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Bowker Baird, Maggie fr JMBuck This Week

From: Jeannette Buck [mailto:skyscribbler@zitomedia.net]
Sent: Wednesday, October 22, 2014 3:53 PM
To: ,,,
Subject: this week
,,,

Several years ago I became cyber-acquainted with a lady named Julie who lives in Michigan and is a very distant cousin. My great-great grandmother Susan Ardrey Morley stayed in Potter County while her sister, Peggy Ardrey Bowker, moved to Michigan with her husband and family approximately 160 years ago. I descend from Susan and Julie descends from Peggy.
I have letters that were written from the Michigan relatives to my Pennsylvania family dated as far back as 1858. The letters were few and far between and although the hope of seeing each other one more time this side of Heaven was expressed in each one, it never happened.
Recently, Julie and I have been communicating again via the social network, sharing pictures and bits of information we have collected over the years. Peggy Bowker and her husband Silas had four children, the youngest of whom was Maggie. Maggie wrote to her Pennsylvania aunts now and then, sounding much like a young girl of the present day. In a letter, dated January 6, 1861; before Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated; before Fort Sumter was attacked and the Civil War began, Maggie explained that the family had moved to a different house for the time being because “the Baptist Church wanted Father to preach to them and it is a good place for him to get all the carpenter work he wants.” Her mother was very homesick, she confided, and “It would be a great consolation to us to receive a letter real often from our relatives out there.”
In September of 1862 Maggie added a letter to the one her father had written. “The war news appears to be all the excitement at the present time,” she wrote. “We have but a very few able-bodied men left in this place and they would be Secessionist if they durst show their colors.”
By April of 1863 her brother Noah had joined the United States Service and was recovering from rheumatism in a convalescent camp in Tennessee. He had become, she wrote, much “stronger in favor of the Union.” She confided that she was corresponding with a Soldier Boy who “is a particular friend of mine.”
The last letter from Miss Maggie, dated June, 1863 is short and sweet. She was clearly annoyed that she had not received any reply to her previous letter and she promised to “wait before writing again until I do.”
Maggie Bowker would marry her “special Soldier Boy” whose name was Matthew Baird. According to her father’s letters, she lost three children of her own but adopted a boy of whom she was very fond. Sadly, Maggie Bowker Baird died at the age of 34.
Fast forward to the present time. My friend Julie recently stumbled upon a blog containing the diary and letters of one Matthew Baird, Civil War veteran and husband of Maggie Bowker Baird of Michigan. And “much to my surprise,” Julie e-mailed, “the site also has a picture of Maggie!”
I know there are many who will never understand, but for those who do, this is exactly what makes the searches worth while. A picture is always worth at least a thousand words.
Maybe you didn’t hear from your relatives from the east as much as you wanted to, Maggie Bowker Baird. But some of us are still here and we still love you.

Maggie Bowker Baird

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