E is for Ella

 My great great grandfather Chamberlain had 2 baby sisters, the older one, closest to his own age, was Ella.  According to both the 1870 Census, taken when she was just a month old, and a family letter written just a few months later, she was named Nancy after her grandmother, but called by her middle name, Ella.  Perhaps this was to differentiate between the little girl and her Gran, who lived just a short ways across the fields of Pulaski County.  

Almost nothing at all is known about young Ella, except she was described as a blue eyed baby, and as an older daughter of the family, she no doubt was helpful to her mother, especially as several siblings joined the family: a sister next and a few more brothers were younger.

I imagine Ella helping with farm chores or chasing her younger siblings, long skirts damp from long grasses or from wading in the Ohio during low-water summers.  I imagine her mother Elizabeth handing things to her or braiding her daughter’s hair.  I imagine her older brothers, Albert and Lawrence, probably teasing her, or perhaps one of their friends had an eye on 16 year old Ella.

In the spring of 1886, Ella was very ill.  We don’t know how long she may have been ill, or what might have been tormenting her. She was 16 (records have her as 17 1/2, but according to her age as 1 month old in June of 1870, I believe her to be within a week or 2 of her 16th birthday. She was also unmarried, so far as we know.

She died in May 16th, and her death was listed as puerperal (missing the notation of “fever”). Was she pregnant, or had she delivered a baby, alive or stillborn?  Nothing further is noted, but I have seen a large number of death certificates and find it difficult to believe there was another cause.  Even old death certificates tend to leave accurate medical assessments.

There’s no real way to know, as the surviving records are sparse.  Ella was buried in a (currently) unmarked plot in the Smith Cemetery, which is near where her parents lived. There is no known connection between the others buried in the cemetery and the Chamberlain family, but there are a couple young men interred in that spot who certainly could have been a love interest to a young 16 year old…