Florence (Waldo) Babcock (1889 - 1958)

Born 2 May 1889 in East Pembroke, Genesee, New York, United States

Ancestors

Wife of Walter Horace Babcock — married 22 Jun 1910 in Prattsburg, New York

Descendants

Died 11 Nov 1958 at age 69 in Prattsburg, Steuben Co. NY

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Biography

Florence (Waldo) Babcock was born in East Pembroke, NY, where her father Theron Linsley Waldo was a Reverend, but she grew up in Prattsburg and attended Franklin Academy. Her half brother Charles S. Waldo was the author of "The Continuation of the Waldo Genealogy" and extension of the research of Waldo Lincoln.

As a young woman she married Walter Horace Babcock who was had been working in the Post Office alongside his father WW Babcock, but who was also involved in farming.

The couple was married under an arch of ferns and roses. They lived in town for the summer on Porter Street, but soon moved to the family farm outside of town and began their large family.

Florence and Walter and All Children

In 1934 tragedy struck down both Florence's Husband Walter and Horace, their eldest Son, both from lethal pneumonia. Horace had returned home from Cornell to assist the family while his father was so ill, but died shortly thereafter. A year later Florence herself came very near to passing from the same illness, so near that the children were marched by her one night to say a very ominous final "good night." Luckily by the morning the crisis had passed and the gentle, hard-work mother who loved her children and her roses was not lost. This love of roses had been proven by her reaction when one very young child (Anna) ate all the rose petals off of Florence's bushes. Never before or since had Florence been seen so mad, or so the story is remembered.

Rose petal eater Anna with Wilb on right

For many years Florence's remaining family stayed together on the farm thanks to the extraordinary hard work of herself and her older son Charles and the support of the children's Aunt Lena and Aunt Florence. These aunts kept the doors of education wide open to the children and kept the threat of poverty at bay. Helping one another was what they all did.

Florence's health later brought her back to town to live in Brown's Nursing Home and to be generally wheelchair bound, though visited often by family. Son Charles persisted on the farm which to this day (2022) is still in the family, the place itself holding so many memories.

Florence Waldo Babcock with Family

Note: Florence is coded as "bdad ahed" in Volume 2 of "The Waldo Genealogy" by Waldo Lincoln, and each of her children are included in the "Continuation of the Waldo Genealogy 1900-1943" on pages 139-140 written by Charles S. Waldo, her older half brother. He, his wife, and their little lap dog used to visit the farm in his limousine on occasion. ^[1]

Note: Florence is also the mother of Babcock-3047 .

Sources

1. ↑ Waldo, Charles S.

• Lincoln, Waldo. Genealogy of the Waldo Family, A Record of Descendants of Cornelius Waldo of Ipswich, Mass., from 1647 to 1900 (C. Hamilton, Worcester, Mass., 1902)Link to Vol II, page 682-3
• Marriage announcement and Obituary of Walter H. Babcock clipped from paper(Copy of scrapbook of Clara Simons Babcock)
• Vital dates for Florence Babcock and family at http://www.paintedhills.org/STEUBEN/SteubenNewsClip5.htm
• https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/15600933/Waldo
• Personal account of Anna (Babcock) Adams told to R Adams and as written in Anna's remembrance of the farm