52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks
52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks is a series of weekly prompts to get you to think about an ancestor and share something about them. The weekly prompt is provided by www.amyjohnsoncrow.com. The prompt for the week of November 28 is "Strength". For over a week I struggled in trying to think of an ancestor to apply this prompt too. I scrolled and scrolled through the family tree looking for inspiration and potential facts that could lead to a story about strength. And then I found the story of one of my wife’s ancestors, her 4th great-grand aunt, that embodies Strength. And it is so hard to believe that the details of this woman’s story from the early 1800’s was so well documented.
Let me introduce you to Elizabeth “Eliza” S. Faris. As is often the case when researching genealogy, you find out plenty of information about the men in the family, but little, if at all, information about the women. Up to today she has just been a pink box in the family tree with the last name Faris. I also knew that she had been married and had a son whose name was Dennis. This information came from Eliza’s father’s (John Faris) will from 1826 where he left part of his estate to his grandson Dennis Akers. So I made the assumption that the family included a daughter who married a man with the last name Akers.
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| Tree for Eliza Faris based on information contained in her father’s will. |
Today while scrolling through the the family tree, I decided to go down a rabbit hole and try to find more information about this family. I knew John Faris’ family was living in Fleming County, Kentucky at the beginning of the 1800’s. Somehow, I stumbled on a webpage for Stockton Cemetery in Fleming County, Kentucky that included the names Faris and Akers. Upon searching this webpage for this old, neglected cemetery I came across Eliza’s name, among other Akers and Faris names. I had found her potential name! I then went to FindAGrave.com to see if there was more information. I found a page for Eliza that gave a trove of information including here birth and death dates. Also on that page were several potential family member: Spouse: Peter Akers and Children: William Dennis Akers and John Brian Akers. So far it seems like I’ve made the right connections and discovery!
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| Photo by: Alma Lareina Cropper Bierley on 24 Sep 2019; Downloaded from FindAGrave.com on 2021.11.23. |
I clicked on the link for the memorial for her husband Peter, and one of the pictures added to the memorial appeared to be a four page document. So, of course, I clicked on it it to see what details it might include. It was a memoir. I tried a google search to find the original document and source and couldn’t find it. But I did find another printed memoir for Peter in the Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society, from December 1939. (Unfortunately for readers, this memoir is behind a library firewall. But I was able to access it and downloaded it for my records. Due to access restrictions, I am not able to publicly share it.) This was a great biography of Peter written in 1939 and it included some great information about Eliza. Part of this information included a source titled “Sketch of the Life and Death of Mrs. Eliza S. Akers, who Departed this Life on 22 May 1821.” This was a chapter in The Methodist Magazine, Vol. 4 published in 1821 and was written by Peter on July 18, 1821. It is from this biographical sketch, written so soon after Eliza’s death, where I can apply the prompt “Strength.” The entirety of this sketch can be viewed on Google Books, but let me provide some highlights of Eliza’s “Strength” from the biography.
When Eliza was 12 she lost a sister. Matilda’s death was tough on her and she used her faith to try to heal from the loss. Three friends saw her praying and told her that people would loose respect for her and all pleasure and happiness in life would go away if she continued to be religious. So she gave up her religion.
In March 1818, she married Peter and in April 1819 gave birth to a son. Unfortunately, he died after living only 7 weeks. The death of their first child made Eliza question her lack of faith, but she continued with her lack of faith.
In September 1820, she gave birth to another son, Dennis. After giving birth, her health was always in question and she never fully regained strength. In February 1821, an older lady in the village died and this death, combined with her own sickness, made her question faith. So she asked Peter to take up faith with her. Peter at first told her to pursue her own faith without him. Eliza’s health took a quick turn over the course of several days. They called for a local minister to come and attend to her, and Eliza asked her husband to ask the minister to pray for her. At that time they thought she would die very soon.
But her health slowly improved into March. On March 21, 1821, while continuing to pray diligently, Eliza said to Peter: “whether I shall live long or die shortly, I am determined to spend my time in the service of God.” Peter committed to Eliza to also spend the rest of his life in service to God. The night of March 21, 1821, this young couple had their first family prayer and Peter said “It was a truly an affecting time.”
In the beginning of April, Eliza’s heath deteriorated rapidly again to the point that death was certain and all medical aid was abandoned. With her new faith, Eliza continued to pray and soon she said that “Jesus passed along, and spoke peace to her trouble soul.” Eliza, with the new strength of her faith told Peter “I know I must soon die - but I am not now afraid of death - Jesus has washed away all my sins…Jesus will be with me.” She would often pray “O! If this were my last day that I had to stay and suffer, how I would rejoice! I am ready and willing to go this moment! but, Lord, thy will be done and not mine.”
The morning of May 22, thinking she would not have survived the previous night, Eliza’s extremities soon started becoming cold. A little before ten, she said, “Jesus has come.” And she repeated part of her favorite hymn saying:
She lay there saying her goodbyes to her family and in her last breaths said “Glory!! This is the best time I have had yet!!” And then she passed.
What a wonderful story to come across. Peter tells the story of the strength of a Believer. And Peter upheld his promise to Eliza to be in service to God by becoming a popular, well known Methodist minister.
And as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, it is so unusual to find many details about women from the past. And not only does this biography paint a vivid picture of Eliza’s life and death, it also helps provide details about two other women in Eliza’s family…a sister Matilda, that I was not aware of and provides the name of another sister, Kerrilla, that I was aware of, but did not know her name. Below is my updated and expanded tree for this family.
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| Updated family tree for Eliza Faris based on the information in her biographical sketch by her husband upon her death and findagrave.com. |
How I'm “related” to Eliza Faris:
John Faris = Eleanor Belt
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Joseph Belt = Betsy Finley Elizabeth “Eliza” Faris = Peter Akers
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Mariah Faris = Newton Lee
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Ada Lee = Thomas Davidson
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Thomas Davidson = Effie Malone
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Joseph Davidson = Sarah Rogers
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Mother-in-law = Father-in-law
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Wife = Me
What a great find and truly a story if faith. She was a very strong woman!
ReplyDeleteIt certainly does great strength. How awesome to find that source with such fantastic info!:)
ReplyDelete