Sarah Adah Ashe seemed to change her mind several times about how she preferred to be called, and was listed in various documents as Sarah Adah, Sarah, Adah, and Ada. At the end of her life she seemed to have settled on Adah, so that is what I call her.
As I mentioned in my earlier post about James, in June 1871 Adah was living in West Derby, Lancashire with her brother James, sister Elizabeth, and a servant. Her parents and youngest brother William were in Scotland at the time.
On 16 November 1871 Adah married William Alexander Maitland at the Registrar's office in West Derby. I get the feeling it was an elopement because on 22 Aug 1872 they married again. Their second marriage was in the Birkenhead Parish Church, and it was witnessed by Sarah's father. William was born in 1850 in Michigan of English parents, David and Hannah (Dyer) Maitland. I believe that David, a physician, may have died shortly after William's birth, because by the 1851 UK Census Hannah, William, and William's brother John had returned to the UK.
As a side note (and if anyone can explain the rationale behind this I would be very interested to hear) a couple of months after their first marriage William was christened “William Alexander Hatton Ashe Maitland” at St. Mary’s church in Birkenhead. He would use that name on their second marriage record and on their daughters’ birth records.
Adah and William had two daughters, Violet May Lauderdale Maitland (16 Feb 1873) and Clara Nina Grace Maitland (3 Apr 1875), both born in Scotland. “Nina” was born at Rosebank Villa in Minnigaff, which is where her grandmother Sarah Hatton Ashe had died eight months earlier. In 1881, Adah and the girls were lodgers in Lancashire. Her profession was "Bible woman." (Any ideas what that might have meant?) She was listed as "married," but William was not there. I haven’t found a record of his death, so I’m not sure what happened to him.
Adah’s second husband was Thomas Stocker (b. 12 Jul 1823 in Devonport). On their children’s birth registries, his profession was given as “gentleman,” but he had been variously a master draper, the manager of a plasterworks, and a farmer, and had gone bankrupt at least twice. He had also been married twice before. His first wife was Matilda Binnington Brightman (1820 – 1878), and he had two sons from that marriage, Thomas and Frank. His second wife was Fanny Jane Smith (1839 – 1917). He married Fanny in 1879 and they soon separated, living apart by 1881. (Fanny had quite a colorful life, including a scandalous divorce from her first husband Joseph Bishop in Australia. You can read more about her by googling “Bishop Family of Whittlesey.”) I have not been able to find any record of a divorce, and I am not entirely sure that Thomas and Adah were legally married. In any case, they had two children together, my g-grandfather Valentine (b. 14 Feb 1885 in Islington) and his sister Alice (b. 27 Mar 1887 in Cornwall).
Thomas died in Cornwall on 26 Oct 1887. He left an estate of only 60 pounds. Adah was the executrix. Six months after Thomas’ death Adah and her four children arrived in New York aboard the SS Wisconsin. Adah’s father was living in San Bernardino, California, and I believe her intent was to join him there. Also on the passenger list were Mr. & Mrs. Walter Ashe. I believe they were Adah’s brother John James Walter Ashe and his wife Constance. In 1896 Walter would apply for U.S. citizenship under the name “Walter Hatton Ashe.” He died in 1903 in Los Angeles. In 1920 Constance was still living in LA, working as a dressmaker.
The missing 1890 US Census makes the next few years in Adah’s life a bit difficult to track. She had married twice more by the 1900 Census. Her youngest son, Arthur Sibley, was born in California on 24 Jan 1892. I think his father might have been Thaddeus Sibley (b. 1828 in Ohio). As with Thomas Stocker, I’m not sure whether he and Adah were legally married, since Thaddeus had been married twice before and his second wife Rhoda was still alive back in Kansas. In any case, in 1893 Adah was widowed again, with another small child.
In 1900 Adah was living with husband #4, Harry C. Beatty (b. 1852 in Pennsylvania), a mining engineer. They had been married for two years. Also in the household were Valentine, Alice, Arthur, and Lorena (Harry’s daughter by his first wife). The marriage didn’t last; by the 1910 Census Adah and Harry were divorced. Adah never remarried. She died in 1937 in Los Angeles. She is buried at the Forest Lawn Cemetery in Glendale, CA. Nina and Alice are buried near her.