Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Texas 200 Years Ago... And Last Night.

Note:  I wrote the following 4 years ago  in 2013 when Wendy Davis was filibustering a restrictive anti-choice law in Texas.  Now in 2017 we have President Trump who has assembled the most regressive cabinet in history.  We are indeed rolling back women's rights and choices.  Let's not forget what the lives of women were like.

In Texas 200 years ago:


Old Woman in a Shoe picture found here
A good friend, a woman who was born and raised in Texas, passed away a few days ago.  She came north after WWII and had been here so many years by the time I met her that she no longer had a Texas drawl.  

In her memory, I started to research her family tree, which has its roots firmly in Texas soil back 150 years.  Some of her ancestors were 
Texas freedom fighters.  One was a Justice in the Texas Republic appointed by Sam Houston himself.
     

Two Teenagers named Polly and Margaret



However, another of my friend's forebears, a great great grandmother named Margaret, was born in 1815 and married in 1830, at age 15.  Her first child was born later that same year, in 1830.  She went on to have 14 children over the next 27 years.  Six months after her last child was born, she died at age 43, no notations as to cause of death.

Eight months after her death, her husband remarried.  He had three children with the second wife, and the second wife died within a few weeks of the birth of that last child.  
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