Chester Phillips Wants a Family

Chester Lumbard Phillips, who is a son of one of my Munro great-great-great aunts, may have wanted a family pretty badly.

He was born in Rutland County, Vermont, in late January 1839, the second of four sons, and with an older sister the first child of the family. His brothers who were next to him in age both older and younger died when they were each about two years old. He was 25 years old when he married 20-year-old Hannah Etta Towsley, and I’m sure they expected to have a large family. But they had no children after five years, then a decade, then another, and another passed by. It looked like it was too late.

Chester’s older sister Betsey had an only daughter in 1851. Chester may have been allowed to play with his niece when he was a young teenager. His younger brother Charles married Ida Estelle Paddock and lived to be 90 years old but apparently had no children.

Chester’s wife Hannah died the day after their 35th wedding anniversary. But Chester did not mourn for Hannah very long. If he wanted a family, he couldn’t afford to wait. Four and a half months later he and Mary L Paddock were married. Mary was Ida’s younger sister, born in Bennington County, Vermont, nearly 30 years younger than Chester. She was just past 33½ when they married, and in that time and place perhaps she had long thought of herself as an old maid, “on the shelf.” But maybe her sister Ida urged her to marry this brother-in-law. Maybe he was kind and personable.

Curiously, Chester’s brother and sister-in-law, Charles and Ida, had no children, but the 1900 Census shows that they have two nieces living with them: a 7-year-old named Millie T. Phillips, and a 27-year-old named Marion B. Wellwood. I can’t find anyone in either family with the surname of Wellwood, and the only way Millie could have the Phillips surname is if she were Chester’s natural daughter. These nieces are a mystery.

One year after their marriage, Chester and Mary had a daughter born, Luella. A little over two years later another daughter, Mary Emily, was born, but sadly she died before she was three. When Luella was six, a baby brother, Charles, was born. Chester was then 70 years old and Mary was 40. Chester died 12½ years later, nearly 83 years old. Mary, despite being so much younger than Chester, did not remarry and followed him in death when she was 64. Their two surviving children grew and married, and both had children.

As they say, it’s never too late.