National Women’s History Month–Strong Women – 52 Ancestors #10

I would venture to say that in most family trees many or most of the women are found to be strong in some way or another.  Many of our earlier ancestors were, by definition, very strong women both emotionally and often physically as well.  They withstood a variety of hardships to get to this country and to raise children to adulthood thus assuring our presence today.  Based on this thinking I am having great difficulty deciding on just one woman in my tree or my husband’s tree to spotlight in this post.  So I am doing the roll call of all the strong women who led to my wonderful husband and to me.

My mother, Elizabeth Denman Salt (1919-1991), had 5 children in just under 7 years and managed to raise all of us to adulthood and to be reasonably normal adults, while maintaining her sanity and sense of humor.  Dan’s mother, Sarah Riddner Greenberg (1908-1969) raised two children to adulthood while working outside the home most of the time and dealing with the fall-out of the McCarthy era.

Grandmothers:  Bricena Snow Denman (1891-1971) stayed home and cared for her two ill parents even though she would have liked to go on in school, before marrying and raising two children, dealing with the Great Depression and what that did to the family finances.  Carrie Boothby Salt Groppenbacher (1894-1972) I have posted about before, so ‘nuff said.  Pearl Scheier Riddner Winestine (c 1878-1958) emigrated from the Russian Empire in 1902 with her widowed mother and youngest brother.  She married and had two children, the first of whom died about age 2 soon after Sarah was born.  Pearl’s husband left her and eventually divorced her in 1913.  Leah Levine Greenberg (1883-1959) emigrated from the Russian Empire probably in 1903-1904, spending a year or a little more working in the garment business in New York City before marrying and having 2 children with a husband who had traveling feet.

Great-grandmothers:  Mary Sweet Snow (1853-1917) showed her strength in surviving a stroke of some kind and surviving 5 years before succumbing to it’s effects.  Mary Louise Minor Denman (1868-1930) was described as a spitfire little woman, known to chase her husband around the kitchen with a cast iron frying pan in her hand when he frustrated her too much.  Mary E. Hockman Boothby (1855-1934) seems to have been fostered out by the age of 4, living on a small farm in southwestern Ohio until she was 18 when she married.  I sometimes wonder if she was an orphan train orphan from the East or whether she was the child of parents who either died or couldn’t for other reason take care of her.  Katie Coffin Salt (1852-1928) on the other hand, was the youngest of a fairly well-off family until she married and moved to the Salt family farm.  Her husband had some sort of mental breakdown perhaps following an accident, and Katie was left on her own to raise 2 children.

On Dan’s side the great-grandmothers were:  Zissel Moses Scheier (c 1847-1923) who emigrated from the Russian Empire originally planning to join her husband who was already in the U.S. but not arriving until after his early death.  She was the family matriarch for the rest of her life to the families of her 4 sons and 2 daughters.  Leah Baile (_____) Riddner (c 1860-1930) emigrated alone as a widow in 1914 from the Russian Empire to join her two children who were already living in the U.S. and had established families.  She was a very religious woman which made it hard on her children’s families to live with her, and she moved from one household to another finally ending up as a boarder in Chicago.  The other two great-grandmothers on Dan’s side we have names for but no other information.  Feige Goldring Greenberg was named on a couple of her son’s applications here in the U.S.  N’Chave Dvorah Yellin Levin was named as mother by several of her children who migrated to the U.S. but no other information about her was passed down.  So far there is little other information about either of these women but they both lived in shtetls in the Russian Empire before WWI, and in all likelihood had to be strong women to thrive and raise children.