#52Ancestors: Week 9 – Sarah Vina Howes – Last Chance at Love

This is week nine of the 2015 #52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge where a group of u52ancestors-2015 Images blog about a different ancestor for each week of the year.  To learn more about the 52 Ancestor Challenge visit Amy Johnson’s site at Amy’s website.

Two blocks from Sarah Howes’ house lives a middle aged man, Ira Bridges, recently widowed. How long did she know him before they got married? Were they attracted to each other from afar and waiting for the day they could be together? Or, did they marry for convenience?

Sarah V. Howes is my paternal great grandfather’s sister. She opted for the single life until she entered into a marriage at the age of 53. Born in 1855 in Warrick County, Indiana, she died in Farmersburg, IN at the age of 60. Married in 1908, two years later she is widowed, and on her own.

Sarah may have waited for marriage because she was busy raising her younger siblings. Her mother, Lusina Hedges dies at the age of 39, her father, Lewis Charles House/Howes four years later. Sarah had six younger siblings that need care. Her youngest sister is just four years old at the time of her mother’s death.

The family moves off the farm to Evansville, IN. Her brothers are miners, she herself is a seamstress. The siblings marry, but not Sarah. Every few years, she moves to various rooming houses in her neighborhood. Houses come and went in Evansville, the houses she lived in no longer are no longer standing.

Ira Levi Bridges is a few years older than Sarah. Born in Kentucky, his family moves to Newburgh, IN. A growing coal mining and port community. Ira’s first wife is Nancy Jane Buston. Their union produces four sons. Ira works in the coal mine like so many others at the time.

Nancy Buston Bridges, age 62, dies on April 18, 1908. Eight months later on December 23, 1908, in Warrick County, Ira marries Sarah Howes. Such a quick marriage after the death of his first wife.

The new couple move out of the city to Farmersburg where Ira operates a mine. Four years after their marriage, Ira dies of liver disease in 1912. He is buried at Oak Hill Cemetery, in Evansville, IN.

Sarah remains in Farmersburg where she passes away. She shares her gravestone with her parents in Union Cemetery, Newburgh, IN.

With just a few facts one could create a story of torrid love affair or an ordinary union of two people. It would be interesting to know why Sarah waited to marry, but alas, the story has been lost to time.

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