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From Mother a Tear...(continued)

11 months old when he died at the family farm in New Milford Township, Winnebago County, Illinois. It was the first intimate family death that Elizabeth had experienced. All of her father, Jacob Brown's fifteen children by two wives achieved adulthood. In fact, the youngest half-sister, Martha Brown, was born in 1855 and was five years younger than her little nephew John Hollingsworth. Elizabeth's own mother had died before Elizabeth was five, as the family tradition goes. The sorrow Elizabeth felt seems to come through in these lines. It seems to be original verse, not a copy of another's work.


                     From mother a tear              1856

                    paus frends veiew the spot
                    where youth and beautys form
                    lies silent and forgot 
                    free from care and storm

                    Once happy blithe and gay 
                    that form among us played 
                    a flower of day 
                    blooming but to fade

                    frends marke the grave 
                    with but a single tear 
                    from death we could not save 
                    that little form so dear

                    he will bless you with his love 
                    for the little tribute given 
                    and pray for you above 
                    till we meet him once in heaven

                                                E.H.


See our article "Let the Ancestor-Hunter Beware!" in the March 
1981 issue, pp. 1-3, detailing our problem finding John's grave, which 
is not only marked by ancient tears, but by a fine marble headstone.



Another small slip of paper, torn from a larger piece, bears the 
embossed seal of a notary for Winona County, Minnesota, on one side, 
and on the other, in Elizabeth's writing, the following:



                         Mr Edward E. Hollingsworth
                         And Rachel Mcfadden

    This is also in      Was Married on January
    the handwriting      The fifth, 1860, In the (sic: expunged)
    of Elizabeth         Olmstid (Olmsted) Co and  State
    (Brown) Hollings-   Of Minesota By 
    worth.               Mr Height



This, too, is thrilling to have, for these are your editor's dear
great-grandfather and great-grandmother, neither of whom he ever met,
but were the inspiration for his sally-forth into genealogy in the 
first place a quarter of a century ago. (See the copy inside back.)



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