Fannie Fisher was Bert Jr.’s grandmother, making her one of my eight 2nd great-grandmothers. She married a man who became famous, and she died young.
She was born Sept. 27, 1842, but where?
Was it in Maryland, as stated in her obituary? Pennsylvania, as stated in the U.S. Federal Census Mortality Schedules Index of 1850-1880? West Virginia, as stated on her daughter Fanchon’s death certificate?
Was Fannie a nanny?
The 1860 U.S. Federal Census for Cumberland, Maryland, shows an 18-year-old “Fanny Fisher” living with James Morgan, Elizabeth Morgan, and their two young children.
Fannie married Stephen Wheeler Downey: a catch
Did this happen in 1861 in Maryland, as some random ancestry.com person’s tree tells me? Maryland is believable, because Downey enlisted in the Union army in Maryland in the fall 1861, which can be deduced from his Wikipedia page…which I will not link to, because this post is about FANNIE! And 1861 is believable because their first child, Buelah, was born in 1862, possibly in December.
Another source put the wedding on the 13th of Sept., 1862, in Laramie, Wyoming, but Stephen Wheeler Downey didn’t move to Wyoming until 1869, so let’s stick with Maryland. He was in the Battle of Harpers Ferry, which spanned Sept. 12-15, 1862. Who knows, maybe on the first day of the battle he was wounded and sent back to Maryland, and on the second day of the battle he married a very pregnant Fannie? It’s a better story that way! 🙂
Fannie and Stephen had two children
> Beulah (1862-1910)
> My great-grandmother Mary Fanchon (1865-1946), aka Fanchon Downey Smith, aka Bert Jr.’s mother.
Fannie died in May of 1870
She was 28, and her daughters were 5 and 8. Her obituary and the Mortality Index both list her cause of death as consumption, now known as tuberculosis. The obituary in the Laramie Daily Sentinel says, “She came to this city last fall, an invalid in the last stages of consumption, and though the salubrity of the climate here probably prolonged her life some months, her disease was too far advanced to make recovery possible.”
Maybe the family moved to Wyoming in part because of her health? But that’s not the official story. A Wyoming history website puts it like this:
In 1869, [Downey] followed his brother, William O. Downey, a surveyor, to Laramie, Wyo. The move came at a steep price, however, because Stephen’s wife died shortly after they arrived.
Looks like Fannie’s obituary was published one day after her death, so one imagines it was already written. Maybe she helped write it.
In any case, she had to know she was dying. How did she handle it? Did she talk to the girls about it? Or did she hide it from them? Leave things vague? Even if they didn’t know for sure that their mother was dying, they had to know she was sick.
Eventually, liquid replaces the lungs, the suffering patients cannot get enough oxygen, and respiratory failure occurs, they can no longer breathe and they drown. It’s painful, it’s drawn out. It’s an awful way to die. But before any of this happens the disease weakens you, diminishes your capacity for work, and puts your family and friends, and anyone else you come into contact with, at risk.
— From McMillen, Christian W., “Discovering Tuberculosis,” Yale University, 2015, as quoted on tbfacts.org
And if she hadn’t lived as long as she did, I might not be here!
Fannie Fisher (1842? -1870)
. Fanchon Downey (1865-1946)
. . Bert Laraway Smith Jr.
I wonder many things about Fannie. I want a photo! Was her real name Francis, Frances, Fanny, Fannie? What were her parents’ names? Was Fannie a nanny? How did she meet Stephen Wheeler Downey? How would she have felt if she’d known that her husband would go on to remarry and have a lot more children??
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