Sometimes, the stars in the universe align and seemingly unrelated events cause a chain reaction leading to wonderful, remarkable discoveries.
She is one of them.
And by she, I mean Flora Pearl Mabry.
A TWIST OF FATE
I was going in circles while researching Reverend Elias Mitchell, looking for the names of eleven legatees who inherited his estate after his 1834 death. It was suggested I look in Equity Court Records.
While deep in Equity Court research, I stumbled upon the maiden name of my great-great grandmother, Mahala Fowler. This was a huge discovery and the shock of finally finding her origins still have me reeling.
Having an image of Mahala’s brother Godfrey Butler Fowler, and an image of her daughter Delilah Josephine Foster, I decided to throw caution to the wind and search for tintypes on eBay.
Did I expect to find an image of Mahala? No.
And, of course, I did not find one.
Instead, I found a photo album from the 1800s filled with old tintypes, cartes-de-visite, and cabinet cards. The photo album auction was ending in 50 minutes. The names of five people identified in the images were included in the description.
One of the images was of a beautiful young girl. Her name was Flora Pearl Mabry.
MY MABRY GRANDMOTHER
My paternal grandmother was born in 1899, and given the name Lois Ellen Mabry. I have researched the Mabry family (Maybury, Mayberry, Mabrey, and every other spelling variation) for almost half a century.
A quick search confirmed my suspicions: Flora Pearl Mabry and my grandmother Lois Ellen Mabry were 6th cousins, both descended from Francis Maybury who had immigrated from England to America by 1679.
GOING ONCE…….
I placed a fairly high bid on the photo album, and tried to keep busy for almost an hour. As the minutes ticked by and the end of the auction approached, confidence in my bid became panic.
But, alas! No one wanted this treasure enough to top my winning bid and my joy was immeasurable.
It would take a week for the album of old images to make the journey from California to me. I impatiently waited for my new treasure to arrive courtesy of the US postal service.
And today was the day. Impatience turned to excitement as I carefully opened the package. I wondered if I would see a family resemblance as I turned each page, one-by-one, and gazed upon the faces of people born in another century, not the last one, but the one before.
I gently removed each cdv and cabinet card of the women and girls in the album from the fragile paper surrounding the images. My eyes quickly darted back and forth searching for a name written in faded pencil that would identify the photographed.
I did not know if the image of Flora Pearl Mabry would be that of a young girl or an old woman. I only knew that she was in there somewhere.
And exactly halfway through the album — from an image captured of a young girl one hundred and thirty-nine years ago — I saw the Mabry eyes staring back at me.
I turned over the photo of the young girl with the dark eyes, and read …
Flora Pearl Mabry ………………. about 3 years
I was gazing at an image of a child who was related to me. No one in my immediate or extended family ever knew of her existence, but still, we shared blood.
And the Mabry eyes, which I have been told my entire life that I have.
OUR MAYBURY ANCESTORS
Our first Maybury ancestor in America was Francis Maybury. He was born between 1650 to 1660 in England. Little is known of exactly when and how he got to America, but it is certain that he was in Virginia by October 1, 1679.
Francis Maybury married the widow Elizabeth Gilliam. She was born about 1654 in Virginia, the daughter of John Gilliam and Margery.
Elizabeth Gilliam had first married Mr. West, followed by William Bevin. She had four sons and one daughter when she married Francis Maybury in 1684.
Francis Maybury and Elizabeth Gilliam had seven children together. It is from these children whom most Mabry families in America descend:
- Ann Maybury (1686- 1756)
- Mary Maybury (b. 1688)
- Francis Maybury (1690-1728)
- George Maybury (1692-1770)
- Charles Maybury (1694-1749)
- Judith Maybury (b. 1696)
- Hinchia Maybury (1697-1761)
Francis Maybury and family lived in Henrico County, Virgina south of Richmond. The family moved to Charles City County, and then to Surry County in 1701. Francis Maybury died in Surry County in 1712. Elizabeth Gilliam Maybury died three years later.
My grandmother, Lois Mabry, and I descend from Francis Maybury (1647-1712) through his son George Maybury (1686-1770). My grandmother (1899-1884) is on the line of descent on the left column on the chart below.
Flora Pearl Mabry is descended from Francis Maybury through his son Hinchia Maybury (1697-1761). Flora Pearl Mabry is on the line of descent on the right. Her name is in red.
