52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: #1-Family Lore ~ Who’s My Mother?

Written for Amy Johnson Crow's 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.

Week 1 Prompt:
"The theme for Week 1 is "Family Lore." Many of us have heard stories from our grandparents about incredible feats our ancestors did or a famous person we're related to. What's a tale that has been passed down in your family? Did it end up being true or did it turn out to just be a good story?"

First just the facts

Caroline Flory Saurer

Ancestor name: Caroline Flory
Birth: 20 March 1844, Wayne Co., Ohio[1]
Marriage: 30 October 1860 to John Ulrich Saurer[2]
Death: 06 May 1884, Wayne Co., Ohio[3]

Relationship to me: Great-great-grandmother
I am descended through:
– her son, John Frederick Saurer (1873 - 1962)
– his daughter, Lela Mabel (Saurer) Ritchie (1913 – 1991)
– her son, my father, Donald John Ritchie (1934 – 2022)

Story:
I never thought to question whether the woman Caroline's  father Frederick called, “My beloved wife Amelia” in his 1863 will was his daughter Caroline’s mother.[4]  There was an 1850 census entry showing the family, and certainly, at twenty-nine, presumed wife "Emily", as she is enumerated, was old enough to be the mother of six-year-old Caroline.[5]

But then I was presented with the family lore that Caroline’s mother had died in childbirth when Caroline was born and that Caroline’s mother was, in fact, her father’s FIRST wife.[6]  Wait, WHAT first wife?  In my defense, most of my research on this family had occurred when I was a ‘baby genealogist’ in the 1980s.  A few index books and a copy of some records at the local courthouse were about the extent of my research at the time. (And the courthouse research had been thrilling, but that’s another story altogether.)

So, I went back to look at what I had for this family.  It was immediately clear when I reviewed that 1850 census that Emily could not be the mother of the oldest children, eighteen-year-old Frederick and fifteen-year-old Mary J.  However Caroline's age couldn't rule out Amelia as her mother. That left me with the dilemma that birth and death records were non-existent in 1844 Wayne County, Ohio. 

I realized that I had no idea when the Florys first appeared in Ohio.  I had no immigration information although I was fairly sure they were Swiss, in spite of the 1850 designation of Frederick, and a potential mother-in-law, Susan Sauvine, being born in France.  Wayne County was known to have both a German-speaking and a French-speaking Swiss population.

So, next week I will use the prompt "Origins" to look at the origins of my Flory family and see what that reveals about Caroline’s mother.

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[1] Find a Grave, Caroline Flory Saurer (1844-1884), Red Run Cemetery, Apple Creek, Ohio, (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29766338/caroline-saurer : accessed 22 March 2022), memorial ID 29766338.

[2] Wayne Co., Ohio, Affidavit Marriage License, vol. 1, pg. 266, John Saurer – Caroline Flory, 30 October 1860; digital image, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:9392-BR99-SH : 22 November 2023).

[3] Find a Grave, Caroline Flory Saurer (1844-1884).

[4] Wayne County, Ohio, Probate Court, probate file 6008, will of Frederick Flory; FamilySearch, (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-99QG-L6R5 : accessed 22 November 2023) Ohio Probate Records, 1789-1996 > Wayne> Estates 1884 no 5994–6053 > image 469/2988.

[5] 1850 U. S. census, Wayne County, Ohio, population schedule, East Union Twp., p. 210, dwelling 164, family 164, Frederik Flery household; NARA microfilm publication M432, rolls 739–740.

[6] Dudley R. Hartel, “Sauvain Families in Ohio and Indiana,” page 3; report to Diana Ritchie, Ballwin, Missouri, 30 December 2021.