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Here, gathered in our beloved South Dakota, are a few members of our Williamson / Mattson Clan. Charles and Luella are to be blamed (be kind, they didn't know what they were doing). We're generally a happy bunch and somewhat intelligent (notwithstanding our tenuous grasp on reality). I'm also proud to say that most of us still have our teeth.

Saturday, April 17, 2010

Mary Waters, A Williamson 11th Great Grandmother. A Remarkable Woman.

A Woman from our 11th Great Grandmother's Time in England.

From the Fortress of Solitude
Pleasant Grove

Hello All,
I'm back from my trip into deep space at the Space Camp! I'm tired but thats typical for a Saturday evening. This is going home and collasping on the couch time BUT before I do I wanted to introduce all of you kind enough to stop by our digital fire this evening to my 11th Great Grandmother on the Williamson side. So all you Williamsons out there, pull up a log, get out the marshmellows, get yourself a stick and conjure up a few smores while I talk. Nothing beats a viritual family get together does it? No mess, no planning, you come when you have a moment and leave when the kids become unbearable.

Her name was Mary Waters. Now there is a some dispute on the last name. Some records refer to her as Atwaters and others simply Waters. It may be something we never clear up, but for sure she is in our line. For me, my 11th Great Grandparent. Perhaps different for you depending on your distance from the 9 Williamson children we descend from. Here is the relationship chart so you can find where you are in relation to this awesome Great Grandmother.

Relationship Chart

11th Great Grandmother. Mary Atwaters b. 1520
Married Robert Esquire Honywood
to
Katharine Honywood b. 1546.
Married William Gent Fleet
to
Mary Fleet b. 1579.
Married William Willis
to
Henry Willis b. 1628
Married Mary Pease
to
John Willis b. 1667
Married Esther Brenton
to
John Willis b. 1691.
Married Abigail Willets
to
John Willis b. 1750.
Married Sarah Jones
to
Bennett Willis b. 1780.
Married Catherine Nosseman
to
Jonathan Willis b. 1807.
Married Anabella Phlegar
to
Margaret Ann Willis.
Married George Matthew Williamson
to
William J. Williamson
Married Effie Helen Victor
to
Vennie, Ima Della, Inez, Lillie Ethel, Josie, Emmett, Walt, Charles, Maurice.
to
Charles (my parent’s generation)
to
Me

What you are about to read is an account of her life written a few hundred years ago. You'll notice the oddities in the language. Play close attention to the sentences highlighted. I think when you finish you'll agree with me that Great Grandmother Mary was one awesome woman. Or, to use language more appropreiat to the time...... A Remarkable Woman.

Mrs. Mary Honeywood, was daughter and one of the co-heiresses of Robert Waters, esq. of Lenham, in Kent. She was born in 1527 ; married in February 1543, at 16 years of age, to her only husband, Robert Honeywood of Charing, in Kent England. She died in the ninety-third year of her age, in May 1620. She had sixteen children of her own body, seven sons and nine daughters, of whom one had no issue, three died young, and the youngest was slain at Newport battle, June 20,1600. Her grand-children, in the second generation, were one hundred and fourteen ; in the third, two hundred and twenty-eight; and in the fourth, nine. So that she could almost say the same as the distich doth, of one of the Dalburg family of Basil. " Rise up, daughter, and go to thy daughter; for her daughter's daughter hath a daughter."

Mrs. Honeywood was a very pious woman, but afflicted in her declining age with religious melancholy. Some divines once discoursing with her on the subject, she in a passion said, " I shall be as certainly damned as this glass is broken," (throwing a Venice glass against the ground, which she had then in her hand,) but the glass escaped breaking, " as credible witnesses," saith Derham, " have attested."
In Markshnl church, in Essex, on Mrs. Honeywood's tomb, is the following inscription:— " Here lieth the body of Mary Waters, the daughter and co-heir of Robert Waters, of Lenham, in Kent. esq. wife of Robert Honeywood, of Charing, in Kent, esq. her only husband, who had at her decease lawfully descended from her, 367 children. Sixteen of her own body, 114 grand children, 228 in the third generation, and nine in the fourth.
She lived a most pious life, and in a Christian manner died here at Markshal, in the ninety-third year of her age, and in the forty-fourth of her widowhood, May llth, 1620."
Markshall, located in the English Midlands Northeast of Cambridge.
Amazing wouldn't you say? The life expentancy of a woman in the 1600's was 40 years old at best. She lived to be 93 years old! I was interested in the statement that she was taken with religious melancholy in her old age. The word melancholy in those days described today's mental disorders which might now be classed as schizophrenia or bipolar disorders. It appears, according to the reading, that Grandmother Mary spoke to spirits. I'm not sure of the meaning of "Divines". Could this be spirits or perhaps churchmen? What's interesting is that we have something written that she actually spoke from all those years ago when she threw the glass to the floor and it didn't break thus proving she wasn't damned.

So here's to you Grandmother Mary! May you rest in peace knowing that your many many descendants have taken a small part of their day hundreds of years in the future and remembered you.

Now, to the most important part of the night. Who's got a Smore for me?

Simply,
Victor