The only records
found in Adelaide (Purdy) Kenyon’s own name were her death record, obituary and
tombstone. The other information in this
biographical image of her life came from researching and compiling data about
her husband, children, parents, census records, land records, and pension
records in other people’s names. This
documented data was then mixed with social history information appropriate to
the time and locations of her life. Adelaide is my 2nd Great-Grandmother.
Adelaide Fredora Purdy was born July 20, 1843 in the town of
Allen, Allegany County, New York, the daughter of Daniel Crane Purdy and his
wife, Keziah Gould. At the time of her
birth Adelaide
had an 18-month-old sister, Aurilla Purdy.
Her mother, Keziah, was just 16 when she married Daniel who was 20, and
she had her children at age 16 and 18.
Though Adelaide
was by all appearances a healthy child who thrived and grew, her mother
steadily declined in health due to “Consumption”, today known as tuberculosis.
Imagine how Keziah felt, knowing that she was dying and leaving
her two young daughters without a mother and her husband as a young
widower. How frustrated she must have
felt not to be able to meet the needs of her children, often perhaps not even
being able to console them due to her own weakness brought on by the
illness. Keziah died on June 28, 1845 at
age 20, leaving behind 3-year-old Aurilla, and not yet two-year-old, Adelaide.
Keziah's parents have not been identified and it is unknown if they participated in the childcare
of Adelaide and Aurilla after her death, but it is known that Daniel Purdy’s
father died when Daniel was nine years old, and his mother died shortly after Keziah
and would not have been available to help.
Daniel had brothers and sisters living in nearby Orleans County who may
have helped to care for the girls. No
doubt, Daniel had his hands full taking care of his daughters and trying to
earn his living in the shipping trade on the Great Lakes. As many young men of the period did, he
remarried just over a year after Keziah’s death to Susan Savage on 10 Sept 1846
in Niagara County, New York.
Daniel and Susan continued to live in Niagara County
until 1859 when they made plans to move to the State of Wisconsin and homestead. Just days before her entire family left New York, Adelaide
Purdy, who had turned 16 five days earlier, married Charles Wesley Kenyon on July 25th, 1859. Their marriage was blessed by Rev. J. Bowan
who pastored the local Methodist-Episcopal church. It had to be heartbreaking to Adelaide to watch her
parents and her sister and five young siblings, including a month-old baby
brother, drive off in a horse-drawn wagon, never knowing when, or if, she would
see them again.
Both the Kenyons and Purdys had family members who were
early pastors for the Methodist
Church in the United States.
Adelaide’s
great-grandfather, James Purdy, Sr. was ordained by Bishop Francis Asbury and
served as a circuit rider for the Methodist-Episcopal Church in upstate New
York from 1798 until his death in 1844.
James and his wife, Sarah (Gereau) Purdy died as the result of injuries
received in a run-away horse accident in adjacent Orleans County, NY. Charles grandfather, Robert Kenyon, and
great-uncle, Barber Kenyon, had founded Methodist Churches in Onondaga County,
New York in the early 1800’s, and then in 1823 Barber founded another church
and preached in Kenyonville, NY just a few miles from where Charles and
Adelaide farmed. The family was
obviously strong in their faith and would have relied on it to see them through
good and bad times.
Charles and Adelaide settled down and farmed land that had
been part of the parcel his father, Samuel L. Kenyon, had tamed from a purchase
in 1833 from the original Holland Patent.
The family lands bordered Lake Ontario and held a beautiful view in the
summer, but were subject to the brutal winds, snow, and cold of upstate New
York come winter. Three years later Adelaide gave birth to
their first child, William L. Kenyon who was born on the 18th of October 1862. Within weeks, Adelaide received the news that her youngest
brother, Daniel Purdy, who was a babe-in-arms when her parents left three years
prior, had died in far off Wisconsin. She must have thanked the Lord that her
little William was alive and well in her arms as she grieved for the little
brother she had barely known and for a loss she could now fully
comprehend.
Charles enlisted in the Civil War on April 2, 1863 to serve
with Co. A, 8th Regiment of the New York Heavy Artillery. Along with him, most of his brothers and
first cousins also enlisted leaving behind young wives, children, and worried
families. Little William was only 6
months old when his father left, and Adelaide surely must have wondered how she
would take care of her young son and the family farm they had worked for the
past 4 years. It had to have been a
struggle to even get a crop planted, although the community must have pulled
together during this time. For the next
18 months the women and children left behind did their best to survive in a
time when their entire country’s future was at stake. Imagine Adelaide’s
horror to receive a letter dated June 1864 stating that her husband had been
shot at Cold Harbor and because he was not
able to keep up with his Company, he had been left behind. She was later to find out that he had been
taken prisoner by the Confederate Army and was held in Libby Prison. It is unknown if she knew of her husband’s
whereabouts during that year or not, but she likely wondered if he was
suffering at the hands of the enemy, or even alive. Libby Prison was one of the acknowledged
worst prisons of the war where many Federal soldiers died due to poor food and
care, dysentery, and abuse at the hands of their captors and its horrors were
well publicized. Charles was transferred
back into Federal hands early in June of 1865 and mustered out late that
month. Adelaide’s joy must have known no limits when
her husband finally made his way home later that summer after being
discharged. Their happiness soon turned
to sorrow when little William died that September at age 2 ½ and was laid to
rest beside his grandfather, Samuel, his great-grandparents Robert and Amy
(Eggleston) Kenyon, and his aunt Huldah (Kenyon) Thomas who had died in childbirth in 1860.
