Ancestors in Aprons

Isabelle Sarah McCabe Anderson (1818-1912)

Family portrait. Isabelle McCabe Anderson, in black, seated in wicker chair in center of front row.

What was she thinking? Marrying a man so much older when she was still a teen…taking on the care of his small children…having so many children of her own….moving away from her family to a new state? I think, as I look at the picture of this woman sitting tall and proud in her 90s, she was thinking, “This is what I want to do, and so I’m going to do it.”

Isabelle, my great-great grandmother is the sturdy woman who sits front and center in the family portrait taken in 1909.  Her astounding life took her from child bride defying her family’s wishes by marrying and moving from Pennsylvania to Ohio, to become one of the longest-surviving members of the family. She is ninety-one years old in this picture, surrounded by four of her seven children, assorted grandchildren (including my grandfather) and great-grandchildren (including my mother) and in-laws. And she was to live three more years after this picture.

Detail from picture above. 91-year-old Isabelle Anderson in rare four- generation family picture. She sits in the wicker chair and to her left her son Frank Anderson. In the back, her grandson Guy Anderson and his wife, Vera holding great-grandson Herbert, far right, daughter-in-law Mary Brink Anderson, widow of  Isabella’s son Joe and mother of Guy.

I mentioned in my sketch of Mary Brink Anderson, that my mother and grandmother’s stories about family seemed to ignore my grandfather’s maternal line. Not only did they neglect to follow the story of the Brink-Middaugh Dutch connection, they also did not relate the rich family history of Isabella McCabe Anderson.

Isabelle’s parents and siblings

Although my mother’s version of her story was that Isabella came from Scotland with her parents, she was really born in Pennsylvania. The records, including the Ohio Biographies Project entry on John Anderson tell the true story.

Her father John Edminston McCabe was born in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania in 1790. Isabella’s grandfather, William McCabe, came to America in 1775 as the pioneer of the family.  He settled in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania. And his father is identified as Scots-Irish. While the McCabes originated in Scotland, they had been in Ireland for generations, first moving there to serve as militia for Irish lords.

Isabella’s mother, Margaret Fife, comes from a very distinguished early American family–also from Scotland– the Fifes.  I do not want to get distracted  here with the rich history of the Fifes , but they came to the United states in the early 1700s and three members of the first and 2nd generation served in the Revolutionary War.

After having two children who died in infancy and a son, John Fife McCabe,  Joseph E.  and Margaret Fife McCabe had a baby girl in September, 1818.  They named her for her maternal grandmother, Isabella Thompson Fife.  There may be something to the name, as that elder Isabella lived to 91, which in the mid 19th century was a very long time.

Isabelle had three younger siblings, but her mother, Margaret, died when she was only forty years old, leaving her husband and

• 18-year-old John,
• 14-year-old Isabella,
• nine-year-old Thompson,
• seven-year-old Mary
• and five-year-old Lavinia.

We can assume that Isabella was important to her widowed father. As the oldest girl, she would have responsibilities for younger children. But she wanted more than that.

Isabella Marries John Anderson

So it is not surprising that about six years later, when recently widowed John Anderson wanted to marry Isabella, her father (and probably other relatives) objected.  It is quite easy to see the objections.  John Anderson was twenty years older than the then-20-year-old Isabella. Born in 1797, he was only seven years younger than her father. And he had three four children. I have not located information on Abigail, but Erasmus (yes, THAT Erasmus) was just five years old and his little sister Sarah Jane Anderson (McDowell) was three.

It may be superficial but is easy to attribute Isabella’s strong personality to her warrior ancestors, but she clearly knew what she wanted and did not fear consequences.

Defying her family, Isabella married John Anderson in 1838. 1835, and promptly got pregnant with the first of her seven children, John O. Anderson born in 1836. (The Biographical Record of Holmes County assigns son John to John Anderson’s first wife, however, if the date of his birth is correct, that is not possible.) [CORRECTION 3/2016. For some reason when I first wrote this post, I did not consider that the marriage date could have been wrong.  According to her obituary (not always a totally reliable source on ages and dates) she was 20 when she was married, which would have  been 1838. That is plausible, since Margaret Anderson was born the following year. ALSO, in the 1900 census, which lists number of children born and living, she reports SIX children, FIVE living. I now believe John O. Anderson was indeed the child of John Anderson’s first wife.] [10/2024. Second thoughts on John Jr.’s name. Although many family trees give him a middle initial of “O”, I have seen no proof in documents, so I am removing that initial from his name as I come across it here.]

