"Brick walls, we all have them. That stubborn, well built, solid brick wall that we just can not break through. We throw sticks, rocks, dynamite, whatever we can get our hands on, but just like with the big, bad wolf, we can not blow that darn thing down. It's frustrating. It's annoying. It's maddening. It makes us throw our hands up in anger and walk away. But, then all of a sudden, a crack appears and we have hope. It's not as permanent as we would like it to believe. So we do our best to chip it away, piece by piece. It may take months or years before we finally see through it, but we make progress." Excerpt taken from my blogpost: Brick walls - We all have themI've talked about my brick walls a lot in my research. My biggest brick wall without a doubt has been my 3rd great grandma Maggie Helfrich. I've mentioned her so many time in many blog posts. If you wish to read those posts, click on her surname in the surname list to the right. All the posts that mention her will come up. She has been married multiple names so the surnames to click on are: Molten, Dennis, & Helfrich.
Since, she has been my main focus for a while now, I decided to chose another brick wall to talk about today. I do have a few to choose from. (We all do lol) Yet, this particular woman's brick wall has been there about as long as Maggie's brick wall. I am talking about Eliza Rickards, my husband's 2nd great grandfather's first wife. She passed away so young, that there is not much about her. It's actually her headstone I am standing next to in the photo on the right hand side of my blog. Her headstone (along with her husband and daughter) is also in the banner photo at the top. Tracing her has been so tricky. I've been working with a couple of distant relatives trying to piece together the puzzle of her life. It's possible we may never find more than we have right now, but I am still hopeful.
Eliza Jane Barkley was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania sometime around 1838 to Andrew Wray Barkley and Elizabeth Holtzworth. She was the 6th child out of 13 children. This is the first kink in the chain. Her birth date is unofficially listed as Jan 24, 1893, but that is just three months before her sister, Mary, was born. That's impossible. Her sister's birth is verified by a death certificate, but that's all there is. With this conflicting evidence, we considered the fact Eliza was adopted by the Barkley family, but that also has yielded no results.
When she was around 6 years old, her family moved to St. Louis, Missouri for a time. But by the 1850 census, they were all back in Pennsylvania. From there, things are kind of blurry up until we find her in the 1860 census, living with her Half Sister, Amelia Jones, in Liberty, Missouri with the surname of Graham. She is listed as being married, but we have never found out to whom.
After that, she met and married my husband's 2nd great grandfather, Joseph Henry Rickards. She married him before he went off to serve in the Civil War. As you can see in the record below, there is parenthesis next to Eliza's name. Based on the record I found in the Clay County Missouri Marriage Record book at the St. Louis County Library Headquarters:
Names in parentheses ( ) in the bride's column indicate maiden name. When no name appears within a set of parentheses, this indicates that the bride was referred to in the record as "Mrs." Surname-looking names in a bride's entry (e.g., Mary Turner Smith) suggest that there was a previous marriage, but in copying these records I assumed nothing.
The following the copy of the original record held at the Missouri State Archives. It was impossible to read, so I requested help from the Archivist. This is what she said:
"We were able to read the marriage record on our microfilm and it does say Mrs. Eliza Graham. Unfortunately, the microfilm will produce a copy about the same quality as what you got from Ancestry. Please let us know if we can help you with any further research." - Reference Staff Missouri State Archives
Yeah I know it's hard to read. That's why I requested help. Trying to pick out that one word of "Mrs." or "Miss" was very hard. This is a copy of a copy that I found at the Clay County Archives.
Definitely easier to read for sure. But you want to get as close to the original as you can because things can get lost in transcription. After seeing these, you would think, "Yes, ok, she was married before to a Graham." Oh if it was only that simple. Let me show you the documents that gave us much trouble in coming to this conclusion
The two first images are copies of the index for the Clay County Marriage Records. The third image is a transcription of the newspaper article for their marriage. As you can see, it clearly says "Miss". Seriously??
Even with these sources, they still never helped us find her first husband or how she got the last name of Graham. OH but it doesn't stop there. Sadly, her life tragically ended on April 19, 1867. Just four months after giving birth to their daughter, Maggie Jones Rickards. And even though we know this, we do not know the cause of death. All we have is speculation. It could be from a difficult birth. But we do not know.
So here is the summary of what we can not prove of Eliza Jane Rickards nee Barkley's life:
- Correct Birth date
- Natural Born or Adopted child of Andrew Wray Barkley & Elizabeth Holtzworth
- Marriage to unknown Barkley
- Cause of Death
I will close this blog with the obituary that was posted to Eliza Rickards in the Liberty Tribune on May 17, 1867. This is the transcription of the obit. Thanks to my friend Chris Harris who located this for me just on a whim one day. Happy Searching all!
I have no language that can describe the sorrows of a desolate, grief stricken heart, and yet I think the death of Mrs. Eliza J Rickards deserves something more than a passing notice. Her's was no ordinary death-bed for over four months she suffered as few suffer on a dying bed; and now we witness these no more, we can realize that she is indeed gone. Her voice is no longer heard—her chair is vacant—the mortal has “put?” on immortal, and we will never know her again as she was in this world; but oh “?” how many scenes will memory recall and bring her vividly before us again. She was not afraid to die, and why should we fear for her. Has not He told us when we are weary and heavy laden to “Come unto Him” and find rest”? Best of sisters and kindest of husband's, I know that you feel that you cannot give her up; but He does “all things well.” There are many others that grieve—the aged father and loving mother, brothers, and sisters; in a word, all except the smiling babe, for whom she cheerfully gave her own life. Rest, gentle friend, little Maggie is kindly cared for—even a mother could do no more. Eliza J Rickards was born January 24th, 1839, was married November 18th, 1863 and died April 19th 1867 at 10 o'clock and ?? minutes, a. m. Liberty Tribune newspaper 1867-05-17
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