TW’s older sister Alice was married and not living at home any more. Before her marriage she had been—like a number of women in the Milburn line—a schoolteacher. For five years she had taught in the Fourth District schools around where they were living, first primary school, then secondary. In October of 1870 she resigned her post, and married John R. Wood. Mr Wood, a Virginian, was a river boat pilot. The Woods moved to a house of their own a few blocks further south. They apparently tried to start a family (this is not clear to me), but never got very far. Alice took sick with a “lingering illness” and died in the summer of 1877. Her husband stuck around Washington. He was now a boat captain taking day-trippers and pleasure-seekers on excursions to, say, Leonardtown down on the Maryland shore. I’m sorry to say I don’t yet know what happened to him, nor where he ended up.
TW's sister Ada was just out of secondary school when she married in January of 1876. Her husband George Kleindenst came from Washington, from the neighborhood, so they had likely known each other for years. Right away they started their large family. Suddenly in 1880 George headed to Texas, following his brother-in-law to San Antonio, and Ada and the children came and joined him there.
Mrs. Pamelia Milburn, TW’s mother, decided to remarry, a few months after Ada wed George. Pamelia's second husband was Mr James H. Granger of Washington. Granger was another carpenter. He was a little bit older than Pamelia, and had been married twice before, with a grown son. For a time the Grangers stayed in Southwest DC, but in the coming decade they wound up moving out to the suburbs south of the Eastern Branch. All of Pamelia’s own children were either dead or living far away.
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| TW’s mother Pamelia |
There will be more about Pamelia Granger in another post, and more about Ada Kleindenst when we get back to Texas.
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