Cheesy Grits: Grandmother Ralston—Occupation: "Gentlewoman"

And so we come full circle. We've been on the trail of Jane's missing grandmother, her mother's mother. Of whom we dared not speak and of whom a single, simple inquiry by Jane caused her mother to burst into tears. It was the first time Jane recalled ever seeing her mother cry.

We followed the only trail we had: her grandfather, George Ralston. That trail led us first to Westchester County (NY), then to Brooklyn's Midwood High School, then to Savannah and thence to Charleston, SC, where we found the bill of sale documenting the purchase by John Stocks Thorne, Jane's 4th great-grandfather, of her 4th great-grandmother and their son. We found that Jane's mixed-race Charleston ancestors were members of the ante-bellum elite Free Persons of Color, including membership in the Brown Fellowship and Friendly Moralist Societies. We found that her great-great-uncle, John S. Thorne, would become known during Reconstruction as one of the "two black kings of Edisto Island."

We followed the trail back to Savannah and then back to Manhattan, where we found Jane's grandfather again, now a young married man with his wife and two young daughters, the eldest of whom was Jane's mother. We discovered that the missing grandmother's name was Audrey, the same name that Jane's mother went by. Then we discovered that Grandmother Audrey's roots were in the Danish Virgin Islands (mostly St. Croix), and that her ancestors included a former slave named Adeline and a Danish policeman named Jørgen Peder Ferdinand Christensen.

The mystery remained: what became of Grandmother Audrey? Why was she not spoken of?


One of the things we obsessive family historians do is to go back over sources to see if there is any clue that we might have missed somewhere along the way. So I went back and did another search of the death indexes, looking for an "Audrey Ralston."

And bingo: a hit in the Social Security Death Index for Audrey Ralston, born on 7 Dec 1898. An exact match for the date on her birth certificate. The death index also listed an exact date of death: 11 February 1991. It felt like it had to be her. Because Jane is a descendant, we were able to request a copy of the death certificate from the City of New York, and in short order we had it in our hands.

The death certificate* confirmed that it was indeed our Audrey, Jane's grandmother: her parents' names were given as "Frank McCabe" and "Dagmar Unknown." She died at age 91 at the Menorah Home at 871 Bushwick Avenue in Brooklyn. Her occupation was given as "Gentlewoman." The person who gave the information on the death certificate was a social worker named Veronica Birdsong.

Frankly, it was stunning: she was not only alive when all her grandchildren (and her first great-grandchild) were born, she outlived her husband by fully fifteen years. Yet no mention of her in her husband's obituary; her grandchildren did not even know her name. She had become, in the parlance of the old Soviet Union, a "non-person."

Clearly, whatever happened had opened a great chasm between her and her husband and their daughters. And it was not merely distance; the distance was also the occasion of great pain—why else would Jane's mother have burst into tears when asked about her? At the same time, Jane's mother held sacred her mother's name "Audrey" by adopting it for herself.

What happened? When? Why? Where was Grandmother Ralston during all those years before she need the care provided at the Menorah Home (closed some years ago), where she spent the last six months of her life? She was of course not Jewish. Perhaps it was a mitzvah that she be taken in?

We just don't know.

According to her death certificate, she was buried in the Washington Memorial Park Cemetery, near Mt. Sinai, NY. I called the cemetery to verify that it was her final resting place and they confirmed it. And, consistent with her status as a non-person, she was buried in an unmarked grave.

The least our side of the family could do was provide a proper marker for her, so we did. The marker was to have been placed at Washington Memorial Park in late December, 2014. Although the cemetery staff have said it was indeed placed, I've not yet been able to get a photograph of it in place. So all I have to offer is this photo that was sent by the manufacturer just before it shipped.

And there was one more puzzle piece. At least, we're pretty sure it's a major piece, although we aren't quite certain. We found a photograph among Jane's mother's things after she died. It's a picture of a woman with two young teenage girls, one on each side of her. They're all in swimsuits and on a blanket that is spread on a beach. The remnants of a picnic appear to be on the blanket behind the girl on the left, who is smiling broadly. The girl on the right has a more tentative smile, while the woman in the middle has just the hint of a smile about her mouth. Her eyes are deepset and dark. Her age is not easy to guess.

The girl on the left is unquestionably Jane's mother, Audrey, who died in 2011; the girl on the right is Jane's mother's sister, Myrtle Renee, who died in 1958. (The third sister, Vera, who is not in this picture, died in 2002.) We think the woman pictured between the two girls to be our missing person, Jane's grandmother, Audrey McCabe Ralston, enjoying a day at the beach with two of her daughters.

Is it indeed her? There is no longer anyone alive who can tell us.

UPDATE: I just received photo confirmation that the headstone is indeed in place. Grandmother Ralston's final resting place may be viewed by clicking on this link.


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*I won't reproduce it here to protect against identity theft.