52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #24 Bessie Douglas Cushnie Ekstrom

My father speaks with great fondness of his stepmother, Bessie Douglas Cushnie. He feels that he and his siblings didn't give her a fair chance to be their new mother. Dad says that she was loving and kind and would have been a wonderful mother, had they opened their hearts to her.

Bessie married Oliver Ernest Ekstrom on October 11, 1932, in Guatemala. They were both missionaries with the Central American Mission. Oliver was a widower with five young children, but courageous Bessie married him anyway and added two more children to the family. The last child, a daughter, was born after Oliver's untimely passing in 1935.

Bessie wrote this in one of her letters home in 1934:

"It will be three years next Sunday since I left the dear old U.S.A. It seems like 10. I guess because so much has happened. Had my appendix out, fell in love, got married & had a baby. I know I haven’t done as much for the Lord as I should have."

Quick drop page from Lock and Key, ClubScrap

Bessie Douglas Cushnie was born on June 19, 1903, in Castle Shannon, Pennsylvania, the third of six children of Charles Christey Cushnie and Sarah Ann Wyllie. Bessie trained as a nurse before going to the mission field.

There are varying accounts of how she and Oliver met and fell in love. One legend was "love at first sight" in Guatemala. Another story is that they met at Moody Bible Institute, but had their relationship disrupted, only to continue it in Guatemala. Regardless, their love story was brief.

After Oliver's death, Bessie worked with the extended families to take care of the five orphaned children. Her youngest child died at six years old, and Bessie herself died on May 08, 1947, leaving her oldest child also orphaned.

Bessie was buried, along with her daughter and her parents, in Oak Spring Cemetery in Canonsburg, Washington County, Pennsylvania.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #23 Sarah A Mooney Cole

As I study the image of my great-great-grandmother, I look for resemblances, but see none. I wonder who this woman was who appears so worn down by life before her 70th year.

Quick drop page, Sugar and Spice, Digital Scrapper, April 2010

Sarah A Mooney was the second of five children born to William C Mooney and Permina Alexander Mooney of Henry County, Tennessee. Born in September of 1847, Sarah was a young teen at the outbreak of the Civil War. She saw the young men of the area march off to war. Was she affected by the skirmishes in the area? Did she despair of finding a husband?

On March 02, 1865, young Sarah married Joseph M Cole, a farmer and doctor who was about 13 years her senior. She bore two children: William and Julia.

The 1900 census finds the widowed Sarah living with Julia Cole Carter and Robert Alphonso Carter in Clay County, Arkansas. By 1910, Sarah had moved to the Clay County home of her son, William. It seems that her daughter had also predeceased her.

William Cole and his family posed for a group photo with Sarah about 1914. There is no known record of Sarah Mooney Cole after that photo, so it is likely that she died in Arkansas between 1914 and 1920.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #22 William J Cole

William J Cole was one of only two children born to Sarah A Mooney and Joseph Cole, who lived in Henry County, Tennessee. Joseph was a farmer and a doctor. My great-grandfather William followed only in his farming footsteps.

Quick drop page from Bookshelves kit, ClubScrap

On December 6, 1891, the 26-year-old William married Mollydine Alexander in neighboring Weakley County, Tennessee. The couple had four sons and also cared for William's aged mother near the end of her life. The family moved to Clay County, Arkansas, in the late 1800s.

The couple apparently had marital problems. In the 1930 census, "widowed" Molly and son Seborn were living in Michigan, near sons Noble and Clifford, while "widowed" William was living in Arkansas with son Carlos.

William J Cole died in Arkansas in 1937, and was buried in New Hope Cemetery in Pollard, Arkansas. He was buried in a different cemetery and even a different town from his wife.