I came across this photo today on Ebay and was captivated by that wee face and the unusual pose. Unlike many formal, stiff, starched pictures of young children this one captured the baby's sweet, innocent smile and the utter delight of a child learning to walk. On the back was written, "Edna S. VanHee taken the day before she was a year old". Since I'm completely unable to look at an old photo without wondering who that is looking back at me, I needed to find out how Edna's life had unfolded-- so I turned to Ancestry. The photographer's studio was in Palmyra, New York so Edna and her family must have lived in that vicinity. The New York State Birth Index shows Edna was born 7 November 1884 in Marion, Wayne County, New York, very close to Palmyra which would date the photograph 6 November 1885. The 1900 census gave her age as fifteen, still in Marion, and revealed her parent's names; Peter from Holland and his wife Francena a native of New York. Edna would grow up in the rural town of Marion as an only child on her parent's farm.
I found Edna's father Peter VanHee in the 1870 census of Marion living with his parents and siblings. Peter was born in 1858 in Holland and the next child in the family in 1861 in New York; somewhere in that three year window Peter and his parents immigrated and settled in upstate New York. By 1880 Peter was working as a farm laborer for Harry Clark, also in Marion.
Skipping ahead to 1920, Edna can be found still living with her parents at age thirty-five. It looked like Edna was going to end her days a spinster, but then I stumbled upon a marriage record. In 1922 Edna married Burton Clark, a farmer four years her senior. It was a first marriage for both of them and while thirty-seven and forty-one seems a bit long in the tooth to decide to wed, hopefully Edna was happy in her marriage. Could Burton be related to Harry Clark who had employed a young Peter VanHee back in 1870? While Clark is a common name it's possible.
Edna's parents must have missed her a great deal after almost four decades of having her under their roof, but she didn't stray far. Her husband's farm was located in the town of Walworth, New York which borders Marion. A newspaper article from 1935 noted Edna's father Peter visiting her there in Walworth, her mother having died in 1929. Peter followed his wife in 1936, both are buried in Marion Cemetery. Probably because she married fairly late in life, Edna never had any children of her own but kept busy teaching Sunday school to her neighbor's children at their local church. Her husband Burton died in 1964, and Edna herself passed in 1977.
I couldn't locate an obituary for Edna, the last mention I found of her was a deed transfer in February of 1977 for property in Walworth executed by Edna S. Clark of Newark. Newark is the seat for Wayne County and the location of the county home for the aged. Being a childless widow, it would appear Edna spent her last days in that facility and while there sold the farm in Walworth. It makes me a bit sad Edna wound up alone in the world, I hope she did have visits from old neighbors and perhaps her former students.
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