A link to a wonderful Mabry site: https://www.mayburyfamily.com/
Please note: I shall use Mabry as the surname going forward. The spelling of the name changed from document to document within the lifetime of an individual. This was common among many families but especially so for this particular Mabry family.
FLORA PEARL MABRY
Flora Pearl Mabry was born in West Union, Fayette County Iowa on August 22, 1883.
From there, Flora Pearl went to Cleveland, Ohio with her mother. She met a man, fell in love, and married there in 1904.
Six years later, she and her husband were in St Louis, Missouri. Jump ten years forward — she was divorced and back with her mother, this time in California.
She was a beautiful child from a fine family. She was an intelligent, educated woman with a career in medicine. She had a brief marriage but a long life. She had no children of her own, but she had two nieces and a nephew.
These are the people who helped shape the little girl with the Mabry eyes into the wonderful woman who was Flora Pearl Mabry.….
HER FATHER
William D. Mabry, son of Joel Braxton Mabry was born on April 28, 1848 in Illinois.
There is confusion surrounding the father of William D. Mabry.
His death certificate lists Robert Smith Mabry (1777-1842) and Rebecca Adams as his parents. I believe these were his paternal grandparents. Robert Smith Mabry died six years before the birth of William D. Mabry.
The informant on the death certificate was Mrs. Mabry — the third wife, recently married, and likely unfamiliar with the family of her husband.
There are red check marks by the names of Robert Smith Mabry and Rebecca Adams on the document below, leading me to believe there was some doubt.
I have also seen on-line family trees with Dudley Henry Mabry as the father of William D. Mabry. To set the record straight, Dudley Henry Mabry was a son of Robert Smith Mabry, thus the brother of Joel Braxton Mabry and the uncle of William D. Mabry.
To add to the confusion, Dudley Henry Mabry did have a son named William W. Mabry, but this William was NOT the father of Flora Pearl Mabry.
There are two pieces of evidence confirming the names of the father and mother of William D. Mabry:
- The 1850 Pulaski County Illinois Census. William D. Mabry was recorded in the household of Joel and Jane Mabry:
2. The Virginia Marriage Register recording the 1904 marriage of William D. Mabry and second wife, Nettie E. Blakeslee:
The name of the groom, William D. Mabry, and his bride, Nettie E. Blakeslee:
Father and mother of the groom listed in the marriage register: Joel & Jane Mabry:
THE CIVIL WAR
In December of 1863, fifteen year-old William D. Mabry enlisted in Company F of the 7th Illinois Cavalry. In military records, he was described as five feet, one inch in height. His youth and short stature must have given officers the impression that he was not much more than a child. He was given a bugle rather than a gun, and he served during the next two years as a bugler in the Civil War.
William D. Mabry survived the war, and returned home. He married Irene Elizabeth Dutton on December 1, 1870 in Effingham County, Illinois.
William D. Mabry and wife Irene had a son, William Cary Mabry, born in 1872 in Illinois. By 1880, the family had moved to Iowa. William D. Mabry put down his bugle and became a clergyman.
The Reverend William D. Mabry moved to Salt Lake City by August 1890, and was the pastor at First Methodist Episcopal Church. He remained there until at least 1893.
The year 1895 found William D. Mabry in Chicago. He had given up the ministry, and left his wife and family. He began a new career working for the government as a stock examine. He met Nettie Eileen Blakeslee (1863-1930).
William Mabry and Nettie moved to Washington D.C by 1900, and married in 1904. He took a job with the United States Treasury Department. The marriage lasted sixteen years. Nettie divorced her husband in 1920 on grounds of desertion.
William Mabry married again. His third wife was Frances M. Burlingame, born in 1867 in Iowa.
William D. Mabry died August 20, 1928 in Virginia. He was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery.
All three wives outlived William Mabry:
- Irene Elizabeth Dutton died in 1935 in California.
- Nettie Eileen Blakeslee died in 1930.
- Frances M. Burlingame died in 1940 in Virginia and is buried beside her husband at Arlington.
HER MOTHER
Flora Pearl Mabry’s mother was Irene Elizabeth Dutton.
