#52 ANCESTORS in 52 WEEKS
Week 29 Prompt-
Birthdays
Ursley C Smith Fueston
24th December 1838-25th March 1915
This week was a bit of a struggle to simply figure out who I wanted to tell a story about and how birthdays was a prompt. The struggle was real. The decision to write a little story about my 2X great grandmother won.
How sweet it must have been for Robert James Smith (1812-1882) and Nancy Sloan (1816-1859) to have a baby in December, (probably Dec 24th per her death certificate however other documents indicate Dec 9th), their first Christmas and all. Well, Christmas wasn’t even declared a Federal Holiday until June 28, 1870 under President Uysless S. Grant. It seems that historically seasonal holidays, much like Christmas were celebrations considered to be pagan.
At Ursley’s home there were probably small handmade crackers and maybe gifts exchanged. There might have been a tree with decorations, but probably no cards sent. She was the first born to Robert Smith and Nancy Sloan and surely a gift to them, the most precious kind of gift.
The Kentucky Lantern, December of 2022[1], has a story that chronicles the life and times of Charles Dickens. A familiar name to all of us, more familiar than Ezekiel Fueston and Ursley Smith were a few short years ago. Anyway, the author writes about how “Charles Dickens at 31 wrote “A Christmas Carol” among other writings” in 1843. This was a few years after Ursley was born. Dickens stories, and movies made from his writings remain popular in many homes today.
In February of 1838, Kentucky passed the woman suffrage law. Ursley, if she was head of household could vote in elections deciding taxes and more. [2] Ursley became widowed and head of household in 1890.
It has been a journey and a joy to begin to cobble her story together. The first census found as a married woman is in 1860 [3]. She is married to Ezekiel (1835-1890) and they lived in Wayne, Kentucky. Her father Robert Smith’s household lived next door to her and her husband. Ursley and Ezekiel had 2 of their 10 children by this time. Her father interestingly was married to his second wife, Millicent. She just happened to be 19 and he was 47. Even more interesting is that Millicent’s sister was married to her new husband’s son. A story for another time. Back to Ursley. It is know that both Ursley’s husband and the men in her father’s home were all farmers in Kentucky.
One of her sons writes an account of when they were small children how “the family moved in a covered wagon, stopping at Greensburg Indiana, and near Champlain, Illinois for the winters before finally homesteading in Western Nebraska.”[4]
She traveled to Missouri at one point in her life. The 1900 censes has her in Henry, Tebo Missouri. She was the head of the household and several of her grown sons were living with her and many of them remained living with her at various times until her death in Spokane, Washington in 1915.
I can’t help but wonder what a beautiful gift she must have been being the first born to her parents. And what a wonderful gift she was to her own children through-out her life. She is laid to rest in a beautiful un-endowed section of Greenwood Memorial Terrace in Spokane, WA.
She is amongst many family members within the same area of the cemetery. While walking through the naturally overgrown, unattended, peaceful section of the cemetery there were many broken, unreadable, and simply not present headstones. I think she probably loves her organic resting place.
I’m excited to learn more about her as research into her life continues to be a journey.
[1] https://kentuckylantern.com/2022/12/23/the-ghost-of-an-idea-a-reflection-on-charles-dickens-and-the-history-and-meaning-of-the-season/
[3] 1860 Unites States Federal Census Kentucky, Wayne, division not stated.
[4] https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-daily-advocate-jethro-franklin-fuest/109746375/
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