ANCESTOR NO. 12: LAURA ELOISE LUDLOW

 

My grandfather’s mother was born Laura Eloise Ludlow in Rahway, New Jersey, on November 18. There is conflicting information regarding whether that was in 1871 or 1872. Her parents were William Todd Ludlow and Sarah E. Laing. We have a photo of them. Laura is on the left and her little sister Ida Victoria is next to their mother. Laura’s older brothers Matthias and Lewis are not in the photo. Ida was born in 1877, so this photo was taken in the early mid-1880s.

In 1889, Laura met her future husband, Eugene Loomis Downs, when her brother Matthias married Eugene’s sister Lizzie.[1] Laura married Eugene on July 24, 1891, in Brooklyn, New York, where the family had moved.[2]


She was still living with her parents in February 1892 in Brooklyn, when New York did a census enumeration.[3] That year, Eugene was listed as the owner of a restaurant at 23 Center St. in Orange, New Jersey.

Our family Bible shows Laura had four children in the next decade:

·       Mabel Edna, on May 30, 1892

·       Ethel May, on June 16, 1895

·       Dorothy Eloise (Dot), on Dec. 16, 1897

·       Herbert Eugene, on April 2, 1903.

 

Mabel is the only one I remember. We visited her in Ocean Grove, N.J. on a Sunday, where we had to park the car outside the city limits and walk to her house, because the residents considered it sinful to drive on a Sunday. That was sometime in the late 1960s.

Mabel and Dorothy married brothers, (William) Britt(an) and (Grant Aubry) Bud Riker.

In 1895, Laura, Eugene and Mabel lived with, or at least at the same address, her brother Matthias and Eugene’s sister Lizzie and their two boys.[4] By 1900, Eugene’s mother Margaret, sister Eleanor, and brother William lived with the family. Eugene’s father was not listed in the census with the family although he was still alive. Eugene worked as a salesman.[5] As was the norm at the time, Laura’s work was to take care of the home and family. In the prior generation, enumerators would have shown her occupation as “keeping house.” Now the census just left that field blank for married women.

In 1905, Laura’s in-laws, Eleanor and Margaret still lived with the family, but by 1910 it was just Laura, Eugene, and their four children.[6] This photo, judging from Herbert’s size, was probably taken about that time.


This photo of Laura and the four children, looking pretty glum, might have been taken in late 1911, when Eugene went off on a several months' long sales trip throughout New England and the Midwest.

In 1920, Eugene moved to a hotel and sued Laura for divorce in Colorado.[7] This was unusual in those days and there was a social stigma to being a divorced woman. The stories I heard blamed her for the divorce, saying she wouldn’t let her husband have friends over to drink and play cards. But in fact, as DNA evidence has shown, he was dating two other women and had a child out of wedlock.[8] By then, Mabel and Ethel had married. Dorothy would marry soon, but Herbert was still in high school. Laura, with a seventh-grade education (per the 1940 census), having only ever been a housewife, took jobs keeping house for others, and when she was too old for that, she lived with her children. My mother told me that Laura would stay with them for three months, rotating with each of the four children in turn, at least until Ethel’s death in 1946. This is shown by the 1940 census, when she was counted twice, once living with Mabel’s family, and once with Dorothy’s family.[9] My mother said her grandmother Laura was very quiet. My mother also said Laura used to end a lot of sentences with "don'tcha know," and that she had a Brooklyn accent, pronouncing my aunt Joyce’s name as “Jerce.” Laura lived until age 78. She is buried in the large Ludlow family plot at Hazelwood Cemetery in Rahway, New Jersey (as was Eugene, surprisingly).

I have a few photos of her near the end of her life.

This one is from the mid-1930s, taken from a photo of her with my mother, aged about 5.

This one is dated 1939.

 


This one is dated 1946, taken from a photo of her with a friend. It looks like she kept her hair long.

 

 

 

 


[1] “Wedding Bells in Newark,” National Democrat (Rahway, N.J.), 26 April 1889, p. 3, col. 4; image, Rahway Public Library (http://www.digifind-it.com/rahway/data/national-dem/1889/1889-04-26.pdf#search=%22laura%20ludlow%22: accessed 14 Oct 2020).

[2] Brooklyn, Kings County, New York, marriage certificate no. 3096 (1891), Eugene L. Downs and Laura Eloise Ludlow; New York City Municipal Archives.

[3] 1892 New York State Census, Kings County, 7th Ward, Brooklyn, Election District 29, p. 4, Laura E. Dowd [sic] in household of Wm. H. [sic] Ludlow; “New York, U.S., State Census, 1892,” database and images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/3212/: accessed 20 Sep. 2025) >Kings > Brooklyn Ward 07 > E.D. 29 > image 1 of 11.

[4] “New Jersey, State Census, 1895,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 15 October 2020); entry for Laura Downs in household of Eugene Downs, 6th District, Ward 11, Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, p. 27, dwelling 137, family 169, line 12, image 265 of 266.

[5] “1900 United States Federal Census,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 16 October 2020); entry for Laura Downs in household of Eugene Downs, 27 So. 10th St., ED 113, 11th Ward, Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, p. 19 B (penned), dwelling 306, family 407, line 83, image 38 of 44.

[6] “New Jersey, State Census, 1905,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 16 October 2020); entry for Laura Downes in household of Eugene Downes, 42 N. 11th St., 4th  and 7th Districts, Ward 11, Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, p. 27B (penned), dwelling 477, family 615, line 92, image 317 of 1387. “1910 United States Federal Census,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 16 October 2020); entry for Laura Downs in household of Eugene Downs, 16 So. 6th St., 5th Election District, ED 45, 6th Ward, Newark, Essex County, New Jersey, p. 3 B (penned), dwelling 40, family 59, line 55, image 6 of 36.

[7] "Colorado Statewide Divorce Index, 1900-1939," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:3QS7-89WB-Z6QN?cc=2043439&wc=M612-F29%3A348714301:  accessed 18 October 2020), Dempsey, Theresa-Falsetta, Raffaelo > image 1535 of 4379, Downs, Eugene L. vs. Downs, Laura E.; Colorado State Archives, Denver.

[8] For more information, see the blog dated 17 September 2024 on this subject.

[9] “1940 United States Federal Census,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 19 October 2020); entry for Laura Downs in household of William Britten Riker, 159 N. 16th St., ED 766, 3rd Ward, Bloomfield, Essex County, New Jersey, p. 6B (penned), dwelling 116, line 64, image 12 of 34. “1940 United States Federal Census,” database with images, Ancestry (https://www.ancestry.com: accessed 19 October 2020); entry for Laura Downs in household of Grant A. Riker, 20 Mansion Terr., ED 20-12, Cranford Township, Union County, New Jersey, p. 10A (penned), dwelling 195, line 40, image 18 of 25.

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