Page 348 - Just another English family (Sep 2019)

STILL TO FIT IN
In the 1920 census there is a widowed Thomas Soothill (also spelt Southall), aged 54 (who was born in England about 1866). He is shown as widowed and living in Bloomfield Ward 3, Essex, New Jersey – his relationship to the head of household is shown as father-in-law. In fact, this is Tom Soothill – son of John and Sarah (née Holt) Soothill - who had married Anna Louisa Edmondson; they had had two children – Hilda N. (1889-?) and Ethel (1893-?). Hilda was born in Masachusetts on 4 October 1889, while Ethel was born in Lancaster, England in 1893. Sadly, Anna Louise died in Lancaster, England, in 1900 and, presumably, Tom had returned to the United States.
There is no evidence of the whereabouts of Tom and Anna’s elder daughter, Hilda, but Ethel had married John F. Miller (1889-?) who was born in New York and aged 31 at the time of the 1920 census. In their rented home in New Jersey, there was, apart from his father-in-law, Tom, their own daughter, Hild, aged 8; Hilda had born in New York.
Ruth Soothill
Ruth Soothill is shown in the 1910 census aged 16 as living in Providence Ward 1, Providence, Rhode Island in an interesting household of Robert W Harris (aged 46), Mary L. Harris (aged 34), Edith H. Harris (aged 4) and Elizabeth Fletcher (aged 71) as well as herself.
Ruth (1894-?), whose father was born in England and her mother in Rhode Island, was herself born in Rhode Island. She is said to be the sister-in-law of Robert W Harris and so presumably Robert’s wife, Mary L..
Edith H. Harris (1906-?), born in Rhode Island, seems straightforwardly the daughter of Robert and Mary who themselves were born in Nova Scotia and Rhode Island
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