bence

Divorce, 1930s Style

“17 Divorces Given in Dedham Court”

“Catherine M. Shepardson of Quincy was given a decree from her husband, Winthrop E. Shepardson of Springfield, on the grounds of cruel and abusive treatment. They were married Sept. 28, 1925, and have one child, of whom the mother was given custody and $80 a month for its support.”

The Boston Globe, 4 Nov. 1930, p. 5

According to my mother (the child mentioned), family lore was that all parties agreed to the testimony of “abusive treatment”, given by one of Catherine’s sisters, in order to hasten the divorce proceedings.

I’ve been looking for this for 15 years. Now that I have a date and the court, the next step is to try to get the court proceedings.

The Ears Have It

Peter Gaskell Bence
(1849-1919)		 Raymond Everett Bence
(1892-1973)		 Raymond Everett Bence Jr.
(1925-1994)

Three generations of the Bence family

A Summer Outing

Charles WIlcox and family summer outing with Raymond Bence - 1902On Sunday, July 6th, 1902, my 9 year old grandfather, Raymond Bence (1892-1973), spent the day sailing with family off the coast of Tiverton, Rhode Island.

Charles E. Wilcox (1881-1938) was Raymond’s half-brother, the son of Raymond’s mother Emma Rowena Macomber (1853-1909) by her first husband Charles H. Wilcox.

Charles E. Macomber (1866-1937) and Fred Macomber (1856-1934) were Raymond’s uncles, Emma’s younger brothers.

Irving Cook (1827-1913) was the husband of Emma’s half-aunt, Martha B. Wilcox (1840-1914).

Source: Fall River Daily Evening News (Fall River, MA), 7 Jul 1902, p. 7, accessed at newspapers.com on 28 May 2020.

Hiding in Plain Sight

The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844: With a Preface written in 1892 by Frederick Engels

How did I not known that this was written about Manchester and the working poor in 1844?

William Bence (1828-1900) was born in Stockport, Lancashire, England. He and his family lived in Heaton-Norris in the 1840s and early 1850s. William, two brothers, his wife, and a sister all worked in the cotton mills. They emigrated en masse to Fall River, Massachusetts in 1854.To understand their lives and why they emigrated, I’ve been looking for contemporary accounts of life working in the mills and in the Manchester / Stockport area.