BESSIE MAE PUGH ... HER STORY

To begin to tell Grandma Bessie's story, we have to go back to Thomas Hall, born in England in 1672.    He married Sarah Brave, born 1674.  He migrated to Pennsylvania by 1708.   His son, William Hall I, was born ca. 1708, but exact date is unknown as is anything else about this family.  His first wife was Hannah Richardson, born ca 1712.  Hannah was a Quaker, so the Halls, though English, would most likely were Quakers.   It was by his second wife, Mary Crow, born ca 1720, that he fathered William Hall II born 1743.   Nothing appears to be know about Mary Crow.  Could she be our Indian connection?   William II served in the Revolutionary War.  He had two wives and six children.  Our family line continues with William II's daughter Mary Ann Hall by his second wife, Susanna William.  

 Mary Ann Hall, born 1790, married Joseph Peter Paris.  Paris was born in France.  Family legend has it that Paris joined the French navy under Napoleon Bonapart and served a total of seven years with four years to that time frame fighting the British. He is said to have jumped ship in America.   Their daughter, Susanna, married Ephraim Martin, they had ten children.   Which gets us closer to Bessie Mae.  Martha Jane Martin, daughter of Susanna and Ephraim, is Bessie's mother.   The nationality of the Martin family is unknown, but it might be surmised that they, too, were of English decent, though Martin was a common French name also.

Ephraim's father was Urias Martin, born 1774 in Virginia.  Urias Martin's father was James Martin, born in New Jersey ca 1750.

I do not have any memories of grandma Bessie.  I know that we visited them, though not very often.   It was said that she like to go bare foot and that she did not put soap in her dishwater as she threw the water onto her plants.   She was diabetic, but the details of that are also unknown to me.  I do know that she died in 1951, in her early seventies, of complications of that disease.  It was said that she did not take care of herself in that respect.   But, thinking back, I am wondering how much was know about diabetes back then.

She gave birth to eight children, my father being the first.