My father (Jaime Cunha Dias) was a lost husband. I didn't know anything about this story until a few years ago when I found his WW1 draft registration on Ancestry. It's complicated but maybe not too different from many other stories. My father, born in 1890, spent many of his young years going back and forth with his family between his home in Guadalupe, Graciosa and a life in Lowell, MA. in 1910 he went back to Guadalupe, married his next door neighbor (Maria Tomazia Cunha) and brought her back to MA. They Americanized their names, (James and Mary Dyers)and in the next 10 years they had 4 children. In 1921 his wife, pregnant with their 5th child, took the children back to Graciosa to meet the grandparents. No one knows for sure what happened after that. One story is that her mother became ill and she stayed to care for her and had her baby. At the same time, US immigration laws tightened (true) and she was not able to come back to the US. The other story is that my father was supposed to follow her to Graciosa but, though he sent money to support the family for a few years, he never went back. More stories tell that he was injured on his job in the textile mill in Lawrence, lost his job and left the area to find work. Whatever happened, in 1932 he met and married my mother in Wilkes-Barre, PA, and my sister was born the next year. I was born in 1942, my dad was 52 years old. He died in 1983, almost 93 years old. He took this sad story to the grave with him. I'm certain my mother never knew any of this. She died in 1989. In 2011 with extreme good luck and wonderful help from people on this listserve, I was able to find my other family in MA. We have all met each other. This first family was a generation older than I, so my nieces and nephew are my age. None of my half siblings are still alive. Just as this first family was a huge surprise to me, I was a huge surprise to them also. But they accepted me with open arms and much love and we are now all one family. They are the source of all these stories about what might have happened. The first family finally came to America in the 1950s when "the ports opened" but they all eventually believed that my father had died sometime along the way. This is very long but I'm hoping that someone out there on the list might miraculously know something about my family.
On Monday, October 17, 2016 at 4:21:13 PM UTC-4, Cheri Mello wrote: > > I'm starting the topic of lost husbands in its own thread since Paul's > topic was different. However, when Margaret brought the following up, I had > questions. > > Margaret said: > <<They are all saying the same thing i.e. husband was away, not missing. > The number of years gives the reader an insight at this lady's situation. > Unfortunately this happened to many women on the islands with immigrated > husbands. Some waited for many years, others didn't. Does this answer your > question?>> > > I would say it's a fairly safe bet for the man to leave. Why did he leave? > Some of my thoughts would be he left to try to make a better life. One > would like to think that he went somewhere with the intent of making money > to send back for his wife and children, (assuming he had children already). > Suppose he was not successful in making enough money. He's in a new county > and she's back in the Azores. It must be very difficult for her, and more > so if she had children. > > Suppose the husband and wife decided that they could not stand each other. > I'm sure very few got divorced back then. He could leave and start up a new > family in a new country and no one would know. > > From the couple of ideas I thought of above, the husband could start over > and no one would know. He could have a second family! But everyone in the > freguesia knew if she had a 2nd family! > > Does anyone have historical insight as to these situations? > Cheri Mello > Listowner, Azores-Gen > Researching: Vila Franca, Ponta Garca, Ribeira Quente, Ribeira das > Tainhas, Achada > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Azores Genealogy" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to azores+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/azores.
