I have at least two ancestors with the first name Thankful(l). The first I want to highlight is Thankfull Parker, https://www.wikitree.com/index.php?title=Parker-11142, (1704-1790) who married John Alden (not that one) and resided in Dedham and Needham MA. I made a few corrections to the profile and added a beautiful profile shot of the grave, with every letter and number crystal clear. Her descendants alas are not all as fortunate in having known gravesites.
The second is Thankful Dibble, https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Dibble-56 (1685-1735), to whom history has not been kind. I am happy to make my attempt to rehabilitate her for posterity. Thankful was married at about age 21 to Isaac Brunson, of Wethersfield, Connecticut. Her eldest son's birth is of record there, following 10 months after marriage. She is said to have had a second son named Joseph Brunson, named for her husband's relative, who, with Isaac, left Connecticut behind, bought up land in South Carolina, and developed said land. Isaac's name can be found as a landowner there in 1712.
Thankful and the children were left behind in Connecticut for many years without Mr Brunson. She remained in CT, but moved to Suffield, where, in 1714/5, the birth of her daughter Abiah Brunson or Towsley is of record. Some years later, Isaac came back, divorced her, and remarried a woman named Margaret. They are said to have had five sons.
John Towsley, the father of Abiah, married Thankful in 1719 and they would have five more children between 1721 and 1728. . Their records are found in Suffield CT.
There is not much mention of Thankful in the Brunson genealogy, other than that Isaac came back to CT and divorced her. Curiously, it also states that the five boys he had with Margaret were all born in CT and then they went back to South Carolina, where they had a large plantation. The facts about the plantation seem to be accurate, but I can find no more children of Isaac born in CT. Some of those children were said to be born during the years he was married to Thankful, but absent and living in SC. I suspect the children he had with Margaret were in the same category as Abiah. But history paints Thankful with a scarlet letter, and Isaac as the shrewd plantation owner, with no moral flaw.
With modern eyes, it isn't hard to sympathize with Thankful as a young abandoned wife, with small children. I hope John was a loving father. Clearly the relationship was not clandestine, since his name is on his daughter's birth record, and they made it legal as soon as possible. It must have been a rough five years waiting.
I am thankful for both these distant grandmothers, and hope Thankful Dibble Brunson Towsley would approve of me setting the record straight.
