Left Behind

After Maria was widowed, her second cousin Joshua Holton and his wife, Betsy wanted to adopt one of her children.  They were wealthy and couldn't have children of their own.  Her third daughter, Frances, consented to live with them.  Maria never gave them permission to adopt her, but she took on the name of Holton and was never Frances Packe again.

Frances Packe (Holton) Barratt

As payment for letting Frances live with them, Joshua and Betsy set up a store for Maria so that she could sell second-hand and new items to make a small living.

By the time Maria and her children met the Mormon missionaries and joined the LDS church, Frances had become attached to her surrogate parents and didn't want to go to America.  Against Maria's better judgment, she let Frances stay behind in England.  

Eventually the letters became farther and farther and apart.  Until finally, she never heard from Frances again.

http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3150/2930395668_fbc3303857.jpg

In 1891, George Godfrey, Eliza Pack's husband and Frances' brother-in-law was called to serve a mission in Great Britain. He traveled to Northampton and tried three times before the Holtons would permit him to see Frances.  

She was very afraid of him because he was a Mormon.  He was the last person in the family from America to see her alive.

Years later my husband's great grandfather wrote an ad in the Northampton local newspaper, The Chronicle & Echo, looking for Frances.  

She saw the ad and answered it.

She revealed that all letters from America had been kept from her and she had been forbidden to write them.  She began to correspond with her older sister Eliza.

She married Thomas William Barratt from the Channel Islands, had four children, and was widowed nine years later in 1908.  She died at the age of 87 in 1957.

Her obituary says that she was living at 162 Lutterworth Road, Northampton with her daughter Dorothy.

Picture captured from Google Maps

In 1965, Fred's daughter Letha and her husband were touring Europe and stopped by to see Dorothy.   Dorothy was startled to meet her cousins from America.  She let them in but was cool and aloof indicating that she was about to have tea with her friends.  She refused to have her picture taken and wouldn't show them any pictures of her family.  She said that it was her mother's wish not to give any information to family in America. 

As they were about to leave, Dorothy said that they could write her and she would respond.

Two years later, Fred's son Clarence (my husband's grandpa) went to England to visit Dorothy.  They learned she had died of a stroke the year before. 

Frances may have been left behind in England, but she is not forgotten.

This story was adapted from a story written by Eliza's granddaughter Florence G. Munson found in the book Descendants of Samuel Benjamin Pack and Maria Holton.

Frances Packe (Holton) Barratt (1870-1957)

My husband's second great aunt

Bradford William Pack --> Clarence (Bill) William Pack II --> Clarence William Pack --> Frederick John Samuel Pack --> brother to Frances Pack(e) Barratt

From Cordwainer's Widow to Second Wife

Maria was 34 years old when she became a widow.  She had five girls ages 14 to 4, one son (Fred) age 2, and was 5 months pregnant with twins.  The baby girl survived, the boy was born still.

She and her daughters made a living by opening a store that sold fruit, candy, and second-hand items.  

She also continued her husband's shoe store.  Her husband had been a cordwainer, someone who makes shoes (a cobbler is someone who repairs shoes).  Her oldest two daughters dropped out of school so that they could trim the shoes with fancy bows and buckles and pack the shoes in boxes for shipment.

Do you have anything in purple?

Yes, please!

They lived in Northampton, just under 40 miles north of London.  Home of Mansfield Park.

The Pack family were members of the St. Andrews Church.  They attended their meetings faithfully.

I would too if my church looked like that.

Three years after her husband's death, she meet two LDS missionaries.  Henry Yates and Roland Tanner, both from Utah.

The Packs were baptized in August 1884, four years after Maria's husband died.

Two years later, in 1886, she took all of her children but one, Frances, and they sailed for America.  Frances stayed with an aunt and uncle who had been unable to have children.

She moved to Salt Lake City and worked several months cleaning a building still under construction.

Salt Lake Temple

In 1887 she moved to Clarkston, Utah and married the missionary who baptized her, Henry Yates.  She was his second wife.  Henry's first wife, Ann Bromwich, was unable to have children.  Maria had a boy with Henry and named him Henry Bromwich Yates.

Maria would make a trip to the post office and collect the mail for many friends and neighbors who lived on her street.  She then stopped at each home and called out "Mail!"but because of her English accent it sounded like, "Mile!"

She repaired the shoes of the townspeople and made pretty bonnets and flower baskets.

She wore a neat black dress with a frosted lace collar, a black hat trimmed in roses, a checkered waist apron, and a dark wool fringed shawl around her shoulders to protect her from the cold winds.

Here's something that I found in a newspaper archive that isn't in Maria's personal history.

March 29, 1891 - p. 1 under "Deputy Marshal's Arrests."
  "For some time past Mrs. Jane Marie Pack, alleged plural wife of 

Henry Yates has been wanted, and on Wednesday Deputy Corey arrested her 

at Clarkston.   She was released on furnishing $200 bail."

      --The Standard, March 29, 1891.

Don't worry, Maria, you are in good company.  

Maria Holton Pack(e) Yates (1846-1922)

My husband's second great grandmother

Bradford William Pack --> Clarence (Bill) William Pack II --> Clarence William Pack --> Frederick John Samuel Pack --> Maria Holton Pack(e) Yates