WOMEN OF THE SAPPHIRE, Part 1
This was my mother’s ring. She bought it at the jewelry store in St. Catharines where she worked before she was married, before money had to be stretched for food and children and was not available for pretty things.
In the ancient and medieval worlds, this celestial blue stone signified power and strength as well as kindness and wise judgement. It was believed to bring protection, good fortune and spiritual insight. Even before I learned the symbolism, I felt this ring represented my mother like none of her other possessions. Sapphire was her birthstone, which is possibly why she bought it, but its unique design speaks to the woman she was. You notice this ring. You couldn’t help but notice my mother.
I started wondering if my grandmother and great-grandmother also may have had sapphire-like attributes, and if these may have cascaded down through three generations of daughters. So in a three-part series of posts, I’ll be peering down my maternal line, looking at the characters and behaviours of three female ancestors, looking for some blue sparkle!
My maternal great-grandmother: Josephine Robinson McSorley (1861-1936)
I have only a few stories about Josephine, yet what I do know of her seems to provide evidence of some sapphire qualities.
She was born in Tonawanda, New York, the forth of seven children. When she was seven, her nine-year-old brother Jacob drowned in the Niagara River. During her youth, her father was frequently unemployed, disabled with inflammatory rheumatism and unable to work by the time Josephine was 19. She moved to Buffalo then, and worked for a time as a servant.
Josephine married my flamboyant great-grandfather Richard McSorley in Buffalo in 1894, when she was 33 years old. Richard was known for saying to Josephine, “I’m going to check on a job” (he was a housepainter) or, “I’m going out for cigarettes,” and he’d be gone six months. My grandmother’s memories of her childhood were of Josephine taking in laundry and boarders and doing some nursing or midwifery to bring money into the household. And whenever Richard returned, Josephine always told my grandmother and her brother, “he is your father, he is to be treated with respect.”
Josephine and Richard had a new address in Buffalo every year for 16 years after their marriage. I’m guessing that despite both their efforts, money was short… maybe they had to outrun a few landlords? For part of 1919, the family lived in Los Angeles, but by the next year they were back in Buffalo. Later, Josephine visited Los Angeles a couple of times, where Richard had settled in the mid-1920s, apparently working in the movie industry. He died there in 1935.
From about 1925 until she died in 1936, Josephine lived with my grandparents. She seems to have chosen her daughter over her husband. A divorce of sorts? My mother was only five when Josephine died at home at the age of 75. Mom didn’t provide any memories of Josephine, but she did remember Richard’s Stetson hat.
I wish I had more than this patchy information from which to draw sense of my great-grandmother. But even with these few puzzle pieces, I see strength in her character, including an independent spirit, and she certainly gave protection to her children. I’m calling these her “sapphire qualities.”