pa had the whole front of the house lighted up with small candles in little tin frames stuck i every pane of glass.  But Mother stayed in a dark room at the back of the house, refusing to see the procession.  Pa stood on the sidewalk, setting off Roman candles, and almost ruined a new overcoat with the sparks.  Mother was so provoked.

Pa was never able to do much, but he had the reputation of being the smartest of the three brothers, and though only forty-six years old when he died, in spite of having moved so many times, he had managed to accumulate enough to leave his family a home and modest income.  Mother was a helpful and most prudent wife, and much of their success was due to her, an untiring worker.

As girls did not go out to work, as they do now, Mother, recognizing that we three girls had musical ability, had us all take lessons.  Mary sang alto in the Unitarian Church quartette.  Sarah with a fine soprano voice, married, and at sixteen I sang alto in a quartette choir in the Park Street Church, and got $1.00 a Sunday, which looked big to me, as girls could not earn money except as teachers - the only vocation open to them.

Mother always said she moved about fifteen times in as many years, and we three girls were born in different places.

Sarah married unhappily and got a divorce from an unworthy man, and went to Boston and got a position in church with a good salary.  We left Portland and went to Boston, where Mary married Oliver Hooper.

Then we sang in a quartette choir in Boston.  After that Sarah had an offer to go to Brooklyn at a salary of $1,000.00, big for those days.  She wanted me to come on and spend a winter in New York, and we both took lessons of an Italian teacher.  Then I came back to Boston, and got a position as alto in a quartette choir at $400, a fine salary for those days.  Then, when I married, I gave it up, and we moved to Brookline, where you two boys were born, a small house nearly opposite the one which your father bought, which you will always remember as your home in Brookline, when you went to school, and after that, to college.  I think Sybil was born in the same house.

I remember my father taking me to a circus, which was on just about the spot where Richard (Dr.) Small now lives.  There was only a big pasture there, extending down to the Oaks, now a city park.  The pasture was called “Dernings” and was owned by that family.

When Edward VII, then Prince of Wales, came over here about 1858, with Lord Melbourne, he made a tour of many of our States, and, on its conclusion, went aboard a ship for England, at Portland.  With other young girls, I chased the procession all over the city to see a real Prince.  I had a small photo of him, and when I sold my house in Dedham in 1927, I came across it.  It was so like the present Prince, and I brought it to Washington, went to the Embassy and asked to see an official.  A very pleasant attache’ came, and looked at it, and said he was sure the Prince would be glad to see it.  So I wrote a proper description and it was forwarded.  I was much pleased to receive a note from his secretary Lacelles, saying the prince was very glad to have it, thanking me most sincerely.

BUXTON, MAINE

            My relatives on my Father’s side.

            Alexander Jose-------------------married-----------------------Sally Emery

                                                Children:

            Mark Emery                           Charles Edwin             Sally Emery

            Horatio Nelson                       Hannah                        Emily Motley

                                                                                                Abigail

Hannah first married a Small and had two daughters.  Hannah afterwards married Henry McKenny of Lewiston, who had four daughters.  They had one daughter (or two).  John Perkins was the son of Martha McKenney

Abigail married Richard Small, and had two sons and two daughters, Horatio, John, Sally and Abby.

Sarah married Samuel T. Hooper.

My Grandfather was a tall handsome man showing distinctly some Indian blood.  Mother always said his Mother was a half breed.  She knew her.

Carleton Small, who has been quite interested in genealogy, says this is not true that she was of Scottish descent.  But I feel quite sure she had some Indian blood in her as two of Alexander’s children Hannah and Horatio were distinctly of Indian type:  tall, dark hair and eyes.  The others being typical of Emery looks:  fair, blue eyes, etc.  Mark, Charles, Abigail, Emily, & Sarah.

Mother says Grandfather and the other children and their children were terribly afraid of her, and as she was confined to her chair, were very careful not to go near her as she kept a cane by her side, and could use it, too.  I really am quite proud of the story of part Indian, and that I may claim some native American blood.  It is not unlikely that one of her ancestors marries an Indian or half-breed, as it was common enough in those days.  At any rate Mother felt it was so, and that there was some foundation for the assertion.  The two distinct types in Alexander’s children seemed good evidence to me.

