In the story so far...
Dad's parents were John Mathias Lane and Althea Elizabeth Bartling, that's who are called Pop Pop and Nana Beth.
Pop Pop's parents were John Mathias Lane and Mary Frances McGawn.
Nana Beth's parents were Earl Francis Bartling and Althea Ruth Hovey.
Well, Althea Ruth Hovey's mother was a woman named IDA E. STEEL.
Pretty sure we've located her as a twelve year old in the U.S. Census of 1870--
For the 8th District, 3rd Ward in PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania.
THERE we see Ida E. Steel lives with her parents who are in their late thirties.
WILLIAM STEEL is a 37 year old salesman.
He's married to Ida's mom, Sarah Steel. We'll wonder if this is the Sarah Ault name that Nana Beth wrote down in the family Bible! Sarah keeps house. Both her parents seem to have been "foreign born" although Sarah was born in Pennsylvania. We can deduce her parents were (maybe one, maybe both) immigrants.
And we'll read the story in the census that Ida E. was the oldest of the four Steel children listed.
Mary Steel is Ida E.'s sister and she's 9 years old in 1870. Ida and Mary are the two children in school. That's because Frank, their brother, is only three and their other brother Charles is all of one month old.
They all live with TWO REBECCA HURSTS! Rebecca Hurst is a 45 year old nurse and the second Rebecca Hurst is sixteen years old and she works in a printing office. Both Rebeccas were born in Pennsylvania.
This is really a fascinating page of census. It shows us a working class neighborhood. The occupations are things like...
seamen and seamstresses
works at coach making, works at rigging
salesmen and salesWOMEN
laundresses, nurses, machinists
and people who work in printing
BUSTLING, that's the word that seems to come off the page. Busy people in busy place. Keeping house was no small feat.
You can check out all this information in the actual census. Here's an image of that:
And here's how we reference this document:
"United States Census, 1870," index and images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MZP9-B1Y : accessed 19 June 2012), Ida E Steel in household of William Steel, Pennsylvania, United States.
Because we found it through the gigantic database familysearch.org and that's how they reference the document.
In the US CENSUS 1880 we find William and Sarah Steel minus Ida E. and Ida's siblings are 18, 17, 14, and ten years old. Ida E. was about twenty years old, so she'd flown the coop as they say. The next time we find her on a US CENSUS it's in 1900 and she's with her husband Harry J. Hovey. Harry sold house furnishings and he and Ida lived in Camden, New Jersey.
Inn that census of 1880 in the household of William Steel (Ida's father) his occupation is "Waterman." Remember that on the census of 1870 William Steel was a salesman. But in 1880 he's a waterman. I don't know what that means yet.
And although we've learned that William Steel's parents were Delaware people, we're still on the path to finding out more!
We just found Ida's mother and father in 1900. They're with Frank. Ida's brother. Still in Camden.
