Sarah Angeline Corsett

1868-1968

Sarah Angeline Corsett was born on 20 June 1868 (although the 1900 census lists her birth year as 1867) to Edmond or Edward and Matilda or Mathilda (Norton) Corsett in Pembroke, NY. According to the 1880 census she was attending school. She worked as a hired girl for Samuel and Harriet Walworth. When Harriet died it wasn’t considered proper for an unmarried woman to live in the same house with a man to whom she wasn’t married. One month after Samuel’s wife died on 23 June 1892, Sarah married Samuel who was 77 at that time. It was always said that it was a marriage in name only but Sarah would be the only one who knew that. Samuel died on 11 February 1895. He left Sarah 188 acres in Indian Falls, NY. Sarah eventually deeded a piece of that land to the Tonawanda Creek Indian Reservation, home of the Tonawanda Seneca Indians. Part of their burial ground was on that piece of land. The family was friendly with that tribe and wanted to give them the land to preserve that sacred land for them. She married John Wiedrich on 8 March 1896 in Alabama, NY. She was 27 and John was 38. It was said in the family that he was a bit of a drinker and proceeded to drink away her inheritance from Samuel Walworth. By 1910 she was living in Pembroke, Genesee County, NY. Her children were Edward (McKinley?) b.27 Sep 1896, Lydia Ursula b. 07 Aug 1898, Helen Matilda b. 18 Aug 1900, Chester John b. 17 Jul 1902, Bertha May b. 11 Sep 1905, James Alfred b. 23 Feb 1908, John Henry b. 26 Apr 1913. By 1918 she was living at 1 Pearl St., Batavia, NY. Her husband, John died on 23 Jun 1942 in their home on Pearl St. By this time, she was 74 years-old. Her house eventually was up for sheriff’s sale for being behind on taxes. Her daughter Lydia’s husband, Neal Smock bought the house. Sarah continued to live there but now had as her bedroom a small room off of the entryway and under the stairs. All of her worldly possessions had to fit in that room. Neal took everything else that didn’t fit to the dump including paintings of her family in gilt frames. Years later he regretted this saying he could have got money for those frames (no regrets about the paintings). After Sarah died Lydia’s daughter, Dorothy trashed letters from Sarah’s mother, Matilda (Mathilda). She didn’t know who her great grandmother was and didn’t care. Everyone said Sarah had a great sense of humor and enjoyed life. She liked being with her son, Edward and daughter-in-law, Hazel and would visit them even after

they moved to NJ and then to Tampa, Fla. Edward’s birth had never been registered so when he applied for Social Security around 1965, Sarah went with him to swear to his birth and to register for Social Security herself. She also loved to visit with her son, Chuck (Chester) and his wife Ernestine. She was a little woman and was referred to as Little Grandma. She always had a large garden in the back yard on Pearl St. with lots of vegetables and flowers. Later she would garden with Lydia and Neal in that same yard. She was an avid reader, especially the newspaper which she read from cover to cover. She also was up on current events and ideas. She was not embarrassed to talk about abortion in her 90s. Amazing for someone born just after the Civil War. I remember her sitting in her chair out of the way in the entry way turned living room on Pearl St. It was behind the front door, next to the window and hemmed in by the couch. In her 90s she was still drying the dishes and ironing flat items like tea towels. She had cataracts taken off at Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia in her 80s. She had never been more than 30 miles from home until her 70s. She also never saw Niagara Falls (about 50 miles from her home) until her 80s when she went there with us (Midge, Earl and Arlene). When she went to Florida in her 80s she wore a 2 piece bathing suit (again amazing for a woman born just after the Civil War). I remember her talking about her little pony and cart. She said that every time she passed a certain spot the pony would get skiterich and be

difficult to handle. She also told me about the fact she didn’t wear a bra or as she would say a brassiere thing. Not surprising since she would have been in her 50s when they were invented. She wore an undershirt. She called my dad, Earl (her grandson-in-law) my big boy. She gave him her plate that had a dog on it. She said it came from Germany with her husband’s family. We visited her for a week every summer.

            Sarah died on 24 July 1968 at 8am in her home at 1 Pearl St., Batavia, NY. She was buried two days later in Maple Lawn Cemetery in Elba, NY.