Grandfather had a brother Richard who went to sea and Emily Porter has in Lancaster an English pitcher which he brought home to Aunt Abby Small with her name on it:  Abigale Jose, quite a common thing for sailors to do in those days.  Merrill Shurtleff told me he saw a similar one in the Salem Museum marked Jose that could be easily seen there at any time.

I remember my Grandfather Jose very well, as he paid us a visit to Portland every year.  I do not know what he did, but suppose when he was young he was a farmer.  His house in the south part of Buxton was standing a few years ago, but in a dilapidated condition.  Sally Lu and I went to Buxton a few years ago (also Priscilla, who drove us up).  We went to this house and also to the Emery house at Buxton lower corner, where Grandfather wooed and won Sally Emery.  I used to go there when a child and young woman.  It was then occupied by Peter Emery, Uncle of my Father and his wife Eliza Sands.  She was also a niece of my Grandmother Hanson.  She was quite a favorite of mine, being doubly related, was very voluble, and told me a good deal of the Emery history.  I wish I could remember more of it, but she told me that Hannah Dustin of pre-revolution fame and who was carried off by the Indians, but escaped from them, was a direct ancestress.  If true this would be very interesting.

The Emery cradle which Sybil Crane now has, I got from this house.  Also the two banister-back chairs, one of which I gave to Emery Crane in Westwood.  The Alexander Jose arm-chair and a box to hold papers which Grandfather inherited, was given by Sally Ray to Alexander Crane, for his name.  If I had known as much as I do now, and the interest in preserving these recollections, I could have learned a great deal more about the whole family from Aunt Eliza.  This she told me:  the after the Colonial Wars that an Emery, named Thomas, was paid off, no money being available, with a lot of land in what was then Massachusetts and migrated there from Newbury with his wife and children.  Buxton was divided into lots named Naragansett No’s 1, 2, etc. and his was one of these.  There he built a log hut and Aunt Eliza took me out to see it, degenerated into a pig-sty.  In the Autumn after housing his family, he walked back to Dover through the woods over an Indian trail, and brought back on his back two bags of corn, one to grind for food for his family, the other for seed in the coming Spring.

The house built by a later Emery is still in good condition, and is really quite a good house, roomy and attractive.  It has passed on to other hands, but before that I got a tray there which I had restored and gave to Katherine Kimball for a wedding present.  There was a lovely knocker on the door, but they would not part with it.  This was the house where Sally Emery was wooed by Grandfather.  Evidently the family had grown more prosperous by that time.

One of Aunt Eliza’s daughters was Nancy, about my age.  She married a Libby of Moderation and lived until a few years ago.  I always kept in touch with her and went to see her when in Buxton.  She left sons and a daughter, Eliza, whom I also keep in touch with and send messages through Alice Perry.  She has been a school teacher for many years, and took care of her Mother, and lives on the same road as the Jose house.  There are some very good pieces of furniture there.  I’ve never known or seen the boys as they live elsewhere, but Eliza and I are quite friendly cousins.

Aunt Eliza told me that Isaac Emery, a brother of Sally, who lived in Boston, and whom I used to go and see when I lived there had a chest which came over in the Mayflower with the first Emery.  When Uncle Isaac and his first wife died, there was an auction of their belongings, and in the advertisement in the paper this chest was mentioned.  I wanted your Father (Joshua) to try and get it but he was rather skeptical as to its authenticity, and took no interest.  I don’t know what became of it.  They had two sons, and I knew their families at one time, but they have now passed out of my ken.

Eleanor Reed, who married Royden Loring, went abroad with me in 1908.  She was the daughter of Stephen Emery, a cousin of William and George.  She lives in Harley Street, Dorchester, but I have not seen her for some time.  Her married name is Loring.  She has an Emery Aunt, who the last I knew, lived in Hyannis.

To go back to Alexander Jose, Sally Emery died and he afterwards married the widow of a Dr. Bradbury, who had previously been married twice.  One of her daughters by her first husband, was Kate Douglass Wiggin, the writer of some note, and she and your Aunt Sarah Hooper (Stevens?) always kept up a friendship, and in Buxton she is remembered by her books in which many of the old families and residents are mentioned.  What made the widow Bradbury marry Grandfather, I cannot imagine.  Perhaps his looks, as he was a handsome man.  Anyhow it didn’t last long as they were divorced.  I think he must have married her for a home, as the house at Salmon Falls on the Saco River is a fine old Colonial type, and was kept by Kate Wiggin, now passed on.  She named it “Quillcote”.

