52 Ancestors Challenge ~ Week 16

The optional theme for this week was "Live Long."   That leaves me no choice but Mary Estella Whittemore McDonough.  Mary was born in March of 1863 in Londonderry, NH.  She was the first born of Henry Joshua Whittemore and his wife, Esther M. Goodwin.  She had four brothers and one sister.  At some point the family moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts, where her father was a music teacher.

 Mary married Charles McDonough, a lawyer, in 1896.  She was 33 and a teacher, he was 24 and a lawyer. She and Charles lived most of their married life in Brookline, Massachusetts.  I found a public family tree on Ancestry.com with pictures of Charles and Mary and a death date listed for Charles as November 1960.  I found Mary still living in a city directory in 1963 but I cannot find her after that.  I have not been able to locate any record of her death nor a cemetery where Charles is buried....hoping that I would find a picture of a headstone perhaps with her information on it as well.  It seems as though she lived to be 100, at least.  I found someone else on Ancestry who had also attached these pictures to their tree.  This individual's father-in-law was Mary's nephew and he lived to be 101!!  I am guessing these genes for longevity must be from Mary's mother's side of the family.  Amazingly, her picture is below on the right.  She and Charles' mother are seen visiting Plymouth Rock.  Mary's mother, Esther, was widowed in 1903 and from family records I believe she died in 1927 living with Mary and Charles for those remaining 24 years.

Mary and Charles had no children of their own but Mary had a heart for children and a desire to see them come to know their Heavenly Father and be saved for eternity.  She wrote child evangelistic material for the Christian Missionary Alliance church.  My great grandmother was a camp director for inner city youth during the 1920's and 30's.  She would go in to Cousin Mary's for Bible Study and preparations for the camp program.  My mother remembers riding the train from Wilmington, Massachusetts in to Boston to visit Cousin Mary.   I still have many questions unanswered for Mary but I feel incredibly fortunate to have stumbled upon these pictures of her, her spouse, and her mother and mother-in-law.  I wish I had a picture of Mary with my great grandmother.