Mrs. Wickham at her Home

Hello all! Hope you are all enjoying this nice Spring we’re having. With COVID numbers moving down in our area, I’m starting to feel hopeful again.

My daughter’s school is opening back up again full-time starting next week and I’ll have my second shot this coming Thursday. Can you remember how this seemed unimaginable even in the Fall? Can I get a hallelujah?!

In this and the next few posts, I’ve decided to showcase some of the “friends and acquaintances” from the Dunning album. These are all within the 1914 time frame.

My picture today features a “Mrs. Wickham” who I have decided must be Mrs. Emma Hunt Wickham (1851-1918). Here’s my rationale on that:

1. The age checks out: She’d be about 63 in this picture, taken in 1914. Though she does look older, I’d argue that if I did my hair that way, wore that dress and sat in a rocker, there’s a good chance I’d look 63.
   
2. The photo says “at her home”. This squares with Emma Hunt Wickham who would have lost her husband (Reeves B., a farmer) in 1909.
   
3. That home (the farm) was located in Ridgebury, New York, which is a hamlet of the Town of Wawayanda. That would have been close to where the Dunning farm was and likely that they would have been visitors and…
   
4. She was an active member of the Ridgebury Presbyterian Church. As we have seen in prior posts, those Presbyterians did not hesitate to gather with each other!

Her obituary was published 4 years after this photo was taken, in the Middletown Times-Press dated March 23, 1918. It states that she was the daughter of William Desaix Hunt (also a farmer) and Sarah Young.

The obituary also states that “at the home of her parents, on the lower road, she was united in marriage with Reeves B. Wickham, November 15, 1871.” (How funny is that? The town of Wawayanda was so ‘intimate’ that her parents house could be described as “on the lower road”).

In fact, her late husband Reeves B. Wickham’s farm is mentioned in a document called “The History of Orange County”. In that document, it says that the population of the Town of Wawayanda was 1,906 inhabitants in 1865 and actually decreased to 1,574 inhabitants by 1905.

Anyone that grew up in or near Middletown knows that the Wickham family did not die out, however. Emma herself left three sons and one daughter: William H of Middletown, Clarence of Slate Hill, Howard R. and Mabel Wickham Quackenbush. And, of course, Wickham Avenue still runs right through the heart of the Town of Walkill, blessed by Chase Bank and Little Caesar’s and Shop Rite on its left and right.

And there. I’m late for Pre-K pickup. Tell me what you’re up to these days? Any new outings and adventures? Sending a big family hug. XXXX