Adelaide Fredora (Purdy) Kenyon, 1843-1928

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 25^th, 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 18^th 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, 8^th 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 12^th.  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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