We’re full into Arizona monsoon season in Tucson with a downpour yesterday that also brought LOTS of really loud thunder and lightning. There is a chance of another storm later today so I’m happy to be distracted by Saturday Night Genealogy Fun with Randy Seaver.

Today’s challenge is a bit somber, although not unusual with high mortality rates of the past.

1)  Do you have ancestors who suffered the loss of one or both parents early in their life?  Did the surviving parent remarry soon after one parent died?  Was a guardian appointed for your ancestor to protect their physical or legal interests?    

2)  Tell us about one or two of your “orphaned” ancestors and how this affected their life.

Two people come to mind in reply to this challenge. My dad, George Sabo (1926-1985) is the first one. Although he was born well into the 20th century and medical knowledge had improved tremendously, there hadn’t been many advances made in fighting tuberculosis.

I never knew my dad’s father, also George Sabo (1893-1936) because he came down with TB young in life and didn’t survive it.

Although both my paternal grandparents were first generation Americans, being from an immigrant family in the early 1900s usually meant a job with not the best working conditions. For both my grandparents, that meant working in Passaic’s factories.

Factory bosses didn’t care if you were sick, you were expected to show up every day and, if you didn’t, there were many workers waiting to replace you. That meant healthy workers were exposed to workers who were ill, some of whom had tuberculosis. My grandmother’s sister worked in a factory, got TB and died when she was just a few days past her 27th birthday.

My grandparents were fortunate to have been able to open a butcher shop and leave their factory jobs. However, most of their friends and relatives weren’t as fortunate and, somewhere along the line, my grandfather was exposed and got sick.

My grandmother never remarried and my dad lost his father when he was just ten years old.

The second orphan in the family tree is on my maternal side. Sibbel Shepley was born on 19 September 1755 in Groton, MIddlesex, Massachusetts, the only daughter of Oliver and Mary (Lakin) Shepley.

The family soon moved to the town next door, Pepperell. I have no way of being certain, but given that once the first child arrived in 1700s Massachusetts, the rest came quite regularly every two years. That means it is very possible that Mary Lakin was pregnant during the summer of 1757. She died on 6 August and, at first, I thought perhaps she died in childbirth. However, Oliver Shepley, her husband, died just five days later on 11 August. They were just 22 and 23 years old.

That led me to investigate Pepperell’s summer of 1757 and I learned there was an “ague” that took the lives of quite a few young adults.

Little Sibbel was too young to remember either of her parents. Her maternal uncle, Ambrose Lakin, became her guardian and remained as such until she married Revolutionary War soldier James Scripture on 15 June 1775 when she was 19 years old.

Many colonial brides married when they were 21. Sibbel wasn’t terribly young, but younger than most when she married. That was perhaps due to the fact that she had been orphaned. Her husband, James, was 26 years old.

Little Sibbel is my only ancestor who never knew either of her parents.

That’s it for the two people in my family tree that popped into my mind in response to this week’s challenge.

Thank you, Randy!