52 Ancestors: #6 ~ The Photo Album of a Civil War Veteran's Wife – Cynthia Maria Waterman – Part 1

This is part of the "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" Challenge begun by Amy Johnson Crow, author of the blog No Story Too Small.

In a previous post, I shared pictures of the photo album that belonged to my 2nd great-grandfather, Ebenezer Perry Carlisle Webster. He was a Civil War veteran. If you missed that post, click HERE.

In that post, I explained how I was able to take pictures of Ebenezer's album during a visit with my 3rd cousin, who owns this precious album. I also mentioned that Ebenezer's wife, Cynthia Maria Waterman, also had a photo album. My 3rd cousin inherited Cynthia's amazing photo album as well. And during our visit, I was able to take pictures of this fascinating photo album too.

Today I'd like to share photos of Cynthia's album with you.

This is the front of Cynthia's photo album. Isn't it pretty? It's quite ornate compared to Ebenezer's photo album. It's also larger than Ebenezer's album.



I love that the first pictures in the photo album are of Cynthia's husband, Ebenezer Perry Carlisle Webster, and herself.



And here is the photo of Cynthia Maria Waterman that was on the right side of this first album page.



Cynthia Maria Waterman was born on 21 May 1836 in Coolville, Athens, Ohio and passed away on 22 September 1895 in Marysville, Marshall, Kansas. She was the tenth of twelve children born to Asher Waterman and Bathsheba Paulk.

Unfortunately, I don't know who's handwriting is at the bottom of these pages.



It wouldn't make sense for Cynthia to have written "Aunt Amanda" in the photo above, because Amanda was Cynthia's sister.

Amanda's full name was Sarah Amanda Waterman. This name may be familiar to my regular readers because of an exciting adventure I've shared recently. It has to do with vintage postcards from the early 1900s that were written to Sarah Amanda Waterman and her husband, Richard Engle. These postcards were discovered in Ireland in a second-hand shop by a sweet woman named Ann. And because of Ann's kindness, I am now in possession of many of these postcards. If you'd like to read about what I call "The Engle Family Postcard Adventure," click HERE.

Okay, back to Cynthia's wonderful photo album.



So, who did write on these album pages?



I asked my 3rd cousin, Norma, if she knew who wrote on these pages, but she didn't know for sure. She did say that it was among her grandmother's things and thought that perhaps it had belonged to Lura Webster, who was one of Cynthia's daughters. Perhaps Lura wrote on these pages. That would probably make sense because Sarah Amanda Waterman was Lura's aunt. And, that would explain why "Aunt Amanda" was written under Sarah Amanda Waterman's picture.



You can see Lura's name written at the bottom of the right page in the photo above. She was married to Paul Anderson Hammett. That's what the P. A. Hammett stands for at the bottom of the left page in the photo above.

I'm grateful to Lura or whoever did take the time to add names to these pictures.



As I said, Cynthia's photo album is larger than Ebenezer's photo album. And there are more pages in it as well.



Because I don't want this post to be too long, I decided to share Cynthia's photo album in two posts – Part 1 and Part 2.



I will be sharing Part 2 of Cynthia's photo album in a future post. It won't be part of the 52 Ancestors blog challenge though.

Thanks for reading!

Jana

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