Mary Caroline Buchholz Ackerson
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| Ira and Mary Buchholz Ackerson holding daughter Amanda |
I won't go into great detail with this story of my 2nd great grandmother, Mary Ackerson but will tell you the story of how she met my 2nd great grandfather.. She was born Maria Caroline Buchholz, named after her grandmother but went by Mary. She grew up poor and working on the family farm while doing outside jobs to bring in money for the family. One of these jobs was working as a housekeeper for her older sister's brother-in-law, Ira Ackerson and his three young children who were abandoned by their mother. Ira's first wife Bird Ingalls Ackerson went to see the Ringling Brother's Circus in a nearby city and never came back. The newspaper at the time theorized that she may have eloped to Chicago with a previous love interest but I never saw anything more on the subject until four years later when they filed for divorce, both living in the same town by then.
In this case, it is obvious the connection between Mary and Ira and they were married right after the divorce proceedings were completed. They would go on to have three more children to add to Ira's three from first wife Bird. I have lots of pictures of Mary but none of them she looks as happy as the photocopy above. Most of them are when she was older and had gray hair and may have been after she had a stroke that she never fully recovered from.
Ed, one of the my "greats" married the daughter of his business partner. Things were just rather different in those days.
ReplyDeleteOne thing about pictures from the "old days" is that I think they were a lot more rare and thus, as you note, we see individuals at specific times, not through the years.
They certainly are more rare though I have quite a number of Ira and Mary in their later years. But of Albert or Johann, the ones in my post was the only pictures I have of them.
DeleteFascinating photo. Is it a tintype?
ReplyDeleteIt could be. It is a photocopy of a picture that was assembled into a book sometime in the early 1960's. I don't know who has the actual picture.
DeleteRegarding smiles, old methods of photography with long exposures meant that subjects had to remain statuesque for several seconds or the picture would be blurred. You hardly ever see smiles in photos that were taken in the late nineteenth century through to the 1920's... but you knew that already Ed. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteI do and that is probably why the one above is the most neutral of them all. All the later ones with more instant photography mostly contain frowns and scowls. Perhaps she just hated photos in general.
DeleteI had to read this 2 1/2 times over to really get it, but what an interesting backstory to this picture here! While I'm sure most of us have buried gems like this one, how cool you're able to dig these up, Ed. :^)
ReplyDeleteAll thanks to old newspapers that have been digitized and are searchable these days.
DeleteHandsome couple! The stories from the past are similar to what happens today except that they seem more colorful. Going off to the circus and never returning?
ReplyDeleteI think newspapers of old were more prone to sensationalism than today if that is possible. A wife running off to see the circus and leaving her husband at home with a pile of kids wouldn't make the newspaper anymore.
DeleteSo maybe she left with the circus or maybe with a lover! I had an uncle who ran away and joined the circus as a child. I don't think that lasted very long, though. (if it was even true at all) He's one who had a terribly interesting life and I wish I'd asked him more questions while he was still alive.
ReplyDeleteI personally suspect that she just left and the circus was just something tossed out there to make it newsworthy.
DeleteWhat year was this photo taken? Your family history is very colorful.
ReplyDeleteJudging my great grandmother to be perhaps two years old in this picture, it would mean it was taken sometime around 1909 or there abouts.
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