A Photo From The Shoe Box

Alice Wiggins Aleshire at the gas station

     When George Wiggins and Ida Edwards were married Christmas Day in 1895 it must have seemed like an auspicious beginning to the young couple.  The Wiggins' would have only two children, a boy and girl, somewhat unusual for a rural family in the opening years of the 20th century.  Their son Carl was born in 1905, followed in 1907 by Alice Aurilla; named for her paternal grandmother Aurilla Garner wife of William Wiggins.  Aurilla Garner died in 1906 and so was spared witnessing what would become of her son's family.

     George contracted the dreaded disease consumption (TB) and passed away 3 May 1909 at age 35.  Five months later, his four year old son Carl also died. I've not found a cause for his demise, it could have been the disease that took his father or perhaps not.  Regardless, an already grieving Ida now had to bury her only son.  The census taken in 1910 finds Ida and three year old Alice still living in the rented house on Williams Street in Wolcott, New York they had moved to shortly before George's passing.  The census taken by New York State five years later showed that Ida had remarried and she and Alice were living with her new husband, farmer Marion Haner in Sterling, New York close to Wolcott.

     This second marriage would not last long either, in March of 1925 Ida herself died at the age of 47.  Her obituary refers to her as Mrs. Marion Haynor of Camden, New York and states she died following a "very critical operation".  The New York State Death Index gives her place of death as Buffalo, New York, quite distant from Camden, giving the impression the operation was performed in that city.  

     At 18, Alice had now lost both parents but she was determined to make something of her life.  After graduating from Camden High School Alice enrolled at the Albany School of Nursing, landing a job at an Albany hospital after graduation.  Somewhere in the ensuing years Alice made the acquaintance of Theodore Aleshire of Port Gibson, New York, some 250 miles from Albany.  In 1938 they were married at the home of  her mother Ida's brother, her uncle Leroy Edwards.

     Together Alice and Theodore operated a gas station on Route 31 just outside Palmyra, New York.  The same station pictured at the top of this page.  I bet the A on the sign in the right corner was for Aleshire. The couple would have no children.  Theodore died in 1962 and Alice in 1979 in Palmyra.  The station is still there today though it no longer functions as such, instead it is a residence as it also was in Alice and Theodore's time there.  I can vaguely  recall visiting Alice many years ago with my late mother, whose grandmother Mary Wiggins was the sister of Alice's father George Wiggins, and being charmed by Alice's tiny home filled with antiques.  It was in my mother's shoe box of family photos that I found the shot of Alice with her dog outside the service station.  

     While the gas station still remains, no living descendants of George Wiggins or Ida Edwards do.  I still live nearby and occasionally  my route takes me past the old station, every time it does I think of Alice and my mother and that long ago visit.