More children were born to Adelaide and Charles. Louis Avery was born May 2, 1866, Daniel Charles
on Mar 21, 1868, Cora A. Purdy Kenyon on January 11, 1870, and Edward W. on
January 2, 1872. Life must have been
overwhelmingly busy for Adelaide
caring for four very young children.
Like other women of that time, she would have been responsible for
seeing that the cooking, housework, and laundry were done, and family garden
was tended. Charles and Adelaide decided to move
to Wisconsin
and join her family who had settled in a valley named after her father, “Purdy Valley”
in Monroe County, Wisconsin.
Adelaide’s
father, Daniel Purdy, had written to them that he had dedicated a tract of land
for them to farm adjacent to her brothers and sisters. The thought of reuniting with her family
would have been wonderful and thrilling.
Adelaide
and Charles also had to face the prospect of saying tearful, and probably
permanent, good-byes to his family and both of their aunts, uncles, and cousins
who they were leaving behind. It is not
hard to imagine the anguish they felt knowing that they might never see those
dear faces again and that their young children would likely never hug their
grandmother, Julia (Chaffee) Kenyon again in her lifetime. Probably one of the last stops they made
before leaving the area would have been to visit little William’s grave.
The trip was without a doubt, arduous and long. The family probably followed a route across
western New York,
into Ohio, Indiana, Illinois and then north
into Wisconsin
covering almost 900 miles during the sweltering heat of the summer. Every earthly possession that they could take
would have been packed carefully.
Treasures would have been stowed amongst the food and supplies that
would have been needed to see them overland.
When they left in the summer of 1872, Adelaide and Charles traveled with three sons
ages 6, 4 and 7 months, and little Cora who at age 2 was a toddler and still in
diapers as well as little Eddie. The
children would have been able to do little to help with the move or the
overland trip itself and Adelaide
must have spent much of her time keeping them fed, clean, and occupied so that
Charles could focus on transporting them.
Wisconsin
must have seemed like a very distant destination. It is unknown exactly how long the trip took
the family, but two to three months would have been likely.
Upon their arrival in Purdy Valley,
Adelaide and
her family would have been welcomed by every member of the clan that had gone
ahead. Adelaide would also have met for the first
time her sister Emmeline who was age 10, and her brother Byron who would have
been 7, as both had been born after her parents arrived in Wisconsin.
It is likely that Charles, Adelaide,
and the children would have stayed with the various relatives in the Valley
while Charles built their new home. Purdy Valley
was fed by a stream known as “Squaw Creek” which flowed westward the length of Purdy Valley
and joined the LaCrosse
River. Across the road, or trail, as it was then
from the Purdy home[s], a large Winnebago Indian Camp was situated. The Indians were friendly to this white family. “Frank Purdy, Adelaide’s younger brother,
told of playing stick and ball game and the moccasin game with Indian
children. He also told of dodging in and
out among the dancers as they performed a “War Dance” to declare war against an
enemy tribe. Their rabbit stews and
barbequed venison were also shared with the white children.” Adelaide,
as a mother with young children, must have kept an ever-watchful eye on her
offspring and their interactions with the Winnebagos.
Adelaide
and Charles farmed in Purdy
Valley for nearly four
decades. Charles also acted as a stock
buyer and Station manager in nearby Tunnel City as well as postmaster for
several years. Their family grew again
in Wisconsin
and they welcomed two more daughters.
Aurelia S. “Rena” Kenyon was born January 12, 1880 and “Gertie” was born March 14, 1882. Grief would once more descend on the Kenyon
household as little Gertie died a month later on April 12th. Rena also died young, at age 14 in 1894 and
is buried alongside her little sister.
Adelaide
watched her children grow up and marry other children who had grown up in Purdy Valley
and other nearby areas in Greenfield
and LaGrange Townships. Her only surviving daughter, Cora Kenyon,
married William Heser in 1886 and they settled near Adelaide and Charles. Their oldest surviving son, Louis Kenyon,
married in 1888 to Gertrude Vandervort and they too settled nearby. Daniel Kenyon married in 1896 to Libby Scott
and they settled for a short while in Portage
County, Wisconsin
before moving on to Montana
in 1898. Edward married in 1899 to Edna
Fuller and they settled in Marathon
County, Wisconsin.
Adelaide
and Charles lived amongst their relatives and friends the rest of their
lives. Adelaide was left a widow when Charles died March 10, 1910 of “La
Grippe” or pneumonia as it is known today.
Adelaide’s daughter-in-law, Gertrude died from complications of asthma
the following November and Adelaide moved in with her widowed son, Louis, and
her grandson, Charles who was ten years old at the time. Adelaide
helped Louis raise Charles and ran their household so that he could farm the
family lands. She lived to see the
grandson she had helped raise marry Harriet Shookman on October 6, 1915 and watch their family
swell to 7 children. Many other
grandchildren and great-grandchildren were born as well and when Adelaide died April 10, 1928 at age 84,
she left behind a heritage that would become part of this family’s story.
© Karla Von Fumetti Staudt
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