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From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: 6/17/2018 5:25:07 PM Eastern Standard Time
Subject: From Ila about Uriah courting Mary Ann Burnett

 

 

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From: [email protected]
To: [email protected]
Sent: 6/5/2018 7:47:53 AM Eastern Standard Time
Subject: Fwd: Blank 3

1.  In Mary Ann’s handwritten copy I was sent it is hard to read her writing.  I think that’s why no one in the family has attempted or wanted to put it together and in typed form. The diary was found from what I was told in the garage on the floor of her residence after her death.  Some papers intact and others in part not.  A lot of her papers were scattered and unrecoverable on the floor of garage along with pictures.  Now her handwritten copy is approximately 100 pages and kept or entered over her life span.  I understand your confusion because I worked many hours to organize it and to make sense of what I was working with.  Believe me it was hard work but I tried my best with what I found.  Oh Lordy... then I went and took each page and hand wrote every page, sometimes confused myself.  But I worked at it.  After that I typed it into the form I sent you.  I tried to stay completely true to her diary even using her own spelling and use of her own words.  Well, it’s been over 100 years ago but I am doing my best to leave it as a Legacy from her to us.  I sent you the copy so you could gleam dates and etcetera.  I too wish it was a pristine lovely written diary but as my grandmas Lawson’s diary was hand written by her through my mother who only had a 4th grade education you can see what we are up against.  I’m surprised that it survived and ended up in my hands.  My grandmas account no one even knew it existed.  One day while visiting my brother he walks in and hands it to me telling me he found it in my mother’s box she kept.  Over 40 handwritten pages rolled up with a cloth tie tied around it.  He said this is a fictitious story Mom wrote and asked if I wanted it.  Of course deep down I knew it was important because at one time my mom had said she wanted to write a book about her experiences on the Lookout as a wife of a Forest Ranger.  In fact that she was working on a book.    I had looked through all her papers when she died but did not find it.  Through the years we as descendants wrote what we knew and printed it.  You will find that right after my grandmothers diary.  I held on to it for decades until the old ones died off so no one would be hurt with the truth.  I finally released it to the family last year. With everything else.  Please reread my foreword.  Now back to Mary Ann.  I know I am to release it also for the family.  She would want it because she had been so diligent.

 

Now at the time she was widowed she was seeing a man who was a merchant.  Thus you have that story.  She wanted to marry him but there was opposition from his family.  Enters Uriah McCoy seeing all this but wanting Mary Ann for himself stalked her.  Seeing he was about to lose out he made his play.  Thus going unwanted and unannounced to her doorstep and wearing her down.  Now I’m sure Mary Ann had told him of what transpired with her first husband that he would kill himself if she didn’t marry him.  Thus I’m sure Uriah thought worked on Mary the first time around why not try it himself.  Well...  by 6:00pm he finally got her to consent and when she tried to change her mind he told her, no he would return at 8:o with the preacher.  Thus you know...  you read how upset Mary Ann’s mother was.  Afterward his kids were allowed to live with them but he wanted no part of her child and discouraged him being around.  He lived with his grandma.  Now I have talked about all this with one of my cousins and truth is Mary Ann was a FOOLISH WOMAN, DID NOT HAVE GOOD COMMON SENSE when it came to choosing husbands the right way but remember her father died before she was born.  Also there are some women in this world that cannot operate without a man.  Any man just so it’s a man to care for her.  I know it sounds harsh but it’s true. Thus third husband shops for a wife.  Heard of Mary.  You know the story.  Only took him one hour.   Those were the days.  One must live and survive.  Remember women were a husbands chattel.   Well,  I must go now but will write again.  Cousin Ila

 

Begin forwarded message:

From: JACQUELINE HELFRICH <[email protected]>
Date: June 5, 2018 at 3:31:12 AM PDT
To: [email protected]
Subject: Re: Blank 3

Ila

 

I have read Blank 2 and Blank 3 and I am afraid I am confused.

 

1.  I have the date of Mary Ann and Henry Lawson marrying January 9, 1879. in Tazewell, VA.

2.  Who is Mr. LM?  I am assuming that is Uriah, but the L throws me.  Does that start with the sentence "I soon found myself in love with someone else (Uriah)?  He was a merchant (Uriah was a music teacher).  And, that he was a widower with a daughter, and Mary Ann a widow with a son.   Well I loved him but was as good as he was and thought "well if he wants to listen to his people I will just let him go and I did. But, oh the sleepless nights and heartaches so I let this old man come back. So LM got married to a girl that didn't have much more." 

So, I am mixed up with she let him come back and yet she is saying that he got married to a girl that didn't have much more.  That totally confuses me.

3.  Then, the next part starting at the top of the page 14 with "When you think it is not their his children wanted to come in so I took two the oldest and youngest boy. There was a girl but no one sed could live with Uriah McCoy but the oldest boy was the best boy I ever saw.  I am lost as to she did not say anything about where she met Uriah, because Mr. LM, I'm thinking, is not the same person as #2 above.  And, she has nothing about him telling her that he was not going to leave until she agreed they would get married that day.  I am just totally lost with Mr LM - a merchant and then where did Uriah come in? 

 

4,There was no introduction of Uriah at the top of page 14, just talking about  "When you think it is not their his children wanted to come in so I took two the oldest and youngest boy. There was a girl but no one sed could live with Uriah McCoy but the oldest boy was the best boy I ever saw"  It was just brief that he died in 1900. 

 

5.  Yet, I have the date of Mary Ann and Uriah marrying as 15 Aug 1885 - in Tazewell, VA-was that in the bible?

6.  Enter William Sawyer Litz.  He told Mary Ann that if she would marry him, her son and mother could come out to Utah with them, but it ended up that she was in Utah and missed her son and mother and regretted it.

I saw no marriage for Mary and William Litz. in the two documents that you send, but I have in the computer that they got married  1891 in Minnesota.  Do you have the date and city.  I am afraid I am just confused and I know with all of my questions, I have confused you too.  Jackie

 

In a message dated 6/4/2018 6:59:09 AM Eastern Standard Time, [email protected] writes:

 

Here is the part of her diary I’ve concluded but I think it may help you. You already have Uriah And their marriage that I sent you. Check dates of her birth, marriage to Lawson, his death date, her marriage to Uriah, his death date. She states they were married 13 years. What you don’t have is her marriage to William Litz and further to her old age. That’s what I’m finishing.