Vannie Cunningham - Her Way of "No"

My great great grandparents were Henry Bright Cunningham (Sr.) and Vannie Harriman Crocker of Belfast Maine.  They married in 1877 and when Vannie was 21, she gave birth to my great grandmother, Alvra "Allie" Cunningham.  So Scottish!

They moved in 1880 to Natick Massachusetts where Henry worked at a shoe factory.  In 1907 Henry died of the dreaded TB.   Vannie moved back to Belfast Maine.

My father was fortunate, as were my sister and I, to personally and lovingly know one of our great grandmothers.  We knew Alvra; Dad knew Vannie.



When my father knew Vannie she was a "Rackcliffe" and involved in the Rackcliffe Funeral Home business in Belfast Maine. She had married Samuel Nichols Rackliffe of Belfast Maine in 1910 in Searsport. He died in 1918 leaving her twice widowed.

My father told me that Vannie used an unusual expression of "Don't do so", which he occasionally heard from her..."Don't do so, Bobby!"

Vannie died sometime after 1940, in her 80s, when she came down with pneumonia and died within three days!