Mary Minor Denman (1868-1930) – 52 Ancestors # 50 Naughty

There are two stories that come to mind with regard to the theme of “naughty” for this week and my great-grandmother, Mary M. Denman.  Either might have been cause to find coal in her stocking at Christmas.

Mary L. Minor was born 14 Oct. 1868 in Wakeman, Ohio to Charles Minor and his wife Adelia Hall.  She was the second of five children born to them.  This picture was taken when she was about 3 years old.  There is not really any personal information about what her life was like as a girl since she left no letters or diaries.  The family lived in Wakeman, and her father worked as a railroad mail clerk.

The first story about her being at all naughty came from my grandpa Lyle, her son.  He told the story that when his father, F.A. Denman, decided to court Mary he spent upwards of four years taking her for buggy rides, to and from church on Sunday evenings, etc. which seems like a long courtship.  Finally F.A. said he thought they should think about getting married, and Mamie’s response was reportedly that she would have to think about that for awhile that she just wasn’t sure.  And she made him wait either two weeks or four weeks (the story got told both ways by different informants) before she said yes, it was time to get married.  And so they did, in November 1890.

The report of making F.A. wait four weeks came to grandpa Lyle from his sister Doris who got it from their cousin whose mother was Mamie’s younger  sister.  This suggests to me the possibility that the sister likely heard the story closer in time to when the proposal actually was made.    The second report, of only a two week wait, came from grandma Cena and therefore was probably a later report although likely directly from Mamie to her new daughter-in-law.

The second naughtiness that Mamie exhibited came to me from a story my mother told more than once.  She reported that Mamie had something of a temper and she would get mad at F.A. and chase him around the kitchen with a cast iron frying pan raised in her hand.  My mother thought this must have been a funny picture (I don’t know whether she actually saw it happen) since F.A. was a tall lanky man and Mamie was a “tiny little thing” and F.A. would dodge around the kitchen table and chairs to avoid getting hit.  As I remember, my mother would sometimes add to the picture that F.A. would chuckle and the implication was that he might provoke her on purpose.  (I suppose that this might have been more naughtiness from F.A. than from Mamie.)