Roles of Men and Women in the Mabbs Family

 I was doing more research when I received a hint about Ralph I. Mabbs. Ralph is my 1st cousin, 4x removed. He would have been 1st cousins with Mildred Strand's mother, Elnora Truman. Elnora's mother was Harriet Mabbs. I started looking over the Mabbs tree and I couldn't help but notice the difference between the men and the women of the family. The men of the family led quite interesting lives. Take Harriet's family, for example. 

Harriet was the oldest child of Immigrant William Mabbs (1824-1884). William's father had a soap making business in England. He brought his family to America and set up a business venture in New York City. He lost his money when the banks failed so he moved everyone to Michigan to farm. His son John went into the mining business and became very successful. His son went into engineering and helped make elevators safer.

Another Mabbs son, Austin (1828-1909) also went into mining and had quite the adventures out West in Deadwood, South Dakota. I wrote a blog post about his adventures. 

What did William's daughters do? The daughters all married and raised children. They kept house.

Harriet Mabbs married Madison Truman, and then Albert Bush. Altogether she raised 10 children while moving from Michigan to Arkansas and back to Michigan again. Harriet's younger brother William (1857-1934) was a farmer. He moved his family from Michigan to St.Louis. He had 2 sons and 1 daughter. His oldest son Ralph graduated high school and earned a scholarship to attend Northwest University. He completed 3 years before going to work for Illinois Bell Company which later became AT&T. He was an engineer and eventually ended up living in New York City on Madison Ave. One of his sons also went to work for the phone company, as an engineer and worked his way up to assistant to the Vice President of Public Relations. Ralph's other son went to Cornell and worked for different companies before starting  his own company and retiring as president of it. Ralph's daughter married. 

Ralph had 2 sisters. His older sister married and moved to Wyoming where she raised 13 children. His younger sister worked as a teacher before moving to Ann Arbor, Michigan where she worked as a secretary for the University of Michigan. 

So, while some of the men of the Mabbs family had great careers in engineering, starting and running companies, traveling the world, and leading fulfilling lives, the women of the Mabbs family were relegated to marrying, raising children, and doing charity work or joining social clubs. I can't help but wonder what the Mabbs women would have done and accomplished if times had been different then and they had been allowed to become engineers and have careers after being married?

The above article mentions Ralph Mabbs and how a 10 digit telephone number was coming for every phone in America.

This article is about Ralph's son, Ralph R. The article notes that, in 1969, women are being invited for the first time to an Open House. How nice. 

This is the obituary for Ralph's other son, Edward. Ed had quite the business career. Once again, his sister married and I can't find any more information on her.