There are many things worth remembering about the Emerys.  I think some are in a little booklet I have given you, written by Mrs. Samuel Hall of Brookline.  One story was that in the time of persecution of the Quakers in Massachusetts, two came to the town of Newbury, and no one would give them a lodging.  Our Emery ancestor was liberal and fearless enough to give them food and a place to sleep.  The town officials were so indignant that they fined Emery ten shillings for harboring Quakers.  When the Quaker persecution passed over, the town voted to give back the ten shillings.  Another Emery was made representative to the general court in Boston.  He was enormously stout and had to wait till snow came when he was put in his big chair onto an ox sled and taken to the court.

BUXTON

Going back to Alexander Jose, after he was divorced from Mrs. Bradbury, he left Buxton.  My father had come into possession of the farm in Guildhall in Vermont on the Connecticut River, and he proposed to Grandfather and Richard Small, who had married my Aunt Abby, and had four children:  Horatio, Sally, John, and Abby, should go up there.  They moved from Buxton in the winter, it being easier to move their belongings on an ox sled.  The family rode a sleigh.  When they got about two miles, Horatio put his head out from under the robes, and asked “Are we almost there?”  They went up through Fryburg, Conway, and the Notch.  It was a lovely place, and I spent many happy days there.  I remember how one day Abby and I went down to the river and went in bathing as there was a nice sandbank at the lower end of the farm.  I think we must have gone in without much covering, as some boys came down on the opposite bank and shouted they were coming over, which frightened us terribly.  We got out, seized our clothes, and ran for our lives.  Abby had a hoop skirt, and being hard to carry through the cornfields, stopped and put it on.  I can see her now, running through the corn, a narrow space, the hoop hitting the side every step.  It of course bobbed up behind and it was too funny to see her bare legs, however the boys did not come across, and Aunt Abby put an end to our going down there anymore.  They had a flock of sheep, and Aunt Abby gave me a handful of salt and told me I could have a lamb for my own if I could put salt on his tail.  I chased one for a long time but couldn’t succeed in doing it.  What good times I had there.  The glorious White Mountain Range could be seen across the meadows.  Aunt Abby was a dear.  I can’t remember that Grandfather ever did any work.  He used to come down to Portland and Buxton every year.  Mother was always kind to him, but the daughters-in-law didn’t like him enough to have a visit from him, but Grandpa, although a devoted reader of the Bible, was what is now called a Universalist, and believed that no one was damned after death.  He was considered somewhat of a heretic, much to Grandmother’s sorrow, as she was a devoted Baptist.  I can remember seeing her on her knees praying for the lost souls.  Some of the children followed Grandpa.

My mother was the oldest of ten children.  She was named Dorcas Rebecca.  You have the sampler Mother made.  The names are:  Dorcus Rebecca, Samuel Dunnell, Ansel, Charles, Ann, Eliza, Almira, Emily, Zenas, and Alice.  Grandpa Hanson was named Stephen.

Great-grandfather Hanson was born in Buxton, October 4, 1871.  His name was Phineas.  Mother never said much about him or Great-Grandmother.  But they always came to visit every year from the lower part of Buxton.  Grandpa was a tailor by trade.  A that time they used to go around to houses, and made the cloth up for men and boys, that was from their own raising of sheep, and spun and woven into material.  When Sam was about seventeen, his father sent him to Boston to learn the trade;  but the family was poor of course.  Zenus was the only one who really had any education, graduated from Bowdoin, but that was done by Sam, who was the Father of the family after Grandpa died.  Sam came back from Boston with new ideas, and opened a store with a tailor shop connected, in which, by an arrangement with a Boston firm, he carried on a large business.  The women from all over the town came for the garments (cut in Boston) to finish and return buying all their goods from the store.  It was a boon to the farmer’s wives and daughters who had never been able to earn money, so it was a benefit to the whole town.  When the Civil War broke out, they did a big business in army clothing.  Uncle Sam, who never married, was devoted to his family, and all the other children except Zenus, worked in some way for the shop.  Uncle Ansel ran the store.  He was a very fine looking man, taking after Grandmother, the others smaller in build.

