22: Eddie Sarles

Grave of Eddie Sarles

This little child's grave was unearthed during our clean-up. It belongs to Eddie Sarles, son of Abijah and Lucinda J. Sarles, who died on July 28, 1872, at the age of 9 months and 9 days.

Abijah Sarles was born in 1825, and his wife, Lucinda J. Lane, was born in 1833. In 1860, Abijah was a mason, and he and Lucinda had two children, Stephen and Nancy.

1860 US Federal Census

Ten years later, the family was living with Abijah's 84-year-old father Philip.

1870 US Federal Census

One year later, Lucinda gave birth to Eddie, who died nine months later. Here I begin to wonder about Abijah and Lucinda's children. Their first three children, Stephen, Nancy, and Maria, were born between 1856 and 1863. Then eight years passed before Lucinda gave birth to her fourth child. Considering that these were the days before reliable birth control, this seems unusual. Did Abijah and Lucinda have other children between Maria and Eddie who died? I would expect that if they had, these children would be buried in the cemetery, but I don't find any. I'm not sure there's really a way to fully answer this question.

In 1880, the Sarleses and their three surviving children were living together still. Twenty-three-year-old Stephen was a clerk in a drug store.

1880 US Federal Census.

Abijah Sarles died in 1898. He and Lucinda aren't buried in the cemetery. By the time they died, several decades after the death of Eddie, the cemetery was in rather poor shape, and many people were choosing to be buried in a nearby, larger, and more well-maintained cemetery. Of course, fifty years later, that cemetery had fallen into disrepair, prompting my own great-grandparents to buy a plot for themselves in Kensico Cemetery in Valhalla instead. Now I pass them, and my grandparents, every day on the train.

Grave of Abijah Sarles (source)

The 1900 census doesn't do much to help solve the mystery of the Sarles children. It says that 66-year-old Lucinda Sarles was the mother of two children, two of whom were living. It is certainly possible that only two of her children were living at this point, but we know that she had at least four children.

1900 US Federal Census

I think the 1910 census is closest to the truth - four Sarles children, three living. This still doesn't explain the large gap in age between the two youngest children. Perhaps Lucinda was pregnant and miscarried, or perhaps she simply didn't, for whatever reason, conceive between the ages of 30 and 38. The only reason I'm interested is that this family represents a break from the usual 19th-century pattern of births every two years from marriage till menopause.

Abijah and Lucinda's daughters didn't marry, nor did the census record any occupations for them. Lucinda was said to be living off her "own income," so perhaps they owned a farm.

1910 US Federal Census

Lucinda last appears in the 1915 census at the age of 82. She died in 1917.

1915 New York State Census

Grave of Lucinda J. Lane Sarles (source)

The two sisters, Nancy and Maria, who seem to have gone by their middle names of Jane/Jennie and Eloise respectively, were still living together in 1920, at 31 Manchester Terrace. Nancy Jane died in 1927 and was buried beside her parents.

Grave of N. Jennie Sarles (source)

In 1930, Maria Eloise was living by herself in a home she owned at 42 Manchester Terrace, which had a value of $25,000. She died in 1940 and was buried near her sister and parents.

Grave of Maria Eloise Sarles (source)

What of the Sarleses' only surviving son, Stephen? He outlived both of his sisters and in 1940 he was living at 86 West Main Street, just one street over from where his sisters had lived, with his 55-year-old daughter Elizabeth Benedict. Both father and daughter had been widowed.

Forty years earlier, Stephen and his wife Emma Matthews had been living with his mother Lucinda and two sisters. Somehow, I missed them when I looked up Lucinda, though they were right there! Stephen was a druggist, and Elizabeth was their only daughter.

1900 US Federal Census

Elizabeth married Creswell Benedict, a jeweller/optician who was 16 years her senior. I have to wonder if she knew my great-grandmother, who lived in the town at the same time, and also married a much older man who owned his own business. In fact, my great-grandmother would have been about ten years younger than Elizabeth, and my great-grandfather about ten years younger than Creswell.

Creswell died in 1920, and he and Elizabeth don't seem to have had children. Elizabeth lived with her father until his death in 1944, and for another 37 years after that, dying in 1981 at age 96 - six years before my great-grandmother died.

Eddie Sarles seems to be the only one in this family to have been buried in the cemetery. All of the others were buried in the other, larger cemetery. Abijah and Lucinda don't seem to have any living descendants, although they have a multitude of cousins.

1. Abijah A. Sarles (1825-1898) m. Lucinda J. Lane (1833-1917)
1. Stephen H. Sarles (1856-1944) m. Emma E. Matthews (1860-1922) in 1884
1. Elizabeth Sarles (1885-1981) m. Creswell Benedict (1869-1920)
2. Nancy Jennie Sarles (1859-1927)
3. Maria Eloise Sarles (1863-1940)
4. Eddie Sarles (1871-1872)