Monday, May 4, 2015

Mary Jane Mulholland Martin: The Trials of Single Parenthood

Mary Jane Mulholland Martin
Mary Jane Mulholland (or as she was known by the family, just Jane), born in 1842, was the oldest of the nine children who lived to adulthood in Samuel Mulholland jr's family. Twenty years older than her youngest sister, she left home when her youngest siblings were still toddlers.

In 1866 at the age of 24, Jane married Andrew Martin, an Irish immigrant, who was six years younger than her. They moved to a farm in Livingston County, but any thought of a long, happy life together was too quickly ended.

Will & Lil Martin
After nine years of marriage, Andrew died of typhoid fever at the age of 37, leaving Jane with three small children. Unable to manage the farm alone, she was forced to move back to her father's house with her two daughters, while son William Martin was boarded out to help on his uncle's farm. Her youngest daughter, Mame, died a few years after her father at age 6.


Mary Jane lived in Superior Township with her birth family until her daughter Lillian Martin married Bob Butterfield in 1898. Jane moved in with the newly weds and lived with them in Alma, Michigan until she died at the age of 64 in 1907.

Link to download and view Marsh-Mulholland family file (PDF)

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