Ancestors

Etna Gertrude McDowell

Etna Gertrude McDowell was born in 1873 in Jefferson County, Pennsylvania, the third of the eight children of George Richard McDowell and Martha Mae Dunham. Her father had ridden with Company L of the 11th Pennsylvania Cavalry in the Civil War. She grew up in Warsaw Township with Frank, Mary, Elizabeth, George, Adam, Myron and Mattie.

In 1893, at about twenty, she married William Irving Silvis, a red-haired lumberman of 33. Their daughters Elsie Evelyn and Ella Nelly were born in 1893 and 1895, a son Charles in 1897 who lived only days, and Gertrude in 1898. In 1899 Etna died, aged about 26. Her youngest daughter, Gertrude, told the story on tape many years later: in the days before Etna died she had carried Gertrude and a sister across a frozen stream to see her own mother; the ice broke and her feet got wet, and the cause of death was written as a cold of three weeks. Her husband never remarried, and told Gertrude when she asked him, "There was never any one like Etna."

She is buried in Bethel Geer Cemetery, Warsaw Township, where her parents also lie. The slate stone her husband's family set there in 1951 reads 1877 EDNA 1900, a name and dates that do not match hers; her own family and the records have her as Etna, 1873 to 1899. A portrait survives of a dark-haired young woman in a high-collared, buttoned dress.

If Etna Gertrude McDowell is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Etna Gertrude McDowell (1873-1899)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/etna-gertrude-mcdowell-1873-1899-737fe2.