"Ma Russell Raves"

 (from a project in progess)

AKA: Emma, after Joseph

To understand the title, you will have to read on)

After Joseph died, Emma continued to live on Cedar Avenue for a few years. Her sister returned from Chicago and went to live with her, before moving into the house next door for a while. The comings and goings involving Maria and Cedar Avenue have been detailed in the previous chapter.

Mabel reached adulthood and eventually married on Cedar Avenue in 1903. We will return to Mabel’s story briefly in our final chapter.

After Joseph’s death, Emma lived on for over thirty years, but there are some gaps in her known history.

Some sources give a 1910 census reference for Emma as living in Pittsburgh, Ward 4, Allegheny. She is a dressmaker on her own account. At least one critic suggested that the Russell family left her almost penniless, hence the need to work at dressmaking. This is so wrong on several levels. First, and most obviously, this is the wrong person. This Emma is Emma A Russell. One can see how Emma might revert to Ackley rather than Hammond for her middle name, but although the age fits, this Emma is Single, not Widowed. Of course, that could be a choice when the enumerator called. But this Emma’s father was born in England, whereas Mahlon Ackley was born in New Jersey. This Emma is in rented accommodation, whereas our Emma inherited two houses when Joseph died in 1897, and as we will see shortly, sold off land for nearly $5000 in 1900; hardly penury. Perhaps the best evidence for this not being our person of interest is the 1900 census. Joseph Lytle’s widow is there in Cedar Avenue, as we would expect. But so is the other Emma A Russell, dressmaker. She is the right age and living with her widowed mother in rented accommodation in Pittsburgh. Here they are, side by side, in the 1902 Trade Directory for Pittsburgh:

By the 1908 directory, Emma has moved out of town to Glenn Avenue in Wilkinsburg, in a straight line this would be about six miles away from Cedar Avenue. From the 1908 Pittsburgh City Directory:

Just to compound the potential for confusion, both Emma A Russell, dressmaker, and Emma H Russell, Joseph’s widow and Maria’s sister, died within a month of each other, in February and March 1929. Life can be full of coincidences at times.

We are on firmer ground with newspaper reports about the Ackley family. In the real estate section of the Pittsburgh Post for 16 January 1900, we have Emma selling land to her sister, Laura. (Paynar is an obvious misprint for Raynor).

Then we have the issues in Cedar Avenue already mentioned in the previous chapter. Emma (and Mabel) garnered a special mention in The Pittsburgh Post for 19 March 1903, when they had to appear before Alderman Walter Wadsworth, acting in the capacity of magistrate. The newspaper made a valiant effort to try to explain the relationships:

“Mrs. Emma H Russell, who is step-mother and sister-in-law of Mr. Russell, she being his wife’s sister and his father’s widow, and Mabel Russell, his half sister, appeared before Alderman Walter Wadsworth, of Allegheny, yesterday, on a charge of forcible entry and detainer, preferred by Mrs. M.M. Land.”

Margaretta Land, CTR’s sister, had accused them of locking her up and forcibly taking possession of the disputed property. The charges were dismissed for lack of evidence, and the invading parties advised to ask “for peaceable entrance to the residence, and if that privilege was denied” to go through the proper channels.

We next travel a number of years to 1917 when Emma’s older sister, Laura Raynor, died. The announcement of her passing in The Pittsburgh Press (23 July 1917), noted her surviving relatives included Emma Russell, who is now of Bellevue, another suburb of the greater Pittsburgh area. Her sister, Selena Barto, is also in the same area.

In the aftermath of Laura’s death, there is a legal issue, aired in 1920. Listing current court cases, the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette for 12 October 1920 noted:

The two executors are Laura’s son-in-law and son. We don’t know the business dealings that prompted this legal action or how the case was resolved.

Then, her brother Lemuel, is murdered.

The story of his death lists his three surviving sisters. From the Pittsburgh Commercial Gazette for 31 July 1921:

Emma is now “formerly an official of Bethany College.” Her obituary (Tampa Bay Times, 6 February 1929) calls her the Dean of Women at the College. A telephone call to the College several decades ago elicited that she had been Matron of Phillips Hall.

These different descriptions do fit together. The college was founded by Alexander Campbell, linked to the Restoration movement (Disciples of Christ) as an all-male institution. When it eventually admitted women in the 1880s and became co-educational, it was necessary to make special provision for the welfare of female students. The Matron (later Dean of Women) was not a teaching position but more a welfare post at the College.

It was a post that particularly went to older women, often widows who had raised families, who had a certain administrative ability and social standing.

It has not been possible to trace Emma in the 1920 census. An exhaustive search of the 1920 U.S. Census indexes and a page-by-page review of surviving Brooke County census images failed to locate either Emma or even a census enumeration of Bethany College. The small town of Bethany is there, filed under Brooke County, Buffalo District, but not the College. This absence of the college population suggests the relevant schedule either went missing, was misfiled, or was never actually scanned for inclusion in currently accessible census reproductions. A lot can happen in one hundred years.

Fortunately, we have proof of Emma at Bethany College from both the newspapers already mentioned, and crucially from Bethany College direct.

The College published an annual Yearbook (and still does), which detailed all academic activities, as well as all student clubs and associations. It had a humorous diary supplied by students of extracurricular activities. We find a few references to Emma in it.

For example, in 1920, The Bethanian published a photograph of the Young Women’s Christian Association for the college. The members – not all YOUNG Women - posed for their picture:

Unfortunately, the key is not linked to the actual photograph; it just supplies the members’ names in alphabetical order. The list includes Emma:

The students’ section carried jokes and news of the day. Some examples from 1920:

From the 1921 Bethanian, with a reference to Emma’s domain, Phillips Hall, and with a typical student attitude toward their elders, the student diary for December 1920 records:

Emma retired around 1922, and her 1929 Tampa Bay Tribune obituary noted that she’d held this position for eight years prior to retirement, which would take us back to around 1914. Perhaps the big question to ask is how Emma came to get such a prestigious job. “As the crow flies,” Bethany is only about 35 miles from Allegheny, but in Emma’s day, you would need to use a wagon or early motor vehicle to get to a railroad station at the Bethany end.

There is probably a whole story here that eludes us.

But – MA RUSSELL RAVES.

Now there’s an epitaph for you.

 

(Onto THE LAST WILL AND TESTAMENT OF EMMA HAMMOND RUSSELL)