People from the Past: Elizabeth Jane Gamlin

Below is the obiturary for my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Jane Gamlin, who died in 1920. I've always been fascinated by her life. My great-grandparents were both born in England during the Victorian Era. Elizabeth's parents, Benjamin and Catherine Baker, were considered to be members of the upper class and John Gamlin's family were lower class. John and Elizabeth met when Elizabeth's father hired John to be a laborer on their property. The two eventually fell in love, but due to the strict rules of England's social hierachy, they were forced to keep their romance a secret. They decided to move to America and start a new life together. John came over first, and once he was established, Elizabeth made plans to join him. She packed a small suitcase and left home in the middle of the night to board a ship that was sailing to America, giving up everything to be with him. She never saw her family again. 

Elizabeth's new lifestyle was far from what she was accustomed to in England, her fine garments replaced by two calico dresses, one worn for everyday and the other reserved for church and special events. Her bed sheets that were made only of the finest cotton thread were replaced by scratchy wool bed blankets that she clung to in the middle of the night to keep from freezing to death. She went from having servants to feeling like a servant herself, trying to keep up with the demands of a husband and many children.  

She experienced plenty of hardship in life. She had ten babies in the 1870's and 1880's, and lost two in infancy. In 1915, her son, Matthew, committed what was likely one of the first murders in Raymond's history when he shot and killed his brother's wife, Molly, as she sat with John and Elizabeth at their kitchen table. Molly was the first wife of my grandfather, Joe Gamlin. He later married Wilma McCallum and they became the parents of my mother, Eileen Bandy. 

This obituary is taped in a scrapbook that belonged to my grandmother, Wilma Gamlin, along with a swatch of fabric from the dress that Elizabeth Jane Gamlin was buried in.