Biography:
Mrs. Frances (Johnson) Edwards is buried in Ellsworth Cemetery, next to her husband and a young son.
Ms. Johnson was born in the late 1840s in Carroll County, Maryland. Her birth date is recorded as March 1, 1848 on her headstone and January 1, 1849 on her death certificate. Her parents were Oliver and Susan Johnson.
She may have been enslaved, as the first definitive record we find of her is her marriage to Mr. Nelson Edwards before Christmas of 1865. An African American woman named Frances Edwards is living with and working for Mr. Thorton Shipley in Baltimore in 1860. However, we have no evidence to suggest that these two women are the same person.
Mrs. Edwards kept house for her family, which was a significant undertaking as they had at least eight children. They lived in Westminster together until her husband’s death in 1905. Sometime following that sad event, she moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and lived with one of her sons. We are unsure which of the six surviving boys she was with.
She died there in January 1910. Her death certificate states her cause of death as “La Grippe,” which is more frequently called influenza.
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