Name/Title
AU Lambert, Elsie Pauline [Warfel] - 1976-01-19 letter to Mary Elizabeth 'Bette' KnappEntry/Object ID
2004.1.23Context
5361 Park Ave.
Bethel Park, Pa. 15102
Monday 1/19/'76
Dear Bette:
I will answer you as far as I know about Winnifred Cartwright Lambert. My father said that Abner her husband had 3 wives and 16 chi1dren. That was the first thing I knew about Abner and his wives. The first wife died in N.C. and had only 2 sons.....John and Matthew. (I don't know why I could never find them listed in the Quaker records but l never did....maybe it was an oversight) John was a favorite Lambert name and Matthew turned up as a name for the family also. A big black colored boy in one of my father's classes in South H.S. in Columbus said his name was Matthew Lambert and on inquiry he said he came from N.C. Slaves took their master's names often so I guess that's where he got his. My father seemed to think that Matthew and John inherited the land in N.C. after the English way of inheritance.....to the oldest son or sons. That I can't prove.
After the first wife Abner married Winnifred and when he married her she was not too young.....about 35 as I remember. Then she began right away having children. I did find her listed in the Quaker records. The first children were born in N.C. I believe she had 8 living children which were accounted for in the Meeting records. Then Abner got the notion to move to Ohio because the Quakers he knew were all convinced that slavery was wrong. Preachers who came to N.C. from the north convinced the people as to slavery, Therefore many meetings moved as a body to the north. They freed their slaves and saw that they got to the West Indies or Canada or took them with them to Ohio where they freed them and gave than land (case in Ohio was written up in a Columbus paper). 0nly in that case 4 negro brothers took the first names of Lamberts for their last names instead of taking the name Lambert. They were at the time of the article trying to hold onto the land which they had inherited from the ancestors who had received it from some Lamberts. They were poor and having a struggle. If slaves were freed in N.C. at the time of Abner the state could pick them up and resell them and so it was imperative that they be removed from the state if freed.
Back to Winnifred.... Well in the records in Winchester Virginia on the way to Ohio Abner and Winnifred stayed a year. There by the records I found there was a child born....just called infant...which was a sign it did not live for if they lived the name was always listed. Likely they stayed in Winchester the year on account of the health of Winnifred. l don't know. Then they went on to Redstone Old Fort (that is the way they listed the place now called Brownsville on the Monongahela River. There they stayed a year and laid out the plans for the land they were to take up near Barnesville Ohio. There also I believe she and an "infant." So altogether the living children amounted to 10. Then in 1800 they went to Ohio (presumably the usual way up the Mon. to the Ohio River and on the Ohio to a place across from Wheeling where they reassembled their wagons and took their furniture from the boat and went to the place they were to live. But by that time poor Winnifred was very sick and did not live long in Ohio. Then Abner married another woman whose last name was Faries, In some places it is spelled Faris. But I am sure Faries is right. I never found any record that she ever had any children ....did not find the meeting listed to which Abner belonged in Ohio. According to my father's statements she must have had some children to make the number of living children 16, I can't prove anything as far as that is concerned.
Now as far as I am concerned I felt sorry for poor Winnifred. Having children at the age of 49 or 50 is not often very good for a woman. But then on the other hand it might not have been Abner's fault. Women in those days had strict beliefs about child bearing... different from our beliefs today.
[End of Page 1]
So maybe Winnifred thot it would be a sin to prevent having those 2 children. Who knows. I think it was a sin she had them myself. Anyhow she lost her life and another wife took her place in Ohio.
You spoke of the Orange Bowl game. You were lucky to get tickets, I watched it on TV (CBS) yesterday and of course being from Pittsburgh I was glad the Steelers won. The town was not torn up yesterday as it was after a victory last year on Sunday. We celebrate today however. Today is 3' above zero to get no higher than 20' today. Tomorrow it is to get up to 34 '. I don't like to go out in extreme cold so am in today.
I had a fine time in Wisconsin. It was very cold there below zero part of the time but Bill has warm cars and we got along fine. The children were home from school. I stayed for my grandson 5tephen's 6th birthday the 29th of Dec. He had a party. Rich will be 8 April 24th and Dana had a birthday party at 2 Jan 12th. I heard about that on the telephone.
Did you meet Steve and Margaret Smith in Washington DC? I get letters from Malcolm Smith. My first cousin John Mayne lives in Arlington Va which is almost a part of Wash. D.C. He is a retired minister. He is the last of the family of my aunt Hannah Lambert Mayne. Helen died first a young married girl from flu in 1918; The next to go was Dan in recent years and then Horace and recently Dwight in Ontario Calif.
I have not been very ambitious lately....don't like going out in extreme weather ...stayed home a lot ....but I'm going out tomorrow to a lecture at Carnegie Museum and Music Hall.....part of Carnegie Organization. Carnegie Museum is quite a place. Recently Sarah Mellon Scaif left money for a new Museum of Art there which was added to the original building.
I hear from my first cousin Marie Lambert near Fort Wayne this Christmas. She is pretty good ...has had heart surgery within the last few years ....so is quite thin. My first cousin Natalie Lambert Schmick went into a retirement home but intends to go to Florida as usual this winter any how. She goes to Ft Myers. My sister did not go to Spain this year. I guess they intend to go to Florida in March. They usually go to Cape Coral. My brother Charles Lambert and his wife Bernice are pretty tied to their home. Her mother 92 is in a nearby nursing home. She also has a brother living with them. Their address is R.D. #3 Batavia O....near Cincinnati.
Well I'd better quit this long epistle. My looking up of ancestors was in Swarthmore College Library (particularly the Stantons) and Philadelphia Historical Society when we lived in Morton near Swarthmore. I have not done anything lately.
Sincerely,
{Pauline}
P.S. I'm sending you the copy of this letter because I should change the ribbon and I am too lazy today.
