Longevity #3 of 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Hmmm longevity? Do I go with the relative that lived to be 100 years old, or the great grand-mother who graduated from the Greenville Female College in 1889? I know, Jeremiah Cummings!

Jeremiah Cummings was my 2xGreat-grandfather. The first record I have for him is the 1870 U.S. census for the Town of Fayette, Seneca Co, NY. He was 30 years old, a farm laborer and had a personal value of $100, and he was born in Ireland. The last two tick marks, columns 16 and 17, indicated he could not read or write.

1870 U.S. census, Fayette, Seneca Co., New York, Jeremiah Cummings

Enumerated with him, was his wife Mary, who was 25 years old and three daughters, twins, Margaret and Elizabeth 2 years old and infant Mary who was a month old. Also enumerated with the family was Ann Ginty, 14 years old and was designated as a domestic servant. (I will later discover that Ann is Mary's younger sister.). 

The family appears again in the 1875 New York State Census for the First District, Geneva, Ontario Co, NY. In this enumeration, Jeremiah was working as a laborer and was a naturalized citizen. The records shows that the family had grown with the addition of three more children, Anna, Richard and John.

1875 New York State census First District, Geneva, Ontario Co.,New York, J. [Jeremiah] Cummings

But that's the last we know of Jeremiah. For sometime after the 1875 NY State census, and before the 1880 U.S. census, Jeremiah has disappeared. In the 1880 census, Mary his wife, was now the sole provider for NINE children! The record showed that Mary was a widow, but no death record, obituary was found for Jeremiah from 1875-1880. 

For the next 28+ years, the family struggles to stay together. In 1908, the family finally received word about their way word husband and father...he had died in Wichita [Falls], TX. According to a small article in The Post-Standard, Syracuse, New York dated 1 Jun 1908, "Word was received in this city to-day of the death in a private sanitarium in Wichita, Tex., of Jeremiah Cummings, formerly of this city, but of whom nothing had been heard in twenty years and who was supposed to have been dead." And though the article ended with "Communication with the authorities at Wichita are being held in arrange for burial to be announced later." Jeremiah's body was left in Texas to be buried in an unmarked grave in Riverside Cemetery, Wichita Falls, TX. Can you blame the family?

Jeremiah Cummings was 68 years old at the time of his death.