Finally I’ve come to understand who had taken in my great-great grandmother and her sister Stella after their parents had died young. It was their aunt, sister of their father, and her husband, James W. Harrison.
Sarah Jane Boal, daughter of William Boal and Anna Marie Shannon, had married Mr. Harrison in 1866. Her brother John Shannon Boal had married Ann Almeda Foster two years earlier. They had four daughters: Nettie, Jennie, Stella and Blanche. John’s wife died in 1874. He died four years later, in 1878.
So the kids were split up. Jennie and Blanche went to stay with the maternal grandparents, the Fosters, while Nettie and Stella went to live with their aunt Sarah Jane and her family.
For years I’d been wondering how the heck these Harrisons fit into the picture, and now I know.
ajh
AARON HILL’S NOTEBOOK 