Elizabeth Cole Clark
Photo 1, labeled “CWC Album” on the back
Status: looking for family
We are finally nearing the end of our family saga; if you need a refresher on how everyone we've posted on so far is related, check out the family tree at the bottom of this page: some lucky descendant is going to get a lot of photos! We've covered the Humphries, Hewitts, Dalbows, and Cables, and now we turn to one of our last photographs in this massive collection: Elizabeth Cole Clark.
When I found this photo along with the others at the Big DC Flea, I knew Elizabeth had to be related: at the bottom of the back of the photo, it is labeled 'CWC Album' - of course denoting that it belonged to the photo album of our Charles Wesley Cable.
And then, I was lucky enough to find a second photo of Elizabeth that gave me a few more details: her maiden name (Cole) and the location of where it was taken: Woodstown, NJ.
Her maiden name, Cole, gives us a hint as to how she was related to Charles Wesley Cable and his family: Charles' wife's maiden name was Barbara Cole. Could Elizabeth have been Barbara's sister?
Barbara Cole was born about 1851, and if Elizabeth was her sister, we could assume she would have been born at most about 10 years apart, placing her earliest birthdate at around 1840. But this doesn't seem to line up with her age in the photos.
H.H. Flanagin (who was, by the way, a woman!) operated her photography studio in Woodstown, NJ in and around 1872, but Elizabeth was much older in the photo than 30! She was likely born in the early 1800s. Could Elizabeth, then, be one of Barbara's aunts?
In 1853, there was a marriage between an Elizabeth Cole (born 1803) and a Joseph Clark in Upper Penns Neck - the same township as all our other subjects had ties to. This seems promising.
Elizabeth would have been 50 at the time of her marriage, indicating that she could have been married before, but perhaps not. Unfortunately none of the censuses Elizabeth and Joseph appear in (1860, 1870, 1880, and 1885) include the question of how many living children the mother had at the time, so we can't be sure whether she was married with a family prior.
It is also difficult to ascertain with certainty whether Elizabeth was Barbara's aunt - this seems likely, although I have my doubts that Barbara was the one to write "Aunt Lib" on the photo. If you look back at Harry Cable's photo, Barbara wrote "my baby" on the back in fairly poor and unconfident cursive. Whoever wrote "Aunt Lib" on Elizabeth's photo above seems like they had much better penmanship.
Regardless, there is another way Elizabeth is related to the family, outside the Cole line. Just take a look at that aforementioned family tree, below. The green names indicate those of whom we have photos and blog posts about:
Elizabeth, it would appear, married Joseph Clark, the brother of John Clark, the grandfather of Mae Hewitt. Confused yet?
That's genealogy for you.
Looking at the tree, perhaps it was Maria Clark who wrote “Aunt Lib” on the back of Elizabeth’s photo. But, Elizabeth’s photo is, after all, labeled “CWC Album”, meaning it belonged to Charles W. Cable, and I find it highly unlikely that Charles would have a picture of his son’s wife’s great-aunt… it seems much more likely that Elizabeth and Barbara were related somehow. But some things, we’ll never know.
Elizabeth died a widow in 1898, having been preceded in death by her husband some years earlier. Her burial place is unknown - if you happen to find it, please comment down below!