Whilst Selina Elizabeth is a bit of a side issue to the life of her sisters, Martha and Mary, nevertheless her story is fascinating! And reinforces the remarkable links which this Black Country family had, and the Birmingham families to which they were connected, with the USA. I have been trying to absorb it and make sense of it all.
From my brother's research and my father's 1974 recollection, we have Selina Elizabeth, born in 1876 in Old Hill, marrying, at the age of 16, a Solomon Stokes (son of Solomon), aged 19, of Rowley Regis on 23 October 1892 in Cradley Heath; and having four children, based on Tyneside but with three of them with their grandparents in 1911 and possibly all four being brought up there. (One of the children, Fred, will be awarded the D.C.M in the Great War when in the Northumberland Fusiliers).
But meanwhile it looks as though Solomon Stokes enters the USA on 28 January 1902 and is the subject of a naturalisation record in 1914. Annie Austin (born in Birmingham) emigrates in 1903 to join him and they marry there, in Pennsylvania. Solomon states then that he has not previously been married.
The delicate assumption seems to have been that Selina died young for these circumstances to have occurred. But it seems that she didn't. She remarried in 1915 to Albert Stone (b. 1879, St. George's, Bermuda) and survived to a reasonable age, dying in 1949. (Again, I have no recollection of hearing that news but it's probable that my father had lost all connection with this further great-aunt by then).
So I think that the interpretation has to be something along the following lines:
Solomon and Selina Elizabeth were youngsters. Marriage came early, in 1892, perhaps for the usual reason. Three further children subsequently appeared. After some years of marriage the relationship broke down. (Possibly this happened quite early, as it seems that the children spent much of their childhood with their grandmother and my father would have been old enough to be aware of that, with cousins of his own age living in his grannie's house). Perhaps Annie Austin had appeared on the scene. In 1902 Solomon emigrated, followed a year later by Annie, and they married in Pennsylvania, with Solomon denying any previous marriage. For one reason or another Selina Elizabeth had been by then in Jarrow for some years, one assumes initially with Solomon. She spent the rest of her life there, re-marrying to Albert Stone in 1915 at the age of 39 and eventually dying, a widow, in 1949 at the age of 73.
The assumption has to be that there was a formal divorce between Selina Elizabeth and Solomon: otherwise both of their subsequent marraiges would of course have been bigamous.
Is there any disagreement with that interpretation?
Thanks very much, as usual, for the ongoing interest.
Chris
Newcastle Evening Chronicle - Wednesday 01 September 1915 part 1.jpg
Newcastle Evening Chronicle - Wednesday 01 September 1915 part 2.jpg
Newcastle Evening Chronicle - Wednesday 01 September 1915 part 3.jpg
Newcastle Evening Chronicle - Wednesday 01 September 1915 part 4.jpg
Newcastle Evening Chronicle - Wednesday 01 September 1915 part 5.jpg
