Fannie Gallup Robinson Montanye Tabor

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 3^rd 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 1^st cousin and therefore her 1^st 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)