Relatively Speaking Blog

Susanna Allen, a paternal grand aunt, was the half-sister to my grandfather Charles Brown. When speaking to my aunts about Susanna, they referred to her as Aunt Anna. This was probably a nickname, rather than a middle name. The small number of documents I found listed her with either name, though more often with Susanna. These provided me with a glance into her life.

According to her death certificate, Susanna was born December 5, 1865, in Jerseytown, Columbia County, PA, to Valentine Allen and Margaret McGarvey.  Her age varies several years on different censuses, so she might have been born a year later. Throughout her life she resided in her birth county and the neighboring Lycoming and Montour counties. Susanna was first enumerated with her parents in the 1870 census in Greenwood Township, Columbia County. She was listed as 3 years of age, and her older siblings William and Martha and younger sister Mary were also in the household.

Susanna was about 6 years old when her father Valentine died. Sometime during the 1870s Susanna and her siblings were split among different households. Susanna resided in Jordan Township, Lycoming County as a servant in the Frank Worthington household in the 1880 census. Her older brother William lived in the same township, but they were not near each other. Susanna’s other siblings lived in bordering townships. In the same household as Susanna was John Temple, the future husband of her sister Martha.

Susanna was not listed as attending school during 1880, nor were any of the other children in the Worthington house. I wonder if this was a mistake by the census taker, or if none had gone to school during that previous year. Several later censuses indicated she could read and write, so she likely received some schooling in Lycoming County while growing up.

Susanna married Perry Johnathan George about 1884 when she was 18 years old. This was before marriage licenses were initiated, so no government record of the marriage or its details exist. Where the couple resided during their first 16 years of marriage has not been established, but they were living in Shrewsbury township, Lycoming County by 1900. (Coincidentally, they lived beside another Worthington, perhaps a relation to Frank with whom Susanna lived in 1880.)

In the 1900 census, Susanna and Perry had six children in their household: James, Bessie, Mabel, Mary, Charles, and Archie. An unidentified child of theirs died before 1900. They rented a farm, and although Perry was a day laborer, the family probably worked the farm. The eldest son James was a farm laborer.

Susanna and Perry remained in Shrewsbury Township for the 1910 census and rented a house. In both the 1900 and 1910 census, a nearby neighbor George B. Geiger was enumerated, revealing Susanna and Perry lived in the same vicinity as in 1900, though perhaps in a different house.

Over this decade two more children were born: Stella and another unidentified child who must have died before 1906 when Pennsylvania death certificates were established. Looking at the cemeteries where Susanna and Perry were buried, neither of the unidentified children were listed in these cemetery books. A possible location for the children’s burial would be a Shrewsbury Township cemetery, but all-inclusive online records for those are not readily available.

In the 1920 census, Susanna and Perry were in different townships. Perry remained in the township in which the George family lived for several decades, but now he was a boarder in Grover Craft’s home. Perry was recorded as married and a farm laborer working out. At first glance this appears to be the case when a husband lived near his work, yet away from the family he supported, as he had to go where the jobs were.

However, looking more closely at the enumeration for Susanna in the 1920 census, the impression is that Perry might have left her. Perry died in October of 1920 in Williamsport Hospital. His death certificate lacked all basic information, except his name and information regarding his death; no family member was an informant. Susanna, lived in Wolf Township, and was listed as a widow in the 1920 census, which was recorded in January, months before Perry’s death. I have noticed other censuses where wives, whose husbands left them, were listed as widows, perhaps to retain respectability.

Since the censuses always showed the family renting, they likely had a limited income on which to live. Susanna probably did not have the resources to support herself. In 1920 she resided with her daughter and son-in-law, Mary and Alvin Clark, along with their 3 children in Wolf Township. Susanna’s youngest daughter, Stella, also resided with the Clarks. Ten years later in the 1930 census, Susanna resided with Stella and her husband, William Andrews in Cogan House Township.

Attempts to find Susanna in the 1940 have been unsuccessful. Like other widowed mothers, Susanna might have rotated between her children’s houses, visiting one for a certain amount of time, before moving on to the next child’s house. If this was the case, perhaps she was in transition between houses and when the census taker came, her children didn’t consider her as a resident of their house. It’s also possible she was a boarder in a household but was not properly recorded, making locating her difficult.

Susanna apparently had some health issues and some mental decline. In the 1950 census, she was a patient in the Danville State Hospital for the Insane. Susanna died there on February 2, 1952. Her death certificate indicated she had been a patient for 4 ½ years. Her cause of death was pneumonia, but it was recorded that she had senility along with cardiovascular disease. Since this was a secondary cause, it was not reported how long she might have had these conditions. Her obituary was modest, mentioning only her surviving children and siblings.

The document trail for my grand aunt Susanna is sparse. I’m glad that my aunts at least knew the name Anna, which aided me to find some information to properly add Susanna to the Allen family. Luckily the U.S. census provided some basic points over the course of her 80 years. Although limited, the records for Susanna have been enough to recognize some parts of her life, her descendants, and keep her memory alive.