Our great-grandmother, Catherine Josephine McGovern Smith had a brother, John (1853 – 1895), who was the oldest brother who survived until adulthood. When I first took a look at his generation, I could find very little information about him other than what was revealed in his death notice and also on the Md. State Archive’s marriage index card. He died young and he had married Jennie Johnston only three years before he died.
I knew even less about John’s wife, Jennie. I could not find her on any census records before or after the marriage. I could not figure out any of her family. What ever happened to her? Where did she come from? Now, with some more COVID time on my hands, I dug a little deeper.
On a newspaper search, I saw that a Mrs. Jennie R. Johnston had sold a house on Riggs Ave in 1896. It was likely that this was the right Jennie so I at least now had a middle initial for her. That might help. Other than that tidbit, the only thing I saw was that she was living at a home at 19 W. Barney St. by 1898 according to the Baltimore directory.
I finally looked a little closer at the marriage index card and realized that John was supposedly living in Wilmington, Delaware when he was married. That’s where I needed to look for him! The 1892 Wilmington directory had only one possible match, a John J. McGovern at 712 Walnut who was a clerk working for H&T Co. Maybe that was the right person but if it was all it gave me was another middle initial.
Searching in Ancestry.com for John in Wilmington did supply a rather sad document match that confirmed I was on the right trail. There was a death certificate issued there for a male child, stillborn on 15 August 1892 to John and Jennie McGovern. That was just over six months after the wedding but I don’t judge. It just makes it sadder.
At
this point, I decided to look closer at the Wilmington and Baltimore newspapers
after John’s death. There was one
article that showed up in a previous search that I now looked closer at. It was in the German language paper from
Baltimore, Der Deutsche Correspondent.
This time I was able to figure it out… the widowed Jennie married a
widower, Dixon McL. Crawford in 1898.
With the groom’s name, I could finally find the Md. State Archive’s index
card which is only indexed by the groom’s name.
This information and further newspaper and census searches revealed that Dixon’s first wife, Mary Ann, died just over a year earlier at only 36 years old, leaving him with a couple of teenage children. I am not sure how Jennie got on with the 17 year old step-son but at least she had something in common with the 13 year old step-daughter – her name was also Jennie.
With Jennie’s new married name, I could look in the newspapers again and I found some really sad news as well as some really surprising news. Jennie’s new husband, Dixon, died in November, 1900 at 44 years old, just over two years after marrying the second time. That left his 15 year old daughter with only a step-mother at home to care for her. That is, until…. 31 May 1901 when Jennie Johnston McGovern Crawford also passed away. The strain of burying two young husbands, neither surviving long after the wedding, losing one child of her own and caring for step-children alone must have been too much for Jennie, dying at only 37 years old.
While still documenting the family, I found one last piece of the puzzle that surprised me. This came in the form of an earlier death notice, one for the mother of Dixon Crawford’s first wife, Mary Ann. Do you see why it’s important?
After reading this, I understood the unusual notations on the Md. State Archive’s index card for Jennie’s marriage to Dixon. Look again at the "Relation" section. It also made clear Jennie’s housing situation after John’s death. And finally, I had found Jennie’s parents and a sister. I guess Jennie really was close to her step-daughter, obviously named after her.
A final twist came just as I was tying up loose ends and getting ready to post this message. While looking at the Loudon Park Cemetery records, I realized I had overlooked something on the 1900 census report. Dixon McLean Crawford Jr. was born on 16 January 1900. Jennie had a baby! Of course it wasn’t that great for the child in the end. He lost both his parents before he reached 17 months old. That’s when the fun really started.
Incidentally, $20,000 in 1901 is worth about $550,000 in 2022. Also, that William H Finch mentioned was the owner of the house where Jennie was buried from. The niece and nephew in Jennie's will were her step-children, the children of her sister, Mary Ann Johnston Crawford.