• In 1839 Isabella gave birth to Margaret Anderson (Lisle), and named for her great   grandmother.
• In 1841 William McCabe Anderson was born and named for his great-grandfather.

I suppose it is possible that the friction caused by the McCabe family’s disapproval of her marriage led to, or at least speeded up John and Isabelle Anderson’s decision to move from Pennsylvania.  At any rate, at about twenty-four, Isabelle, responsible for the care of five (or six) children, left her Pennsylvania  family behind to help her husband on a new farm in Holmes County, Ohio. I picture Isabella as a young woman not intimidated by the aspect of moving to the unknown territory of Ohio.

My mother remembered seeing a document transferring land to John Anderson, and signed by “a President”. It is likely that John Anderson purchased land in the Military Reserve of Ohio. That land was sold to citizens after the obligation of giving land to veterans of the American Revolution had been fulfilled. Unfortunately that document seems to have disappeared.

According to the Ohio Biographies Project, Biographical Record of Holmes County (written in 1889), John and Isabelle and their children moved from Allegheny County in Pennsylvania to Monroe Township in Holmes County, Ohio in 1840, although it was probably a little later, after the birth of William McCabe Anderson in January, 1841.  

Census records are contradictory about when the rest of the children were born,  but the last four were surely born in Ohio. (And thank goodness she had all those children, because the next to last was my great-grandfather.)

• Amy Anderson (Roof) 1843
• Caroline Anderson (Bird ) 1845
• Joseph Anderson 1848
• Franklin Anderson 1852

Isabelle Anderson, Margaret Anderson Lisle, Carrie Lisle Butler, Daughter. A 4-generation picture.

Isabelle McCabe Anderson at center of another family picture: Lisles and Andersons

Family stories say Isabelle was an enthusiastic traveler, going as far as California in a day when not many women made such trips so maybe she saw the move to Ohio as a great adventure.[ A cousin told me that she homesteaded in Colorado after the Civil War. Supposedly her son William, the veteran, spent some time with her, but mostly she was alone. Although I could find no record of that homestead in Colorado, there is an Isabelle Anderson who homesteaded in Nebraska.] I have no idea whether she did this before or after her husband died. Perhaps she followed her daughter Amy (Roof) and her husband as they traveled around the country. At any rate, she outlived five of her children/step children, and her husband. And as hard as she might have had to work, I don’t believe she regretted following her heart and marrying that older man.

Her obituary praises her for always being available to help neighbors in need, and a cousin says family stories say she loved to ride, and would get around the countryside on horseback, rather than in a carriage.

I know that the family remained close, devoted to each other and to their church, and all of them at least modestly successful financially.

In 1861, when her youngest child was nine, Isabella and John’s son William joined the Union Army and the following year her step-son Erasmus joined up.  As far as I know, Isabella lost no children in infancy or childhood, so when Erasmus died in 1863, he was her first great loss.  Ten years later her step-son John died as the result of a fall from a tree on his farm. In 1879 her husband, John, died at the age of 83, leaving her a widow who spent the rest of her days moving from the home of one child to another. He had been extremely successful and leaves Money and Land to his wife and children in his will.

Isabella McCabe Anderson Circa 1895

At first she lived with William McCabe Anderson and his first wife, but then he was widowed, and remarried.  Two more children died–Joseph Anderson (my grandfather who died in his 30s) and Sarah Jane Anderson Brink. Isabella moved in with Caroline Anderson Bird and her husband. Soon after that, William McCabe also died. By 1909, when the big family portrait was taken, Isabella was living with the recently widowed Amy Anderson Roof.

In April of 1912, Isabella, not quite 94, died in Holmes County, Ohio, but I have not determined where she was buried. Great-grandma, I think I know what you were thinking.

Notes on Research

   U. S. Census records for Holmes County, Monroe Township, 1850, 1860, 1870, 1880,1900, 1910.

Ohio, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1786-1998, John Anderson, Holmes County, April, 1897

U. S. Find a Grave, Isabelle McCabe AnDerson, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/74752941/isabell-anderson

Homestead Records.

The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Homestead Final Certificates, 1863-1908; NAI Number: 7820310; Record Group Title: Records of the Bureau of Land Management, 1685-2006; Record Group Number: 49

Unidentified newspaper obituary from family scrapbook.

Information about the Fife family can be found on the website Fife Genealogy. There are several Fife family websites, as well as McCabe sites.