Grandmother Hanson was the daughter of Joseph Dunnell.  He married Anna Woodman, a family of some position in the town.  The name Anna comes down to me.  It was corrupted into Anne and Annie, and I have always regretted that I was Christened Annie, as I think Anna is so much more dignified.  The name Dunnell was evidently Donald or even McDonald, but the town records in those days were badly spelled, and so pronounced.  They were a tall fine-looking family, and Great-Grandfather had what was called the finest farm in York County, now utterly gone to rack and ruin.  My Great-Grandmother Anna, I, of course, do not remember, but Mother was very proud of the connection with the Woodman family who have made names for themselves in various ways.

My Great-Grandfather, Thomas Emery, married Hannah Harmon - the mother of Grandmother Sally Emery Jose.  A brother of Great-Grandma Hannah Hamon, also connected with the Dunnell’s on my Mother’s side, a boy of seventeen when the Revolution broke out, walked all the way from Buxton to Cambridge, where General Washington had his headquarters.  He told the guards about the house, that he wanted to see the General, but naturally they laughed at him, but he persisted, saying he had come all that distance to see the General.  Finally one of the men went in and told the General who said, “Bring him in.”  He was pleased with the boy’s looks and courage and made him orderly for his horses.  He came out of the war Major.  Wasn’t that fine?  There are descendants of the Woodman’s who have made names for themselves in various ways.  One Cirus always kept a cousinly friendship with Mother, and also Aunt Abby, whom he knew when they were young.  He lived in Cambridge the latter part of his life, and had one daughter, Mary, who died there not long ago, over eighty years of age.  Sorry I did not look her up, but her Father (Cyrus Woodman) wrote the Woodman book, probably published in Portland.  Of the Dunnell’s, one was a member of Congress about twenty years ago, and when Alice Hanson was here in Washington one winter we called on his wife.  I think they came from Minnesota.

  

Grandfather Hanson had a sister Deborah, who married a Decker.  We always called her Aunt Debby Decker.  She lived on a farm in Hollis, which is across the river from the town of Moderation.  When you were a little boy I took you down to Grandmother’s.  I wonder if you have any recollection of it.  She died at the age of seventy-six.  I also took you up to Aunt Deborah’s, and we stayed to supper.  She did all the cooking by the open fire.  I told you to remember that, as you might never have a chance to see it again.  (The biscuits were the toughest ones outside of Middlesex School that could be imagined.)  There were two spinning wheels in the room, one large and one small, and there was an old crone sitting in the corner in her rocking chair, smoking a pipe.  Shortly before Aunt Debbie died, she was baptized in the Saco River near where she lived.  Evidently “got religion” late in life.

Mother being the oldest was a worker (had to be a worker) and not only had to help with the younger children, but with Uncle Sam used to go around to the farms with Grandpa when he worked at his trade even when only six years old.  Their part was pulling out the bastings, and other simple work.  She was always clever with her needle and I think I have the same faculty.  Only last summer when in Boston, I cut and made for myself a dress for myself at eighty five years of age, simply to feel I could do it, and have not lost my ability to work.

The life at Grandmother’s must have been a very hard one with such a large family to feed and clothe.   I can remember Mother’s telling me that when the hearth fire was banked up for the night sometimes the coals did not last, and in the morning she would have to take a tin box, kept for the purpose and run to neighbors to get some live coals.  I can remember perfectly Grandmother cooking by the open fire and the tin baker were the bread and meat was roasted.  Also the brick oven where every Saturday enough food to last the day following was cooked, as it was sinful to cook on the Sabbath day.  Pots of beans, pies, brownbread, a wood fire, was started early Saturday morning in the oven, and when things were ready to go in, the ashes were quickly swept out and the food put in.  I can see the long handled shovel now, but they did taste good then.  Grandmother always favored me when I went out in the summer time, for she let me cut the doughnuts, and would clean and cook for me the little fish which I used to catch in the nearby brook when I went fishing with Uncle Zene, when he was home from college in the summer.  No matter how small the fish were, she always did them.  I can remember when the hogs were killed in the first cold days of the Autumn, a butcher coming around to stick them (hung up), and how I ran away not to see the deed done, but even now I can remember the squeals.  Then the butcher and Steve, man of all work, cut up the hog, and Grandmother and the younger daughters, Emily and Alice, and the helper, tried out the lard, made sausage meat, etc., etc.  It was a job, I can tell you, to salt down the fat pork.  The loins were eaten for some time, as fresh meat was a luxury, but what a job to take care of all the parts.  The pig’s feet were a great treat and the hog’s head cheese made from the meat in the head.  But everyone took hold and helped.  I can see Grandmother now in the evening reading her Bible by the light of the tallow candle which she made herself.  But her later days were more comfortable for the hard labor was over, Uncle Sam doing everything possible to reliever her, and for many years she had a woman to the work, that is the hard part, as she never wholly gave up.  I can remember when she came into Portland to visit, of seeing her leave the house for church, a tall, rather good-looking woman, wearing a handsome black satin coat, for Uncle Sam saw to it that she was well clothed.  Sometimes Mother would let me go out to Buxton in the winter time, and how I did love sliding down hills, as there were good coasting hills.  They looked big to me then, but now not so much.  I love the country and the simple pleasures, the fishing, picking wild strawberries, ivory plums, as we called them, climbing the apple trees, and eating the apples.  I guess I ran wild, always liking to play with the boys, flying kites, and helping to make them.

