Genealogy Story – Edith Russell

My great-great-grandfather, Walter J. Russell, had a total of 10 children – six with his first wife, Lois Ann [Cook], and after she passed away at the age of only 28, four more with his second wife, Cornelia [Sutphin]. My great-grandfather, Louis Russell, was the oldest, having been born in 1871. Walter’s youngest, Edith, was born 23 years later on Christmas Day in 1894. By then, Louis was already married and my grandfather, Erskine, had been born. So while Edith was his aunt, Erskine was 3 months older than she was.

Walter died in 1895 when Edith was only 9 months old. Cornelia died just two years later in 1897. While Walter’s children from his first marriage were old enough to be on their own (being between the ages of 26 and 17), the four younger children were ages 8, 6, 4, and 3. The oldest was placed with another family, but the three youngest were placed in an orphanage in Winchester, CT. By 1910, being age 15, Edith had been “out placed” as a servant in a home in a nearby town. But her training as a servant was only beginning.

In August of 1919, Edith moved from Northeast Connecticut to New York City (Manhattan) where she took a new position as a child nurse for the Odell family.

Ralph M. Odell was a “special agent” for the US Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. He was a native of NC where he had been a general manager of a group of cotton mills. In 1911, he was hired by the government and his specialty was the cotton trade. He had been traveling to various countries around the world, investigating the trading of cotton in other countries and writing short reports on it. His many trips would take 12-18 months each and he would reside in New York during his home stays in between trips. These reports were 30-150 pages each. During the 1910s he wrote reports on: Spain & Portugal (1911); Italy (1912); Russia (1912); the Balkan States (1912); Turkey (1912-1913); Egypt (1912); the Red Sea Markets (1913); British East Africa, Uganda, Zanzibar, and German East Africa (1914); Portuguese East Africa (1914); South Africa (1914); China (1916); Straits Settlements [Singapore] (1916); Dutch East Indies (1916); Ceylon [Sri Lanka] (1916); British India (1916-1917) [Department of Commerce, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce, Catalogue of Bureau Publications, 1920].

Ralph had met his wife-to-be, Vera [Harris], during his travels to the far east. She was the daughter of an English couple who had been living in India for several years. Their marriage had taken place in Australia in early 1917 when she was only 18. She had traveled back to the US with him later that year [Concord NC Daily Tribune, July 26, 1917] . Their infant son, Robert, had been born in mid-1919. Ralph had left the US in late 1919 and in 1920 his wife and son were going to be travelling to India and Ceylon to visit him (and likely visiting her parents as well). Edith, as the nurse to young Robert was included in their travel plans. They would be taking a steamship out of New York on January 15, 1920, and would be returning in October of that same year.

While Edith was not the first of the Russell family to travel outside of the US, her older brother having served in France in WWI, she was apparently the first family member to apply for a passport and make the long trip to Asia. This trip, via steamer, would take about two months in each direction.

Records of what Edith did following her return from this exciting trip have not been found. She never married, but did visit with the families of her siblings who were still living in CT. Perhaps some of my cousins who had contact with her in her later years will be able to fill in the blanks. She died in NJ in 1976 at the ripe old age of 81.