Martha Evelyn Southworth
entered this world on March 16, 1901 in Belfast Maine, a welcomed and loved
baby of her parents (my great grandparents), Alvra and Ralph Southworth. Martha's sister Alice was my grandmother who
also had the highest respect and love for her parents.
When my Great Aunt Martha was young, she is said to have
looked a lot like me as a child. I do
not see this resemblance (she is the one sitting), but my Grandmother Alice
Southworth (standing) swore to it.
Their brother Dana is standing behind his sisters.
Perhaps
as I and she grew up, I began to resemble Martha more -- she is the one on the right; Alice on left in the photo below.
Regardless of outer appearances, Martha's life was filled
with love and loneliness.
On
September 14 in 1921 Martha married when she was 20 years of age to Edward
"Eddie" Thornton Sullivan.
She was so very in love with the blue-eyed Eddie (See photo) who was 10
years older than Martha. Eddie was born
on October 14, 1891 in Portland ME. He died on February 20, 1938 and is buried
in the Southworth section of Grove Cemetery in Belfast ME.
Eddie was a stevedore and he served honorably in WWI for 6
months, but I do not know if he was injured while on duty. Martha worked as a stenographer. By 1930 he
was selling life insurance and she no longer worked outside their home at 27
Spring Street in Belfast.
Martha was devastated when Eddie died at the mere age of 46
from lobar pneumonia. She suffered
great melancholy. Martha returned to live with her parents at 55 High Street in
Belfast. In 1940, for example, she lived with her parents Ralph and Alvra
Southworth where her 20 year old sister Jane, her sister Alice and her then
husband Stanley K Healy and Alice's son Robert Fuller (my dad) also lived. She was surrounded by a family that loved
her dearly.
Martha came to believe that her grieving was adequately
behind her so as to allow her to move forward with her life. In July of 1941 she married Kenneth L.
Young, a good man, whom she believed in her heart that she loved and that she
would make Ken a good wife. Love him,
she did. But her stricken spirit was
not truly healed from her love and loss of Eddie. She did not feel she was the good wife she had so wanted to
be.
Married to Ken for four years, Martha was still gripped with
mourning which led her into a deep depression.
Eventually she shot herself in the head, instantly dying on July 2,
1945, just 26 days before I was born!
She was but 44 years old. My
family was stricken, as was Ken.
