William Merchant Russell was born on December 6, 1899, in Cornwall, CT to Louis Russell and Annie Merchant Russell. He was the fourth of six children, with older siblings Erskine (my grandfather), Linus, and Loretta. He was later joined by younger brother Allen and younger sister [Martha] Pauline. In November 1903, when Martha was just four months old and William was almost four years old, Anna died at the age of only 32.
Louis was unable to care for all six children. He kept the older three siblings (then ages 9, 7, and 5), but gave the three younger children into the care of relatives who lived in New Milford, a somewhat larger town a few miles to the south. William and his brother Allen went to live with Samuel and Lillie Waldron (who were childless), and Martha went to live with Helen Waldron, her mother, and Helen's young daughters.
But the tragedy in young William's life were not yet over. Only a little over a year later, his younger brother, Allen, also died - a few months shy of his fourth birthday.
In 1910, Louis re-married - to Helen Waldron - thus bringing Martha Pauline back into the family. However, William, then ten years old, decided to remain with his adoptive parents, Samuel and Lillie. When Louis, Helen, and the rest of the family moved from New Milford to Waterbury, CT, William remained in New Milford.
As William got older, he was able to find work on a larger farm nearby, working for the Osborne family (note that Lanesville Rd., where Samuel Waldron lived, meets Danbury Rd. right where the Osborne farm was at the time. Although the Osborne farm is now gone, Osborne Rd. is only 150 feet from Lanesville Rd. so it would have been less than a half-mile between the two homes.)
The Osbornes, Wallace and Susan, had four children - Mildred (b. 1894), Ethel (b. 1897), Harold (b. 1899), and Charles (b. 1905), so these children were likely good friends of William as well as the offspring of his new employer. In 1923, at the age of 23, William married Mildred, who was then 28. William and Mildred took over running the Osborne farm. This seemed to be a common practice in the family - Harold had married in 1921 and was living with his wife on her parent's farm, and Charles married in 1924 and also went to live with his wife on her parent's farm.
In 1935, Wallace passed away and William and Mildred inherited her father's farm. Meanwhile, they had had two children - William Jr (b. 1925), and Allen (b. 1927), named after William's younger brother. However, like his namesake, Allen passed as an infant in 1929. So, like William (Sr.) who lost a younger brother, Allen, and was raised by the Waldron family as an only child, his son, William (Jr), also lost a younger brother, Allen, and so he was raised as an only child.
William (Jr.) did not follow this pattern, as he eventually married and had five children (none named William or Allen, although Allen has been passed on as a middle name to one of his sons, and then to one of his grandsons).
The farm was eventually sold and is now a large group of buildings in an industrial park.
Even though William (Sr.) was my father's uncle and William (Jr.) was my father's cousin, I only met them once in my life. They had lived in a different part of Connecticut that we did and had had little contact with William's siblings over the years since the family was broken up when William was only a young child.
In the late 1950's my father and I visited the family who were still living on the farm outside of New Milford. It was my recollections of this visit that enabled me to later construct a family tree that included them and to make contact with a second cousin who I met on that visit (Jane [Russell] Young, one of the children of William (Jr.)).
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