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| My great great grandmother Edith Gallup Gage and her younger sister, Fannie! |
Once in a while you come across a rather close relative that
you find intriguing. Not because they
did anything special…but because they seem so different than the rest of their
family members…at least on paper. My 3rd
great aunt is one of those people.
Fannie E. Gallup was born on 20 Jul 1872 in Duanesburg,
Schenectady Co., NY, the sixth of eleven children. She moved west with her parents in 1888. In about 1890, she married Theodore
Robinson. They had one son, Frank b.
1892 and they must have divorced soon after.
Theodore Robinson marries again and in 1896, so does Fannie.
The second marriage was really interesting. If her
son, Frank was born in Nebraska in 1892 and she was divorced soon after that,
what prompts her to go back to New York?
Perhaps there was some sort of scandal or stigma attached to her divorce…or
perhaps she felt closer to her older siblings who were still in New York. It can’t have been easy to have been a young
woman with a child and divorced. (I must
admit, that I am assuming she was divorced – I have no proof) Perhaps she is in New York a few months or a
few years – but she marries her cousin Cyrus M. Montanye sometime around 1896.
Cyrus M. Montanye was the son of William C. Montanye and
Rachel Rockwell. William C. Montanye was
the younger brother of Abram C. Montanye who was also Phoebe Montanye’s father
and therefore Fannie Gallup’s grandfather.
So, Fannie married her mother’s 1st cousin and therefore her
1st cousin, once removed. He
was quite a few years older than she as well.
Cyrus was born 31 Jul 1833 in Esperance, Schoharie Co., NY. He married Martha Hemstreet in 1853 and they
were the parents of perhaps as many 14 children, and all but the youngest three
were older than Fannie. Martha Hemstreet
dies on 15 Apr 1895. Sometime in either in
late 1895 or 1896, Cyrus and Fannie marry.
I wonder how Cyrus Montanye’s children felt about him marrying a much
younger woman…or if they didn’t like the fact that she was a cousin or a
divorced woman. I don’t know what they
thought, but in the late 1890’s, I am sure those thoughts probably entered
their minds. Then a short time
thereafter, Cyrus and Fannie had a daughter named Katherine V. Montanye, who I
always heard referred to as “Katie”.
Cyrus dies on 5 Dec 1906 in Esperance and his buried with his first wife
at Esperance Cemetery.
So, Fannie is a divorced woman in her first marriage and now
a widow in her second marriage and she appears in the 1910 census as a 38 years
old woman with a 18 year old son (Frank E. Robinson) and a 13 year old daughter
(Katie V. Montanye). If you take a quick
look at that census page there are Rockwells and a Conover – all who could be
cousins to Fannie.
Fannie doesn’t stay a widow for very long, she marries a
Henry C. Taber sometime after 1910. Once
again, he is an older widower some 26 years older than she. He lives until 1925 when he is killed by a
passing train. Perhaps at this point, Fannie gives up on marriage.
Fannie must have traveled back and forth between her mother and
family living in Nebraska and family in New York. It must have been during one of her visits
that her daughter Katie met and decided to marry Osean Carl Swanson, so Katie
stayed in Nebraska, while Fannie returned to New York.
I have had a hard time locating Fannie in the 1930 or 1940
census, although I did find a listing with her living in Albany as a domestic
in 1933 and 1934. Until fall of 2012, I
had no idea as to when Fannie passed away or where she spent the last years of
her life. There wasn't much I could document
after her third husband’s death in 1925.
In September of 2012, my cousins, father and I were walking
around Lyons Cemetery, Burt Co., NE.
(Probably one of my favorite cemeteries that I have visited) There were so many familiar names of family members
who were buried in that cemetery. In one
section, my great grandfather’s sister was buried, a short ways away, my great
grandmother’s sister was located. There
were a number of my great grandfather’s relatives in a small area which included
his grandparents and a few aunts and uncles.
While I was wondering about a section over, I came across the Swanson
surname. I glanced down to look closer
and noticed that it and C. Osean Swanson and next his name was that of his
wife, Kathryn V. – Which I knew was the
Katie Montanye that I had always heard about.
There were a few children’s graves next to theirs at the end was a
gravestone that I never expected to find, Fannie E. Tabor. 
You might wonder what I found so intriguing about
Fannie. It seemed to me that her
siblings lived fairly normal lives. They
married and spent their lifetimes in one place with one spouse. Some stayed in New York, but most were in
Nebraska. I know they gathered on at
least one occasion because it is a family photo that is my best picture of most
of the Gallup siblings with their mother.
It always seemed to me that Fannie was hard to pin down. Up until I found her gravestone, I had never
been able to figure out exactly when she died or where she died. I don’t have any exact dates for any of her
marriages nor do I really have much detail about her life. So the most intriguing thing about her is
what I don’t know. Everyone once in a
while, another detail emerges and clears up some of the confusion. I suppose that I will always find her
interesting because she was so different than her siblings.
Back Row: Irena
Gallup (m. Frank King), Hugh Gallup, Alice Gallup (m. Win Grenier), George
Gallup, Everett Henry Gallup
Front Row: Elizabeth
Gallup (m. John Hanson), Albert Burlingame Gallup, Phoebe Montanye Gallup, and
Fannie Gallup (m. Theodore Robinson, Cyrus Montanye, & Henry Tabor)
