Adeline and The A.S.S.
Pardon the alliteration, but all will make sense eventually. In the meantime, I wonder how many of you can rattle off the maiden name of your Great Great Grandmother? I want to introduce you to my Great Great Grandmother: Adaline Torrey Schenck Strong (1844-1933). She was my paternal grandmother’s grandmother. I know almost nothing about her, except that she decided, back in 1864, to buck tradition, which endears her to me.
Adeline Torrey Schenck married Benjamin Strong (1834-1915) at the age of 20 in 1864 in Philadelphia. I found their elaborate marriage certificate, signed by generations of my ancestors, in the box of papers my parents gave to me for safekeeping. I had it professionally framed in archival materials years ago. Adeline lived in an age – and a socio-economic class – where embroidering table linens and engraving silver was a custom. That said, the family tradition was for the bride to keep her maiden last name initial and add her married last name, thus I am Erica H. Jarrett. Poor Adeline was in a bit of a pickle: Adeline S. Strong resulted in the initials A.S.S. Her solution was to retain her middle name Torrey (her mother’s maiden name) instead, and our family has long referred to her as Adeline Torrey Schenck Strong.
I have two other items of hers, a linen table cloth with embroidered initials “ATS”, as well as a small silver dish. It has stamped hallmarks, and research indicates it is Gorham Silver, produced around the time of her wedding in 1864. And good grief, I spent a solid 30 minutes trying to polish the thing, and gave up after polishing one side! Not a very practical item, but I use it to hold a collection of antique skeleton keys to open the large Princeton sideboard which, I suddenly realized, would have resided in her home as well!
The “Princeton sideboard” is a huge piece of furniture. My parents had it in our dining room, and when they downsized, my husband and I carted it by U-Haul to our home in Illinois. The piece is heavy, made of solid mahogany, and was in dreadful shape by the time we got it. (I discuss the history of this piece in an early blog post: https://www.ericasheirloomquilts.com/ericas-heirloom-treasures/to-renovate-or-not-to-renovate) It sits across from me in our dining room as I write. And I realize this exact piece of furniture sat in the dining room of Adeline Torrey Schenck Strong’s home in the 1870s. AND I realize I misattributed the piece to the Strong family, which is incorrect - it arrived in our family via our Schenck ancestry.
I don’t have a clue when Adeline and her new husband, Ben Strong, took possession of the sideboard, but it came from her parents, as her father, William Schenck (1819-1903) was a well-known Presbyterian minister in Princeton, NJ. I’m diving a bit deep into family genealogy here, but this fascinates me. Her paternal grandfather, John C. Schenck (1788-1846), purchased land from William Penn’s family near Princeton, and he would have been the original owner of the sideboard. The Schenck family (Dutch in origin) had long roots in early American history, including an original home from New Holland now displayed in the Brooklyn Museum of Art.
Adeline was the first child born to her parents, with 7 more to follow. Her mother, Jane W. Torrey, died in 1856 after 13 years of marriage and 8 children, when Adeline was 12. As the last child, Harris, was born 2/27/1856, it is likely she died in childbirth. Of course, all the genealogy research compiled through the years only discusses the men, their careers, and deeds. The women remain voiceless. Even Adeline, who lived to be 89, likely helping her father raise her 7 young siblings, and birthing 5 children herself, had no paperwork saved for me to read. Adeline, with her marriage certificate and fancy silver, who stored her finest housewares in the sideboard sitting before me, will have to speak to me through the lines of the family history. And in the stitches she took, carefully avoiding the A.S.S. that tradition dealt her and rewriting herself to be A.T.S.