Not one to let the grass grow under her feet, Mary moves to Bayfield, Wisconsin.
She is there for the Wisconsin US census of 1895, with the form including two girls and two boys: Ellen, Margaret, Bill, and Tom.
By 1900 Mary’s children have all grown up. Ellen is 31, married to Charles Dawson with five children of her own, living in Washburn Wisconsin, just outside of Bayfield. Margaret is 28 and married to my grandfather Arthur Kenney. They have one child and are just about to move from Bayfield to Mellen, another small town in northern Wisconsin. Tom England, now 26, gets married in Bayfield in 1896 and by 1900 has two small children. Bill Buckley, who will remain a bachelor his whole life, is 21 and lives with Mary in Bayfield.
But, oh joy of joy! Dick England and family have also found their way to northern Wisconsin. He is now 39 and has five children of his own. At this point nearly the entire American contingent (sans Charlotte in Alabama) are in northern Wisconsin. But, as always, be careful what you wish for.
Tragedy strikes.
Dick led an interesting life. By occupation he was a corporate fireman but he boxed all throughout the midwest, in an era when boxing had a bare-knuckled, WWE-type “is it real or is it fake” type reputation. Oddly enough, decades later my dad would do similar barnstorming with Greco-Roman wrestling as a young man.
Dick’s family disperses. Louisa remarries and moves the family to Minnesota.
Mary’s wanderlust returns with a vengeance and she’s off to Montana.
