My great great grandmother Sarah Catherine Gabbert “Kathy” seemed to just pop up in Arkansas out of nowhere. She was born to Dr. William Gabbert and Caroline Humprheys January 1950 in Blandinsville, Illinois. Then there’s no more records of her until she pops up in Arkansas getting married to Frank Ellingwood in 1884 at 34 years old. That’s unusually old for her, but she was the love of Frank’s life. When she passed away in 1900, her husband remained a widower raising their children alone.
So I looked up Kathy’s siblings trying to find clues of where she was from birth to age 34 and I found nothing! Her brother Benjamin was a doctor and so was her father and grandfather and uncles. Her sisters stayed in Blandinsville their whole lives, but her brother was all over due to him being a doctor and his services in demand. I found no records of Kathy traveling with her brother. But she is mentioned in her sister’s obituary in 1934, so they knew she had passed away in 1900, meaning they maintained contact.
Her father William Gabbert went to California shortly after she was born and then to New Orleans to help with the yellow fever epidemic but William himself succumbed to yellow fever and died surrounded by strangers in 1853, but the family back home didn’t seem to get word until years later. That might be a clue in itself- maybe her mother remarried and in 1860, her mother is under a different name and the census taker put down her name as that other name.
Maybe she got sent to be a maid or something and was accidentally counted as a member of their household. I don’t know. That’s the thing about genealogy. Sometimes questions are never answered. It’s like a frustrating puzzle with a missing piece making me unable to finish the puzzle.
But I know this… she was important. Without her I wouldn’t exist. And she was a devoted mother while she was able to be.
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