Mollie Elizabeth Chambers

Mollie Elizabeth Chambers was Great-Grandma Lucy's mother. I'm guessing that Grandma Lucy learned most of her amazing cooking skills from her.

Mollie is in the center

John and Mollie Henize, circa 1940

Parents: Thomas Chambers, Lucy Jane Bishop

Birth: November 1, 1868 in Green, Brown, Ohio (it's a real place! And of course it's close to Amelia)

Marriage: March 2, 1890 to John Henry Henize. She was 21 and he was 25, almost 26.

• Children: Thomas Christopher (Chris), Frederick Raymond (Fred), Vesta May, Ralph Lawrence, Harley Clyde, Walter Floyd, Ora Bery (Bery), Dora Bedah (Bee), and Lucy

Death: December 9, 1946

I found a record of her birth* on FamilySearch, but there was no image associated with it. I'm guessing her parents didn't know what they were going to call her yet, because her name is listed only as "Chambers."

The 1870 Census doesn't give us much information, but we can still learn important things from it. First, this census page is from Green township, Brown county, Ohio. Mollie was still living in the town where she was born. Second, Mollie had an older sister named Carry B and her father was a farmer. We can see the value of their home was above average, but not much (a little bit further down the page we see a home valued at 3,500). We also see that Mollie is close in age to her sister and the second oldest child of her parents.

In the 1880 Census, we see that Mollie's mother went by Lucy Jane. We also learn that Mollie's maternal grandfather was born in New Jersey, and that her paternal grandfather was born in Pennsylvania. Her father still worked as a farmer.

I couldn't find Mollie in the 1890 or the 1900 censuses, so we're skipping a large portion of her life here.

Here in the 1910 Census she's been married for about 20 years. You can see that Mollie's oldest child is 19 years old at this census. I also noticed that she has a son named Fred. I think she named him after her brother Frederick. Maybe they were close and she liked the name a lot because she liked the person so much. The only other person that shares a name with someone in Mollie's family growing up would be Lucy, who appears to be named after Mollie's mother.

One thing from this census that I think is interesting is there are two columns to indicate how many children a mother has borne and how many of those children are still alive. I think this is a really useful tool for people working on family history because they can see if they need to look for records of any other children.

We also see that Mollie worked at home. She was a farmer's wife, which meant a lot of work for her. However, they owned their house without a mortgage, so they must have been at least modestly well off.

1920 Census: Here we get another little snapshot of Mollie's life. It may look like things haven't changed very much--John still farms, he still owns his land, they live in the same place--but look at the number of children listed with them. What mother feels her life is the same after one of her children moves out on his or her own? And at this point, three of Mollie's children have moved out on their own. One of her adult children--Vesta--is still at home but working the adult job of teaching. The baby of the family is already 12 years old. Thankfully, many of her children stayed close, so she was able to see them often and whenever the family had family reunions.

By the 1940 Census all of Mollie and John's children are long gone. The two are in their 70's . They own their own farm and live in the same house they have lived in for years. John still works hard (it lists that he worked 52 hours during the preceding week on his farm) and I would imagine that Mollie does, too.

I couldn't find a death certificate for Mollie, but I did find one for John. He passed away in 1948 and was widowed at the time. The information on FamilyTree shows that Mollie passed away just two years before that. She was 78 years old.

*There is another record of her birth, but it looks like a duplicate or near duplicate of the first one.