- My great-great-grandmother's name was Isabella McLellan Manary. When I first began genealogy in 1980, no one I contacted even knew her name. Through the years, the family has learned much about her: her date of birth and death, the probable year of her marriage, the places she lived, some sketchy data on her husband and quite detailed statistics on her 14 children. She was not literate and left no diaries or letters and it was years before a photo of her finally came to light. But through research and statistical comparisons, it became apparent that she was a remarkable woman. Isabella came with her family to Canada in 1821 from Scotland, likely from Renfrewshire where all the related McLellans came from. She would have been 7 years old at the time. Although the marriage record hasn't been found, Isabella would have been 17 when she married James Manary. James, who was from County Tyrone or County Armagh in Ireland, was 38, 21 years older than Isabella. He had arrived only a year earlier and probably had much work left to do on his house and farm. Over the span of 25 years, Isabella bore 14 children. The last child was born in 1857, when Isabella was 43 and James was 64. Every one of their children survived into adulthood, married, and had their own families. Compared to the statistics in Ontario at that time, to have 14 children and have every one survive was almost unknown. What does this say about her? Probably that both she and James were unusually healthy and produced healthy children; that Lanark County was quite remote and not as subject to contagious diseases; and that, most of all, Isabella was probably a very conscientious mother. And how did her children feel about her? A clue is the fact that the name Isabella seemed to be held in high esteem: several of her granddaughters were named Isabella and the name survives in the family to this day (although the holders of the name might not be aware of where it originated). The family was close-knit and many of the children married brothers and sisters from neighbouring families. They also migrated together, almost half the family moving to South Dakota in the late 1870s and 1880s. At the time of James' death in Quebec in 1872, Isabella was 58. He had willed her their farm and she was surrounded by the rest of her family. But in 1881, when she was 67, she decided to sell the farm and move to South Dakota, along with a few of her children and families. Even in this present mobile age, it would be surprising for a woman of 67 to sell her estate, leave familiar surroundings, family, and friends, and make a difficult migration of approximately 1200 miles. This would seem to establish beyond a doubt her adventurousness, her robust health, and her strong ties with her children. Compared with her contemporaries, Isabella appears to have been an unusually strong and independent woman. Not afraid of a challenge, she emigrated from her native Scotland as a young girl, began her own family at the age of 17, moved from Ontario to Quebec, and finally, as a vigorous woman of 67, moved to untamed land in South Dakota. Her large tombstone in Canistota, South Dakota (shared with her youngest daughter, Elizabeth Manary Vellow), reads, with telling sentiment:
My mother!
We miss the sunshine of thy face
We miss thy kind and willing hand,
Thy fond and earnest care.
Our home is dark without thee
We miss thee everywhere.
Contributor: Barbara MacPherson (49469077)
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1814 - 1888 (74 years)
