Doctor Grandma

Giordan read a poem tonight about missing her great-grandmother putting her to bed. Interesting thought, writing a poem about my great-grandmother(s). I’m thinking of writing a poem for each one. I never met any of them. On my mother’s side, they are Dutch. My mother’s mother’s mother was Trijntje Van Shepen born in Annaparochie, Friesland, Netherlands. She married Martin Engbringhof in the Netherlands June 5, 1879 & was evidently about 5 months pregnant at the time because their first daughter, Fannie, was born Sept.27, 1879. Fannie, then, was oldest sister of my Grandma Cena, who was the 5th daughter & youngest child. I remember Great Aunt Fannie and have pictures of her. They immigrated to America in about 1882, went to Chicago, then down to the Lafayette, Indiana area, my hometown. In America they became: Trena and Martin Brink. The children were: Fannie, Flora, Martha, Clara, and Cena, my grandmother. There was a boy, Henry, born after Martha, who only lived a year. He is buried in the old Greenbush cemetery near No. 12th St. in Lafayette. I don’t know if there is a headstone.

My mother’s father’s mother was also Dutch, born in 1872 in Stiens, Friesland, Netherlands. Her name was Katherine Hanstra. She immigrated in 1889 to Chicago area, married Wopke (William) Plantinga May 3,1893. They had a son, my Grandpa George, 5 months later on Oct.15th. For the rest of his life, they refused to ever celebrate his birthday, because it was embarrassing to them. They also came south and settled in the Lafayette Indiana area, then proceeded to have 10 more children. My Grandpa helped raise and support them as a young adult, him being the oldest. He came home one day and found his mother, Katherine, crying because the kids had to start school & she didn’t have money to buy them shoes. My Grandpa George went out and bought them all shoes.

My father’s mother’s mother was Cora Belle Owens. She was born in Lawrence County Indiana in 1869, married Charles S. Reid Feb.27, 1889. They had a girl (Margaret), a boy (Noyes– interesting name), then a girl named Mary, my grandmother. After her came the boy, Walter, who also died as a baby of 7 months. (I posted his headstone in a post below.) After Charles died in 1917, she married another man 2 years later at age 55, but then herself passed 2 years later at age 57. She lived her entire life in Indiana.

My father’s father’s mother was Carrie E. Biby, born in Crawford County Indiana in 1860. She married at age 19 to a man 19 years older than herself, a man named JAMES AGNEW. (James had a father ALSO named James Agnew and this is the ancestry that stops with the older James. I’ve never found where he was born or who his parents were.) — The younger James, my great-grandfather, and Carrie Biby lived their lives in New Albany, Indiana. Carrie was James’ SECOND marriage, as his first wife died very young. James and Carrie had 4 sons, William, James G., Frederick, and Alfred, but James G.— again— lived only 6 months. His name was James Garfield Agnew & there is no headstone. AFTER Alfred, though, came a set of twins, a girl and a boy: Gertrude, and John Wesley, my grandfather. Now it gets interesting: James Agnew my GGrandfather died from a fall off a ladder while painting a house with one of his sons. CARRIE, then, lives 10 more years, BUT, dies in 1916 in an insane asylum, a famous one in Indiana, in Madison County. I feel bad that she died there.

Of these 4 great-grandmothers, 2 were Dutch; Cora Belle Owens’ ancestry leads to Wales, and Carrie’s to England.