Woman of Courage: Ada Massey

Ada Massey

Because February is Women's History Month I wanted to share with my readers the story of strong and courageous women in my life. You will be able to follow along as you wish by choosing the label "Women of Courage" in the right side bar. I encourage my readers to join me in honoring women of courage in your own families.

Ada Massey was a young free-spirited woman. Born in the small town of St. Mary's Ontario in the summer of 1887, Ada was the first child born to Thomas & Harriet (Purdue) Massey. Eventually she was joined by 7 younger siblings. Their family was life was not unlike others of the time period. 

But Ada was different from other girls and young women her age. From an early age she began occassionally wearing men's clothing. Her behaviour became increasingly eccentric as judged by the mores of the early 1900s. After her father's death in 1912 when Ada was in her early 20's, her mother and brothers took to locking her in her room when she would have an emotional outburst. 

During one such time Ada climbed out her bedroom window and hopped on the family sleigh to drive into town. It was a cold winter's day and she had no hat or coat but Ada didn't care. 

Ada in mourning for her father in 1912

Eventually her behaviour and her emotional outbursts were too much for her widowed mother to handle and Ada was committed in January 1919 to what was then called the Insane Asylum in London Ontario. 

The notes of attending doctors and nurses reveal an anguished young woman, a woman whose wanting to cut her long hair short was judged a sign of insanity as "no decent woman would ever do such a thing."  

Ada insisted she wanted to cut her hair as it was far too hot in the summer and she was tired of fussing with it.

Poor Ada was never good at adding or subtracting numbers and when a verbal math test was administered by the doctors, Ada failed miserably. The notation on her chart reads "mentally retarded". 

Photo of Ada hangs on our wall

Reading Ada's hospital charts and notes one has to wonder if she were truly slipping into madness or was she just being dramatic so that she had some excitement in her otherwise drab life! She began to claim that she was married and that her husband was buried in the local cemetery. But reading her words made me think it was all a ruse, that she knew very well she was not married to a dead man, for her story kept changing. 

Meantime Ada's family sent letters and notes, as did Ada's many friends. Her mother wrote to the doctors asking for word of Ada's progress and expressing how much the family missed her. The doctors' notes back were brief and showed a total lack of caring. Ada was allowed visitors but the trip from St. Mary's to London was not easy so the family had few opportunities for a personal visit. 

Eventually Ada refused to eat. She wanted out. She wanted to go home and be with her family and friends. She wanted to go back to her job at the  J.D. Moore Cold Storage Plant. 

After her continued refusal to eat, force feeding was ordered. We can only imagine the ordeal she went through. Ada continued to refuse solid food. 

Less than 2 weeks after being admitted to the Asylum, Ada died. She was only 28 years old. The doctor's note to the family informing them of her death was one simple line of text 

Her death certificate notes the cause of death as "Exhaustion" I believe she simply gave up. I believe she was a misunderstood young woman who did not fit into the social norms of the day. And that is why I call her a Woman of Courage. 

Ada is buried in the local cemetery in St. Mary's  with her brother James. Rest in Peace Ada.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: A Death and Abandonment in Australia

Amy Johnson Crow has a new challenge for geneabloggers called Challenge: 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. Amy challenges genealogists to write about one ancestor once a week. 

This is my 2nd great-grandmother Sarah (Elvery) Stead. She is 30 years old in this photo taken in 1866 just one year before she set sail from England for Australia. Sarah was 7 months pregnant at the time, and was with her deaf husband, my 2nd great grandfather William Stephen Stead, and their 4 children ages 1 to 7. They were leaving Ramsgate England to settle in Australia near William's brother Edward Crunden Stead.

Poor Sarah's fate was sealed from the moment she stepped on board the ship Light Brigade. Luckily she did not know what was in store for her. The journey to Australia was not an easy one. The Light Brigade ran into foul weather which increased their travel time. Due to the long voyage Sarah went into labour and a son Ebenzer was born while they were still at sea. Poor Sarah died shortly after his birth, bitten by a flea from a rat and developing typhus. The ship lay in Quarantine in Sydney Harbour at the time of her death. 

Her husband continued his trip with his 4 children and a newborn babe and made it to Sunny Corners where his brother lived. I'm sure he had no idea what he was going to do with 5 young children, no wife and no job. Sadly after 6 months little Ebenezer died and was buried beside his mother in Haslem's Creek Cemetery (now Rookwod Cemetery) in Sydney. 

My mother at the grave where Sarah and Ebenezer are buried

In a bizarre twist of fate, Edward Stead (William's brother) was the official gravedigger there so he dug their graves and saw to their burial. The gravesite was never officially purchased or owned by the Stead family and in fact a few months later it was bought by a rather important family and the head of the family was buried there. 

The gravestone marker only records Thomas Newland and his children. There is no stone for Sarah and Ebenezer but they are found in the cemetery records as being buried in the Newland family plot. 

Now came William's dilemma. His wife was dead. His baby son was dead. He was a deaf man with 4 young children in a strange country and now way to support them. The decision was made - he would return to England where he had a job and family to help him out. But he could not manage with 4 young children. So he took his 7 year old son and his 4 year daughter (my great grandmother) back to England and left his other two sons ages 1 and 8 behind with his brother.

His brother had recently lost a child of his own and one of William's sons was not only the same age, he had the same name! So Edward and his wife adopted the two sons left behind by his brother and raised them as their own. 

William left a copy of the photo I own of Sarah with the two sons his brother adopted. His hope was obviously that they would never forget their real parents. One of the boys left behind died young but the other survived and married and had children. Sadly their descendants had no clue who the lady was in the photo passed down in the family. But one of the descendants managed to uncover the truth and connect with my family in Canada in the 1980s. 

But I often think about poor Sarah dying so young and her children being separated and raised by different parents in countries so far apart. I wish she could have lived and seen her baby and other children grow and have children of their own.