Aunt Lallie

The older branches of my tree have frustrated me beyond belief lately, with all their inbreeding, and intermarrying, and illegitimacy. So, I have jumped back down, onto the lower, closer branches for a while.

I landed in the Hutchins branch, and have decided to dedicate my thoughts to one "Aunt Lallie", someone who many of our living relatives still remember well.

Her name was Alice Mae; born to Henry Shwartz Hutchins and Mary Eleanor (Lillie) Owings, on 7 August 1893, in Woodbine, Howard County, Maryland. She was my Great Grandmother's sister. My grandmother's Aunt Alice.

According to my grandmother, either Alice herself, or her older sister, had trouble pronouncing her name, and thus would be spoken as "Lallie". Once it stuck, it stuck, and that's how she was known forevermore. I'll touch on that again later.  

Hutchins House

I found this photo in one of my grandmother's ancestry albums, with that written label nearby. It reads:

Photo: Home of Richard + Susan Hutchins, Woodbine, Md. as it appeared in 1975. Alice Hutchins Musgrove was born in this house. Formerly a handsome home, now rundown."

It was her grandfather's house; her father's father, Richard Hutchins, who had died in 1887, three years before her parents were even married. Did Henry inherit the house, or were they staying with other relatives? I'll let you know as soon as I find out.

Just to note, written on that same label : "Bradenbaugh Family lived at Showsville, MD., near Monkton." It's another reference to Alice's grandmother, Susan (Mary Susan Bradenbaugh).

Mary Eleanor Hutchins Owings,
My grandmother's mother.

Alice had an older sister, Mary Eleanor, who had just turned two when Alice was born. They developed a wonderful bond, and remained close in their adulthood. In 1900, when the girls were 8 and 6, another sister was born. But Anna Alberta did not survive past infancy. Mary Eleanor grew up to become my grandmother's mother.

1900 Census
Hutchins Family

According to the Federal Census, on 19 June 1900, her family was living in Howard County, Maryland. Father Henry was a farmer. Mother Mary Eleanor (called Lillie) claims three living children, who are Mary, Alice, and newly born Anna. The two oldest girls are attending school.

Aunt Lallie once recounted a memory to my grandmother about that time. This is an excerpt of Nellie Mae's personal journal:

"Mother attended the first few years of grade school in Florence, Maryland - near Lisbon - and then public school in Baltimore, where she and her sister Alice, went every day on the train. Lallie tells me of the days at Florence, when they went to school, at ages 5 and 6, in the family buggy, with Mother driving! They'd tie up the horse outside, and then drive home at the end of their studies! Even in the winter snows, Mother got them there. Can't you just see that?!"

Sadly, their father Henry passed away just four years later, in 1904. Her mother sold their home, and took the girls with her to live with her widowed father, Albin Owings Sr.

1910 Census
Hutchins Family with Owings

The 1910 Federal Census shows them still together. The house was located in a community called Freedom, in Carroll County, Just over the Howard County line, but my grandmother still referred to it as Woodbine.

Albin Owings Sr

Albin was an important man in town, and quite wealthy. He owned much stock in the B&O Railroad, which had laid tracks through his property. As part of his interests in the railroad, he owned the train station, the general store, and thus, a great deal of the town of Woodbine.

The three ladies lived a very comfortable life there. One of Lillie's younger brothers, Albin Junior, had children of his own that were around the same ages as her daughters, so the cousins grew to become good friends.

Grandfather Albin passed in August of 1914. In November of that same year Alice's sister, Mary Eleanor, married John Hall Owings, and they moved to Baltimore.

Alice Mae Hutchins Musgrove,
likely at her grandfather's home in Woodbine.

(Yes, you saw that right. Mary descends from the Owings family, AND she married an Owings man. She and her husband were second cousins!)

At this time, the Owings' home was passed to another relative, and Lillie took Alice to live with her little sister, Clara May Owings Kuhn. While there, Alice contracted Typhoid Fever, losing great deal of weight and nearly dying, but she was most ecstatic about visiting with her sister again, after being quarantined to her bedroom for so long!

Alice, cousin Albin E, and Emma(?)
likely at the Owings Home in Woodbine.

Sometime between 1915 and 1917, Alice married Herbert Hobbs Musgrove, and they moved to a home on McKendree Road, in Cooksville, Howard County, Maryland. It was the Musgrove Family Farm, known as Oakhurst; originally part of a Hobbs Land Grant that was inherited by Stephen Musgrove, and then his son Herbert.

Mary and her new family briefly stayed with them here, and gave birth to their son John Hall Owings Jr., in that home. In or around 1921, Alice and Herbert welcomed their son, Herbert Jr. In 1930 they were still residing at Oakhurst, with his parents. 

Her sister Mary died in 1938; her mother Lillie in 1946. When her husband, Herbert, died in 1962, she moved in with her son in Poplar Springs, Maryland.

Maggie Owings, Aunt Lallie, and
(Grandmom) Nell Owings in the mid 1970's 

I have memories of my grandparents taking me to visit Aunt Lallie in the mid 1970's, while she was gathering information for her research journals. You can click here to see what I remember about Aunt Lallie.

Grave of Alice and Herbert Musgrove

Aunt Lallie passed away on 13 October 1988, at the Herman Wilson Nursing Center in Gaithersburg, Montgomery County, Maryland, and is buried at Harmony Cemetery in Glenwood, Howard County. 

Thanks to my Aunt Christine, I am the proud owner of many of Alice's lace doilies, and a copy of her famous slaw dressing recipe. I haven't made it yet, but if it's the same recipe that my grandmother used, it's going to be kickin'!