A LITTLE MYSTERY
Two faded yellow pages appear to have been cut from the Orr family bible, but the entries also appear to have been added mostly all at once, by one person, from memory, long after most of the recorded events took place. For example, the births are all recorded in a single hand, and in some cases the month is given, but not the day. Blanks are left for missing dates, and in one case, the number has been awkwardly inserted, as though the writer asked someone later and got the answer to a question.
The register tells us that James and Anna Orr's ten children were all born in Petersburg:
Anna Isabella Orr b. May 1839
Mary Eleonore Orr b. December 8, 1840 d. April 5, 1923
James Edward Orr b. August 1842 d. June 21, 1924
William Clayton Orr b. August 12, 1844
John Frederick Orr b. August 14, 1846 d. Nov. 26, 1912
Robert Allen Orr b. October 8, 1848 d. Sept. 16, 1918
Alexander Peters Orr b. July 21, 18??
Dunlop Wilmer Orr b. May, 185? d. January 30, 1923
Anna Louise Henry Orr b. August 12, 1856
Elise Albertine Orr b. September 5, 1858 d. Oct. 11, 1924
According to the register of marriages, the Elder James Orrs were married at the residence of Richard Flower Hannon in Petersburg on September 25, 1838, by the Rev. Mr. Syme. (Anna Peters' mother was a Hannon.) Colonel William Fisk Townsend and Mary Eleonore Orr were married at St. Paul's church in Petersburg on May 14, 1873. William Clayton Orr and Ella Jackson Chapman were married in Union, West Va., Dec. 17, 1873. John Frederick Orr and Eliza A. Goodwin were married in Brooklyn, NY, on Jan. 27, 1872. James E. Orr and Jessie J. Moody were married in Brooklyn (no date).
Anna Isabella may have died in early childhood: Mary Eleonore is referred to as the oldest, and her description of her childhood contains no reference to a sister who would have been only a year older. James is of course Brother/Uncle Jim, married to Aunt Jessie, and buried at Old Blandford Cemetary. He lived to be 81 despite his many war-time wounds.
"Cousin Chapman" (left) must have been the brother of William Clayton Orr's wife Ella (Ella's maiden name is Chapman). Elise was known as Lily, and she lived with Cousin Rea (Regina Orr) on Harrison Street in Petersburg. I am not sure whose daughter Rea was. I have only clues.
She is not Jim's daughter. A letter from "Grandma" (Mary Eleonore) to Cousin Rea, who was at school in Rockingham in 1893, says that Rea's "Uncle Jimmy" is coming to visit but Jessie will not be with him. Odd: why is Mrs. Townsend "Grandma" and not "Aunt" to Rea? In 1893 Mrs. Townsend's only son was not yet married. She was not a grandmother yet! "Do you hear from New York?" This is a reference to Rea's father, I think. Grandma regrets that Rea did not get to go to the World's Fair, but says that she will get to go to the next Fair, in Paris.
Another letter to Rea (still at Lewiston boarding school) in 1894 reports that Morton Townsend is away at school in New York. Mrs. Townsend refers to Wilkes, Lucy, and a baby Jeff. "I hear of your father through Chapman," she says. "He seems devoted to Uncle Fred." Mrs. Townsend is staying with William and Ella, so Cousin Rea is not their daughter or Frederick's, as the latter is probably the "Uncle Fred" to whom Rea's father is devoted. Mrs. Townsend misses Morton and Chapman. She seems already to be widowed, though she is only 54 - younger than I am now! She also refers to "Sophie," who is Morton's half-sister (I believe, WF Townsend's daughter from his first marriage). Sophie lives in New York and has a new baby. Perhaps this is why my great grandmother is already "Grandma" -- Sophis is her stepdaughter. But I still wonder why Rea calls her that.
I remember Cousin Rea as a very old woman, never in good health. My aunt says she was somewhat pitiful. There may be a reason why I don't know who Rea's father was; my aunt tells me Rea was abandoned by her mother. If I am correct in ruling out Jim, Fred, and William Clayton Orr as her father, those are the only brothers for whom a marriage is recorded.
Rea lived in poverty in later life except for what she was given by family members, mainly my grandfather. However here is a picture of a pretty red-haired girl, and I am reading the affectionate letters from "Grandma" that she saved. As a girl, she went off to school, studied music, and visited New York, where she was "given everything." Rea's fate to live in dependent poverty was perhaps just the natural result in those days of her being a woman, never marrying and not inheriting.
One last clue: a tiny (two by three inches) envelope contains a little card with a close-written note to Robert Orr. The postmark is July, 1918, and the note makes reference to Mr. Orr's health, as if he is not well. He died that October. The envelope is addressed to Harrison Street, where Cousin Rea and Lily lived. I am thinking that this must have been the last Orr family home, and that Robert Orr is the likeliest one to have been Rea's father. Just a guess. Here is a particularly decorative envelope, which must have been sent when Rea took the promised trip to Europe. It is addressed to Boulogne-sur-Mer.