Born in Shelbyville, Illinois in 1851, Irene Elizabeth Dutton was the daughter of Abraham Harris Dutton (1800–1855) and Irene McKay (1812–1893).
In 1870, Irene Elizabeth Dutton was counted in the Avena, St Elmo, Fayette, Illinois census with her mother Irene McKay Dutton Travis who had married a man with the surname of Travis after the death of her first husband Abraham Dutton in 1855.
William D. Mabry and Irene Elizabeth Dutton were married December 1, 1870 in Effingham County, Illinois, and were in Iowa by 1880.
Irene Elizabeth Dutton Mabry and daughter Flora Pearl Mabry were in Cleveland, Ohio in 1900. William D. Mabry had moved on to greener pastures.
In 1910, Irene Elizabeth Dutton Mabry was in Fresno, California. Her son Dr. William Cary Mabry had moved west, and it is logical that his mother would have done the same.
Flora Pearl Mabry was divorced by 1920. She and her mother Irene Elizabeth Dutton Mabry shared a household in Orange County, California.
Irene Elizabeth Dutton Mabry had moved in with her son, the doctor, by 1930 in his Glendale, California home.
The final move for Irene Elizabeth Dutton Mabry would be to Forest Lawn Cemetery after her death on October 8, 1835
HER BROTHER
William Cary Mabry was born October 29, 1871 in Montgomery County, Illinois. The first census record he appeared in was 1880 Clark, Tama, Iowa.
He wrote a letter to his cousin Thomas Hardy in 1899 of which a transcription can be found on-line.
He was a physician in Rush, Tuscarawas, Ohio. and lived alone in 1900.
He married Bessie Mayne (1889-1967) on September 7, 1904 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Their first child was born a year later and did not survive.
Dr. William Cary Mabry registered as an American citizen by the U.S. Consul at Nogales, Sonora, Mexico. He and wife Bessie arrived on January 14, 1906. He stayed in Mexico for several years.
He and Bessie had four children:
- Infant Mabry (1905–1905)
- Janet E Mabry (1913–1988)
- Betty Mabry (1916–1944)
- William Braxton Mabry (1920–2013)
The family moved to Glendale, Los Angeles County, California, by 1920 where Dr. Mabry continued his practice. He and Bessie spent the rest of their lives there.
Dr. William Cary Mabry died September 28, 1963. Bessie Mayne Mabry died December 21, 1967. They were buried at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California.
Dr. William Cary Mabry and Bessie Mayne Mabry
HER SISTER
Gertrude Elinor Mabry was born March 1, 1881 in the tiny town of Strawberry Point, Clayton County Iowa.
The little girl’s life was brief. She died on July 10, 1882, and was buried in the cemetery at West Union, Fayette County, Iowa.
HER HUSBAND
Flora Pearl Mabry married Charles Edward Smith on September 7, 1904.
Born in America in 1877, Charles Edward Smith was the son of immigrants. His father was John George Smith, born in Germany in 1843.
Seventeen-year-old John George “J.G.” Smith had arrived in New York in 1861. He married Catherine A. (Morrisey or Duane) on February 20, 1863 in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
Catherine was born in Ireland in 1851. She and J.G. Smith had five sons and three daughters:
- George H. Smith (b. 1863)
- Annie Louise Smith (1865-1888)
- Margaret Smith (1869-1886)
- Thomas F. Smith (1875-1889)
- William Henry Smith (1876-1954)
- Charles Edward Smith (1877-1972)
- Augustus Smith (1879-aft 1910)
- Mabel Smith (1884-aft 1910)
J.G. Smith was a butcher, and the family lived above his grocery store in East Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. The family is found in 1870 and 1880 census records.
Daughters Annie Louise and Margaret Smith were young women whey they died of illness — Margaret in 1886, and Ann two years later.
J.G. Smith’s sister Margaret Smith married August Rosenberg who was born May 12, 1847 in Dreis, Germany. He arrived in Portland Maine on March 26, 1869 and petitioned for Naturalization in Boston on October 11, 1880.
There were three Rosenberg sons born before Margaret Smith Rosenberg died on February 11, 1887.
It was said J.G. Smith “betrayed” a young girl, and to avoid any consequences, he mysteriously disappeared around June 1888. It was later determined that he committed suicide by jumping off a Portland steamer.
