Great-Great-Great Aunt Martha


I'm doing some family research, tracing the family lines. I've heard my Grandmom talk about her 'Aunt Mart'. She was Martha Redrow, and she was actually my great-grandfather's aunt. She was married twice, to a Parker and then to a Bishop. Both husbands died and she never had any children.

I was thrlled to find out from a 1900 census, that she was actually a dressmaker on Glover Street in Woodbury NJ. This was after her fist husband had died, and she is listed as Martha Parker Widow Dressmaker. I asked my grandmom and she remembers hearing that Aunt Mart had been a dressmaker at one time. Apparently the 2nd husband was wealthy and moved her out of Woodbury and she gave up making dresses. I think this photo was taken during her 2nd marriage.
After the 2nd husband died, she moved back to the old family farm in Deptford. She lived briefly with her nephew Edward Redrow (my great-grandfather)  who was recently widowed, and my grandmom who was about 11 at the time.
Later Aunt Mart moved down the road to her niece Hattie Redrow Vollmer's farm, and apparently that's where she died in 1929.
What a treasure it would be to be able to find a dress that Aunt Mart had made! The only way would be if someone in the family had kept one. I think she only made dresses out of her home, and I doubt that she had fancy labels.

3 comments:

olygirl said...

Thats incredibly cool! Fashion sensibility must be in your genes. :D

Kelly said...

It would be a lovely keepsake if you had one of your great x 3 aunts dresses!

Kathleen at Studio1950 said...

I traced my family lines and found writers in my background, something I have done for years. It would suggest that vocations were genetic somehow. Cool. Thanks for the story.