Letter from: Josephine Elder Brandon
To: Adelaide Brandon Cross
Undated

Now let me see. I’ll begin with my father’s people. I can only suppose about some things. Names in some cases especially.

First there was grandfather Robert Elder married Elizabeth Craig (supposed name.)[1] They had four sons Joseph[2], Alexander, Samuel, and Robert – (my father) and two daughters, Hannah – Mrs. Martin, and Jane – Mrs. Bond. My uncle Joseph had several sons. There was John, the eldest boy; Joseph, who came to America before I did, and he may have had a family, I do not know. There was another boy, Samuel who at present has the farm his father had, that was Ballyness, near Limavady. I’ll write to him some of these days, he might be able to tell me more. My Uncles Alexander and Samuel both came to this country years – well, when they were young men – Alexander married and had a family of girls but no boys to carry the family name. Samuel died an old bachelor.

Shortly after I came West, to Arizona, I had an offer of marriage from my cousin Joseph, but I did not believe in such near relatives marrying – so I never heard from him again. (I do not believe I ever told that incident to any of my family. I must have been popular with my first cousins. There was another one in Newark, N.J., Aunt Robertson’s son, John who liked me too well which influenced me in coming West.) However, that’s all in a parenthesis and does not count.

So, to get back to my subject which brings me to father’s case. He married Elizabeth Sharkey (isn’t that Irish enough for anyone) and they had a whole string of girls beginning with Elizabeth Craig, Marie Jane (May), Annie, Alice – she added Earnestine to her name – then Jane Marshall, Josephine, then Robert – then another girl Alexandra, nicknamed Daisy, after that Samuel then Wilhelmina Mary, now Mrs. D. Simpson. Elizabeth, May, Alice all died unmarried. Janie married Will Smith and had two sons, William A. and Jim who was killed in World War I. My brother Robert was married and had two daughters Alice Earnestine and Kathleen, also a son Robert by his second wife. My brother Samuel married – you may remember his wife – but they had no children.

The men of the family do not seem to have been strong in producing the kind of children to carry on the family name.

My sister Alexandria, who is now Mrs. Elliott has five children, two sons and three daughters. Of course they are not Elders.

My sister Janie was named for your great-grandmother on mother’s side – Jane Marshall was her maiden name. Besides Uncle Joseph’s boys the only Elder in our branch of the family is my brother Robert’s son, Robert, and they are in Canada.

That is about all the information I can give you about the Elders…

My father’s people came from Ballyness, Limavady, Co. Derry. North Ireland which used to be Ulster.

NOTES:

[1] This is confusing because Josephine Elder Brandon's grandparents were Samuel Elder and Elizabeth Sharkey. The parents of Elizabeth Sharkey were Unknown Sharkey and Betty (or Elizabeth) Craig. Return to Letter

[2] Joseph Elder of Drumagosker and Ballyness. Return to Letter

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