Two months after the disappearance of J.G. Smith, his widow Catherine Smith married her brother-in-law August Rosenberg. The marriage took place on August 26, 1888, and August moved into the Smith home above the grocery store at 50 Dane Street, Somerville, a surburb of Boston.
Although I have not extensively researched the eldest son George Smith, it is certain that he had moved out of the household of his mother by 1889.
As tragic as the story is up to this point, it gets worse.
Much worse.
On the night of July 13, 1889 — just after midnight — shots rang out into the warm summer night. The neighbors slept with open windows and heard five shots ring out in the darkness.
The police soon arrived, and discovered the body of fourteen-year-old Thomas Smith near the doorway. He had been shot in his forehead. Catherine Smith Rosenberg lay dead in her bed, blood pooling from the bullet wound in her head.
Brothers William and Augustus Smith were shot in the bed they shared; William in his back, and little Augustus in his mouth. Neither boy was expected to live.
Charles and his baby sister Mabel were sleeping in the same bed. Charles was shot, but not badly injured. Mabel was the only one in the house who did not sustain a gunshot wound.
August Rosenberg murdered his new wife, her son Thomas, and had gravely injured most of her children. He jumped from the window and was thought to have escaped. His body was found about an hour later in the street. He was foaming at his mouth and poison was suspected.
There are many different accounts of this mass murder published in 1889. Catherine was called a “vixen” and was said to have driven her husband August Rosenberg insane by constantly demanding his money and starting arguments with him. There are stories about August Rosenberg selling liquor illegally, threatening to kill his wife, and buying a pistol several days before the tragic event.
There are too many variations to write about here, but I must say that William and Augustus survived their grave injuries. In 1900, the four surviving children from that terrible night in July of 1889 are found in the Somerville Ward 02, Middlesex County, Massachusetts census record.
The Smith siblings were listed as “wards” in the household of William and Catherine Flaherty. I suspect there was some kinship between their deceased Irish mother Catherine and the Irish Flaherty family.
William Smith was a contracting mason; Charles Edward Smith was a Civil Engineer; Augustus Smith was a brickmason, and Mabel Smith was sixteen and not employed. The siblings had not only survived, they had thrived.
I am straying far from the path of Flora Pearl Mabry.
She married Charles Edward Smith. The same Charles Edward Smith who was shot by his step-father in 1889 while he was sleeping in his bed.
Flora Pearl lived in Cleveland, Ohio in 1900 with her mother Irene Dutton Mabry who had likely moved there for a job. Her occupation was “proprietor of medicine” which allowed her to provide handsomely for her sixteen-year-old daughter. There was no man in the household.
On September 7, 1904, Flora Pearl Mabry married Charles Edward Smith in Cleveland, Ohio. How did they meet? Where did they meet? What was Charles Edward Smith doing in Cleveland?
By 1910, Mr. and Mrs. Charles Edward Smith had moved to St Louis Missouri, where he worked as a Civil Engineer for the railroad.
Ten years later, a divorced Flora Pearl Mabry Smith lived with her mother again, this time in Orange County, California. Her sixty-eight-year-old mother was retired and Flora Pearl worked as a Bacteriologist in a laboratory.
In 1920, Charles Edward Smith married Florence Elsie Wooster (b. 1895) — a woman born in Missouri and the daughter of a German immigrant.
Charles Edward Smith and Florence Elsie Wooster stayed in Missouri for the births of their three children:
- Elizabeth Smith (b. 1922)
- Charles E.. Smith (b. 1924)
- Lester Wooster Smith (1927-2024)
The Charles Edward Smith family moved to New Haven, Connecticut by 1930. Charles died there on September 22, 1975.
CIRCLES
And so, I have come full circle. A chance sighting of a photo album on an auction site has led me down paths that twist and turn, yet they are paths that have opened a door to knowing more about my Mabry family.
Flora Pearl Mabry died on January 15, 1970 in Riverside, California. My grandmother Lois Mabry died August 23, 1984 in South Carolina. Sixth cousins who would never meet, who would never know of each other.
The distance is just too far down the lines of descent.
But maybe I am wrong. Maybe the Mabry girls born in the 19th century with the Mabry eyes are looking down on me, delighted that I “found” something they put in my path to find.
And that is a wonderful thought.
THE FOWLER FAMILIES OF UNION COUNTY, SC 