Transcription
Born in November of 1832 in England, Mary emigrated to the US at two years of age in 1835. She was the “head nurse” in the Chanler home for decades. In the 1880 census, it shows her and 11 of her co-workers with the so-called “Astor Orphans;” the head of household at the time being 17-year-old Armstrong Chanler. Her tombstone has no dates of birth or death (and misspells her surname “Merony”). She died with no heirs in 1904, leaving her estate of $2,500 to the Methodist Church.
“Mary with her “tread like an empress” and proud to have been born a subject of William IV, ruled the servant’s hall. She had made the grand tour of Europe in the service of Governor and Mrs. Hamilton Fish, and her room was filled with keepsakes from every country she had visited. Nurses, housemaids, governesses, cooks, and footmen might come and go; Mary Meroney was immovable.”
— Alexandra Aldrich, The Astor Orphan
Clara Losee transcribed her tombstone in the 1970s, though today it is very eroded and even her name is barely visible, as stating, “A devout English Methodist, born under William IV, who lived for a quarter of a century at Rokeby.” There is no other data on the stone, just her name and that quote.
