Charles Wesley Cable
Status: looking for family
In the previous post, we met Harry Cable, husband to Mae Hewitt. And while over the last few weeks we have done quite a bit of research on Mae's ancestors - George Hewitt, Mary Humphries Hewitt, and Catherine Dolbow to be specific - today we are going one generation farther back on Harry's line: his father.
Some of the photos I purchased in this haul were labeled 'CWC Album'. I realized CWC must stand for C W Cable, which was written on the back of this photo (see below).
It wasn't until I began researching all the subjects in the photos and how they might be related that I realized CWC must stand for Charles Wesley Cable, the father of Harry Cable and the apparent owner of the photo album all these photos once lived in.
Charles is first found in the 1860 census, where he is listed as being 9 years old, born in 1851. The photo indicates that Charles was 58 years at the time it was taken, meaning it must have been taken about 1909.
Let's learn a bit about Charles, shall we?
In 1860, Charles was living in Upper Penns Neck, NJ: the same small township as many of our previous subjects. He lived with his father, Jacob, his mother, Sarah, and his older sister, Mary.
The reverse of Charles’ photo
In the 1870 census, the Cable family can be found living in the same community, but with some interesting additions to the family unit. First, mother Sarah is not listed on the census. Instead, we have a woman by the name of Hester Cable, 30 years old - perhaps Charles' aunt? We also have a Margaret Dalbow, 73 years old. If you remember, Dalbow (or Dolbow) was also the surname of one of our previous subjects. It seems the Dalbow family was a large family in this area of New Jersey at the time.
Charles, at this point, is 19 years old and reportedly works on a steamboat - probably with his father, Jacob. By 1880, Charles has married Barbara Cole, and our previous feature, Harry, appears as a young six year old. Charles is working as a sign painter. In 1900, the household is back to being occupied only by Charles and Barbara, as Harry has moved out. Charles continues his work as a painter, this time as a house painter.
Of course, as we know, by the time the next census rolls around in 1910, his daughter-in-law Mae has moved in with him and Barbara, along with her three children, while Harry is somewhere we haven't quite figured out yet. This is around the time that the photo of Charles is taken, and he is the cutest grandpa you could ever imagine.
By 1920, Charles and Barbara are back to being empty-nesters and Charles, at age 69, continues to paint houses. The 1920 census does give us a new interesting detail, though: an address. Charles and Barbara lived at 45 East Harmony Street in Penns Grove, the same address we can assume they lived at the majority, if not all, of their lives. The house that stands there today appears that it could very much be the house Charles and Barbara once lived in, and once hosted Mae and all her children:
45 East Harmony St.
If by now you're thinking that our story of Charles has been pretty plain and non-eventful, you'd be right. But hopefully this next story redeems it. I'll let this April 1922 story from Wilmington's The Evening Journal tell you:
Okay, okay, that is only the first part of the clipping - I don't want to share the second part with you, because it's all about Jacob Cable, Charles' father, and let's just say...we'll be revisiting it in a future post.
What the clipping does go on to say, though, is that Charles and Barbara were affectionately known around town by the "young folk" as "Uncle Wes" and "Aunt Barbara". Charles was a member of the election board and a member of the local Board of Education.
We finally arrive at the 1930 census, and Charles is alone. He no longer works, and Barbara had passed a few years prior. Charles, or Uncle Wes, died in 1933.
This isn’t the end of the Cable story. Next, we take a look at Charles’ father, Jacob Cable - yes, we found his photo, too!