Healdsburg

This is the wedding notice of my great-great grandparents, Samuel Adams Englehart and Libby Copple (here listed as Libby Jewell). I posted about Sam here. He was 26 in December 1878 when he married Libby Jewell at the home of her adoptive mother, Mrs. Polly Esther (Keeler) (Jewell) (Fike) Rose.

Libby was 17 years old on her wedding day. She was born in Mendocino County, California in 1861 to Ben Franklin Copple and his wife Phoebe (Harvey) Copple, who died in childbirth or very soon after Libby was born. But that’s a story for another post.

“Married: Englehart-Jewell,” Healdsburg Enterprise (Healdsburg, California), 26 Dec 1878, pg 2, col 1; digital images, California Digital Newspaper Collection, (http://cdnc.ucr.edu : accessed 3 Sep 2020).

Today, August 17, 2020, it is 80 years since my grandmother died at the tender age of 26 — an age I reached and passed decades ago. Such a short life!

My heart hurts for my mother, who was only a toddler and never got to know her mother, and my heart hurts for my grandfather who was only 25 when he lost his wife. I wrote about her here in this blog.

In the photo below, Elizabeth is the second from the left amongst her high school friends, and, to my mind, the resemblance between her and my own mother is quite strong.

Eliz with hs classmates

In the photo below, she and my grandfather at the service station in Tracy, California, that my grandfather managed. It was probably taken in the late 1930s.

My Maternal Grandparents

Finally, this photo is a copy of the one that resided on my mother’s dresser when I was growing up, and is the picture that immediately comes to mind whenever I think of my grandmother.

Eliz age 17 - Copy

May you Rest in Peace, Elizabeth, and may we someday meet across the veil.

Genes and Roots

"To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without roots." – Chinese proverb

Copples in the News — Sam and Libby get married

In Memoriam — Elizabeth (Holst) Diamantini