                                                                        Mother

I might have put into my early married life about people of note who have passed on a two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the West Church where James Russell Lowell gave the address, as his Father preached there.  It was most interesting as relating to noted members of that church.  He pointed to a front pew where as a little boy he would stand on a cricket and look about, and the happy way in which he spoke of his Father, in summer starting off with him in his horse and chaise to visit the churches in the Western part of the State, taking with him a little boy, as he expressed it, through the shady lanes of New England.

Also I heard Oliver Wendell Holmes at a meeting to raise money to preserve the old South Church as a museum.  He recited his poem “Dorothy Q”, and afterwards retired to a very large armchair on the platform and being a very old man probably used to retiring early, curled up in the chair, he was very small, and went to sleep.  It was too funny.

I remember a wonderful Eulogy on Wendell Phillips by George William Curtis, in Tremont Temple.  It was nearly two hours, but I was spellbound and did not realize the time.

                                                Mother

Written by Annie Eliza Crane (formerly Annie Eliza Jose) to her son, Walter Sanger Crane.  He is Grandfather to Kenneth Crane Haselden and Meraud Berti Haselden, and Father to Sarah Lucy Crane (Haselden, then Dane).

Digital transcription by Emery McClennen Schweig

emeryschweig@gmail.com

Great-granddaughter of

Annie Eliza Jose

--------------------------------

To the Editor of the Transcript:

On Wednesday, Jan. 29, 1941, Mrs. Joshua crane died in her ninety-fifth year. Annie Eliza Jose, the daughter of Mark E. and Dorcas Hanson Jose, was born in Buxton, Me., Feb. 28, 1846. After spending her early life in Portland, Me.,when came to Boston, where she married Joshua Crane, a name in Boston for the past one hundred and fifty years. Her life with Mr. Crane was for many years in Brookline, and there she and her husband were citizens of great influence. Mrs. Crane was a faithful member of the First Parish Church of Brookline, keenly in every activity of that influential church. In the social, philanthropic and educational life of Brookline, Mrs. Crane was long a fellow and colleague with all those who strove to uphold the ancient of New England history and were eager for every effort to promote the highest interests of social before the changing life of that community.  In 1901, Mr. and Mrs. Crane made their residence in Dedham. After the death of her husband in 1905, Mrs. Crane spent many years in Washington; and in Boston, where she was a devoted member of King's Chapel. A woman of marked energy, a lover of music, a promoter of public education, a leader in every effort to advance the rights and responsibilities of women, Mrs. Crane had part in the many pioneer movements to improve the cultural life of her community.  Mrs. Crane's oldest son, Walter Sanger Crane, died in 1940. She is survived by a son, Joshua Crane, and a daughter, Mary, wife of Edward F. Mclennen of Cambridge and by eleven grandchildren and twenty-two great-grandchildren. - Boston JOHN CARROLL PERKINS

[a note from Emery Schweig:  “Her daughter, Mary, is my grandmother.  In this notice, my grandparent's name is misspelled.  It is McClennen, not "Mclennen." “] 

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Heather Wilkinson Rojo and Emery McClennen Schweig, "Annie Eliza (Jose) Crane (1846 - 1941) Memoir", Nutfield Genealogy, posted June 16, 2016,  (  http://nutfieldgenealogy.blogspot.com/2016/06/annie-eliza-jose-crane-1846-1941-memoir.html:  accessed [access date]).