I felt the need to know more about this woman so…
Her name at the time of this article was actually Elizabeth Hesford, not Hesperd, and as far as I can tell she never lived in London.
She was born Elizabeth Anna Maxwell on May 6, 1870 just outside of Manchester, England. She was baptized at St. Thomas’ Church in Pendleton.
Her father (James) was a mechanic, most likely in one of the area’s many cotton mills, and her mother (Emily) took in washing. James was Irish, a native of Dublin, but had come to Manchester with his family as a child just before the Potato Famine. He was working as a weaver in the cotton mills by the time he was twelve. James died the week of Elizabeth’s first birthday, leaving Emily a widow with two children under the age of five.
Emily married a man named John Matthews when Elizabeth was eight, but the marriage appears to been an unhappy one. The couple were living separately by the time Elizabeth was eleven; John having apparently left Emily for another woman.
Elizabeth’s brother John found work, first as an errand boy and later as a shipping clerk, to help out with the finances, but Emily’s mental health appears to have taken a severe hit after her husband left her.
In the early morning of January 5, 1886 Emily slit her own throat. John found her when he got up, but despite being rushed to Salford Royal Hospital Emily passed away early the next morning. Elizabeth was fourteen.
At some point before she was twenty Elizabeth and her brother moved in with a widow named Mary Rycroft. Mary’s two grown daughters worked as dressmakers and Elizabeth soon found work in the same trade.
In the fall of 1891 Elizabeth married a man named George Stroud. So far I’ve been able to find very little of substance about George except that he died less than four years after their marriage in May 1895.
On September 29, 1900 Elizabeth married again, this time to a man named John Hesford. John was working at a local rubber mill at the time they married, but he had recently ended a 12 year enlistment with British army, half of which he had spent in India. John’s military records say his conduct was “Exemplary” and that he had “Steady” and “Temperate” habits (although they also note that he sought treatment for STDs on at least three occasions).
Elizabeth sailed from Liverpool on the RMS Oceanic on September 7, 1904 and arrived in New York City on the 14th. On the manifest she stated that she was going to meet a friend named Joseph Saroglia at the Hotel Jefferson in St. Louis, Missouri. Joseph was Swiss Italian and had worked as an interpreter in Manchester, though after he came to the US he worked as everything from a tavern owner to a piano salesman to a game warden. He had come over on the same ship a few months before Elizabeth.
John Hesford followed Elizabeth to St. Louis five months later, sailing from Liverpool on the RMS Umbria on February 4, 1905. He stated on his immigration form that he was going to meet Elizabeth at the Hotel Bereford in St. Louis, so she was presumably living there at the time.
John first found work as a clerk at Joseph Saroglia’s saloon, then as a taxi driver, then a mechanic. By WWI he had worked his way up to being the foreman at McPherson’s Garage, and by 1930 at the Western Automobile Co.
When she wasn’t frightening away muggers (which apparently happened three times in two years) Elizabeth worked from home as a dressmaker/seamstress.
(If anyone has any idea what the “Jewish 400″ means in this context I’d love to know.)
She and John never had any children of their own, but for a time appear to have cared for a boy named Cornelius van der Pluym. Cornelius is listed as their “adopted son” on the 1920 Census, but the “adoption” appears to have been temporary as Cornelius was back with his birth parents by the next census.
John died of heart disease in 1936, and Elizabeth moved in with an unmarried woman named Irene Harrington and her housekeeper. Irene’s recently-deceased father was a retired police officer and appears to have been a man after Elizabeth’s own heart.
Elizabeth lived to be 78 years old. She died on April 20, 1949 at Pine Crest Nursing Home in Manchester, Missouri. Over 4,000 miles from the Manchester where she was born.
Elizabeth was cremated, but her remains were apparently never claimed and are still being stored at Oak Grove Cemetery in Bel-Nor, Missouri (just in case someone wanted to throw her ashes into the eyes of a mugger for old times’ sake).
