Sepia Saturday: The Woman at the Top of the Stairs
When I was young, a hand-colored portrait of this woman hung at the top of the stairs at my paternal grandparents' house. She looked so stern she always scared the peewadden out of me. That might not be a word, but you get the idea. Her name was Mary Jane Bliss, nee Mary Jane Butt. She was the daughter of Leonard Butt and Maria Weedman. She was born in 1845 married Sylvester Lyman Bliss in Perry County, Indiana on August 14, 1861. Mary Jane managed to bear two children in short succession, my great-grandmother Eliza Jane and her brother John, before Sylvester answered the call of the bugle in September 1864. Sylvester mustered out in June 1865 and died in December 1865, presumably of something war-related. Mary Jane became a very young widow. And unlike most periods during American history in which young widows swiftly remarried, the Civil War snuffed out huge numbers of potential suitors. She got a small widow's pension (and I think the ribbon bow on her bodice ...