Lawrence Massachusetts is very much in our minds today what with the news casts of the massive fire and gas explosions there yesterday.
My great grandmother's brother James BERRY and his wife Charlotte BAKES with their first 13 children migrated to Lawrence from Eccleshill in 1886. They had a number of trips back to Bradford and many great great grandchildren still live in Lawrence. One of them has been working nights and was unaware that the house next door had exploded as he was in a deep sleep when the police called and got him out.
The purpose of this enquiry though is connected to the eldest son of James and Charlotte, namely Robert Leo Bakes BERRY. Robert had gone back to Yorkshire on a trip and late in 1891 he married an Amelia SAINT in Leeds. They travelled back to Boston in the Catalonia November 1891 and then set up home in Philadelphia, rather than Lawrence. In the passenger list the names that follow those of Robert and Amelia are a Mary Bakes, Helena Bakes and Ethel Bakes. This was found by an American cousin, a descendant of James and Charlotte who asked how the three Bakes passengers could be connected to the family.
I had a stroke of luck in finding that Mary Bakes made another voyage to America in 1908 as a tourist and this time we have her home address at 101 Town Lane, Idle which is close to Eccleshill.
Today this address is 'House of Beauty' and from the picture on that website appears to be quite a large detached house. The passenger list gives her destination in America as 'Phila', so she must have been staying with Robert and his wife.
But there is no sign of the young ladies Helena or Ethel Bakes in any census nor can I be certain of any birth in or near Bradford for them. Their was an Ethel Bakes born late 1883 which would make her age of 10 years in 1891 out by 2 years.
Mary Bakes has to be the daughter of Abraham Kitson who married a Joseph Bakes in 1866. Sadly Joseph Bakes died around June 1867, hardly a year later and I can't see any issue from that marriage. In every census Mary Bakes appears as a Widow and usually still living with father Abraham Kitson. Joseph Bakes had the same grandparents as Charlotte Bakes so that must be how Mary is connected to Robert Bakes and family.
In 1911 Mary is living with an Orpha Parker, her niece, and daughter of Samuel Parker and Martha (Waddington ?).
I just cannot find those two young girls.