Eunice (Kelley) Gidley
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Eunice (Kelley) Gidley (1804 - 1904)

Eunice Gidley formerly Kelley
Born in Dennis, Barnstable, Massachusetts, USAmap
Ancestors ancestors
Wife of — married 27 Jan 1839 in Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusettsmap
Descendants descendants
Died at age 100 in Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts, USAmap
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Profile last modified | Created 22 Sep 2015
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Contents

Biography

Eunice was a Friend (Quaker)
Eunice (Kelley) Gidley was a centenarian, living to age 100.

1904-10-30, The Boston Sunday Globe; tribute to Eunice Kelley Gidley

"MORE THAN A CENTURY OLD Eunice K. Gidley of Dartmouth is the Most Aged New England Friend – Knitted on Her 100th Birthday.

Eunice Kelley Gidley of Dartmouth was 100 years old last August, and is the oldest member of the Friends’ Society in New England, and probably in the world. She was born in Dennis on Cape Cod, August 20, 1804, and was the daughter of Cyrennis and Jerusha Kelley. She attended the public schools, and the Friends’ School in Providence later. Then she taught in the schools at Dennis, Yarmouth, Padanaram, and Bakerville in Dartmouth. In February, 1839, she married Philip, son of Benjamin and Sarah Gidley of Dartmouth, at the residence of her brother, the late Ezra Kelley, on 4th Street in New Bedford, Massachusetts. She is the mother of six children including Job S. Gidley, for many years the Town Clerk of Dartmouth, and a prominent Friend, and Angeline, the widow of Daniel Ricketson, New Bedford’s historian.

Mrs. Gidley now lives with her son, Job, and on her last birthday she received her friends as she sat knitting by the fireside. A granddaughter asked her if she enjoyed good literature as she formerly did, and she replied: “Much more, because I am old enough to understand it better.”

She recited the 23 (rd) Psalm, eight stanzas from Perry’s spelling book of 1809, beginning:

"I sing the almighty power of God, That made the mountains rise. That spread the flowing seas abroad And built the lofty skies"

A manuscript by Daniel Ricketson was read to her; a narrative from her lips of a journey in 1823 from South Dennis to the Friends boarding school in Providence, which occupied a week on account of a snowstorm. She recalled Moses Brown, Enoch Breed, and others named in the narrative, as it was read to her. Her salary, while teaching on the Cape (Cod) was $1 a week.

“I never enjoyed life more in all my days than at present,” she said.
 “And what has thou to live for at such an age?” asked a Quaker, and she recited the verses commencing: “Here I can read and learn how Christ, the son of God, proclaimed the covenant of grace and sealed it with his blood. Then the sum of all this to thy mind is ‘For me to live in Christ?’” she was asked. “And to die is gain,” she said. Mrs. Gidley has always been particular throughout her life to use “thou” in its right place instead of “thee” as a nominative. A few weeks ago she corrected a North Carolina minister on that point."

Several of her family attained a great age. Her father died at the age of 70, and her mother at 76; but one sister, Lucy Kelley-3237 Sherman, lived to the age of 93. Another sister, Hannah Kelley-4176 Sears, was 95 at her death, and her brother, Ezra Kelley-4177, lived to the age of 97.

Notes

While the mother meeting in Sandwich was growing and building its second meetinghouse of 1709, a new nucleus of Friends was forming about eighteen miles southeast around the upper Bass River, in what is now South Dennis. This had been the farm of the Quaker Kelley Family, settled by David O’Killea (d. 1696), a freeman of Yarmouth in 1657, who married about 1670 a Welsh Quaker maid Jane Powell (d. 1711).

Research Notes

Phillip Gidley; Spouse: Eunice Kelley; Marriage: January 27, 1839; Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts, United States[1]

Sources

  1. "The Rev. Warren Emerson's Marriage Records"

See also:

  • "The Rev. Warren Emerson's Marriage Records"
  • Find A Grave: Memorial #29705799. Burial in Apponagansett Friends Cemetery, Russells Mills Road, Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts, USA
  • "United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:M95J-2GX : accessed 29 April 2017), Eunice Gidley in household of Clarkson Gifford, Dartmouth Town (south part), Bristol, Massachusetts, United States; citing enumeration district (ED) 99, sheet 5A, family 100, line 22, NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1972.); FHL microfilm 1,240,634. Affiliate Name: The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA); Affiliate Publication Number T623; GS Film Number 1240634; Digital Folder Number 004113819; Image Number 00323
  • "United States Census, 1870," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MDSK-79B : 17 October 2014), Eunice Gidley, Massachusetts, United States; citing p. 38, family 363, NARA microfilm publication M593 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.); FHL microfilm 552,102. Household ID 363, Line Number 35. Affiliate Name: The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), Affiliate Publication Number M593, GS Film number 000552102, Digital Folder Number 004269698, Image Number 00269
  • "Massachusetts State Census, 1865," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MQHJ-Z2T : 15 November 2014), Eunice Gidley in household of Philip Gidley, Dartmouth, Bristol, Massachusetts; State Archives, Boston; FHL microfilm 953,968. Family Number 229, Line #30, GS Film number 0953968, Digital Folder Number 4286755, Image Number 00131
  • Vital Records from The NEHGS Register. Online database. AmericanAncestors.org. New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2014. (Compiled from articles originally published in The New England Historical and Genealogical Register.) Philip Gidley[1]
  • "Souvenir of the bi-centennial of the Dartmouth Monthly Meeting of the Society of Friends. Massachusetts [2]

Acknowledgements

September 22, 2015, created by Eunice Wilbur-403





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Categories: Massachusetts Quakers | Centenarians