Florence Amelia Dengate
Florence Amelia Dengate
KEY DATES:
Birth: 1 November 1876, Warriors Mark, Huntingdon County, Pennsylvania, America
Marriage: 22 April 1902
Death: 25 October 1953, Bellwood, Pennsylvania, America
Burial: Logan Valley Cemetery, Bellwood, Pennsylvania, America
BIOGRAPHY:
~Written by Pat Ove, Florence Amelia Dengate's grandaughter~
~9th March 2003~
Florence Amelia Dengate McCoy's life can be divided rather neatly into three parts. For 26 years she was a girl, for 24 years a wife and finally for 27 years a widow. On the face of it, a rather unremarkable life, but to those of us in her family she was a very strong presence and we live with the results of her beliefs and her strong will.
She was born on 1 November 1876, the fourth and youngest child of Christopher and Mary Dengate and their only surviving daughter in Warriors Mark, a small community in Centre County, PA. When she was young the family moved to a community just north of Bellwood, PA where her father taught school. She was educated through the 8th grade which was usual in rural areas at that time. She worked in the homes of several farm families at some point after that. She must have had suitors because I remember her stories of receiving letters from soldiers fighting in Cuba during the Spanish-American War and hanging these letters on the clothes line before reading them so that the diseases could blow away in the wind and of her ironing her hair, trying to get the curl out.
In 1902 she met a handsome, charming young man of Scotch-Irish parentage and married him on April 22, 1902. After the marriage she found out that in addition to being handsome and charming he also had a drinking problem. From here on her story could have become one of those sad stories of poverty, depression and what we today call dysfunction but through the force of her character, it did not. She and Samuel Kelly McCoy had 5 children: James Albert born 12/9/1902, Millicent Lucille born 9/18/04, Samuel Richard born 3/31/08, Fred Olin born 3/8/11 and Ruth born 7/4/13. About the time of my father's birth in 1908 they added a wing to the house on North Fourth Street in Bellwood. Now the house had 4 bedrooms and an indoor bathroom. Samuel's drinking continued to be a problem but when he worked he seems to have made good money. There was a piano in the living room which they both played and on the walls were the popular reproductions of the day. Her brothers James Francis and Charles and her parents lived within a mile and family relations were close. She kept chickens and had a large garden. The two older children grew up and left home to work. I don't know what James did at that time but Millicent began her lifelong career as a school teacher.
Then, late on the night of May 24, 1926, an ambulance arrived at the door with the body of her husband. He had been killed in an automobile accident, probably while drinking. They would not let her see the body it was so badly mangled. She was now a widow with 3 children still at home and no support. She and her oldest still at home, Samuel Richard (Dick) became sextons of the Lutheran Church next door. Dick got a job at a gas station where he worked nights while finishing his last year in high school. It was a difficult time but they got through it. Dick passed up the opportunity of a scholarship to college to continue the support of the family, working now for the Pennsylvania Railroad. Fred and Ruth grew up and left home, Fred to work with Y.M.C.A.s the rest of his working years and Ruth to attend secretarial school. Dick stayed on even after his marriage and birth of his first child (me) but when his second child was due, my mother insisted on her own home so we bought a house about a 5 minute walk away.
Samuel McKoy's grave, Logan Valley Cemetery, Bellwood, Pennsylvania, 2003
Grandmother's house was my refuge. Mornings I would take my toast and go down to have breakfast with her. (She ate oatmeal every morning all her life.) She made my first books - large rectangles of cloth sewed through the middle to make pages. On these she pasted colorful pictures she thought would interest me. I particularly remember the Dionne quintuplets in their pink snow suits. She read me stories on cold days, sitting in her big kitchen in front of her wood- burning cook stove, she in her rocking chair with her feet propped on the open oven door and I on a black wooden chair. She kept a drawer of toys in her kitchen for me. Although she was 62 when I was born I remember her combing her long dark brown hair and braiding it into a single braid that was then wrapped around the back of her head. She was a person who worked hard, faced many difficulties and did what had to be done without complaining.
Florence Amelia Dengate
She attended the Methodist Church all her life, walking the more than a mile to services each week. Her children formed a close clan and family gatherings involved a lot of laughter and lively discussion. Ruth and Millicent were known as town beauties and her 3 sons shared an unquenchable and irreverent sense of humor. None of them inherited their father's drinking problem. In addition to her church, her great interests were history, geography and politics. She voted in every election from the time women got the right to vote. Her love of education was passed to her children and grandchildren. All but 2 of the grandchildren have college degrees, many with advanced degrees. This is also true of her great-grandchildren. Through the force of her character she changed what could have been a sad story into one of hope and success.
Florence Amelia died 25 October 1953 in Bellwood, Pennsylvania and was buried in Logan Valley Cemetery, Bellwood.
Florence Amelia's grave, Logan Valley Cemetery, Bellwood, Pennsylvania, 2003
CENSUS:
Grateful thanks to Pat Ove for all the above information and photographs, to Mary Ann Zimmerman for the grave photograph and to Lise Leresche for the census information.
© Copyright N. Goodwin MMII