Tiny Acorns & Mighty Oaks

Stories, History & Recipes from the Past

The Children Josephine Lost

By the time Josephine (Peotter/Piotter, Dermyer) Maynard died in 1946 at the age of 52 years, four of her eight children with her second husband, Lawrence Maynard, were already gone. One died the day she was born. Another died at two from pneumonia and influenza. Eight-year-old Richard Maynard was killed in a horrifying accident at a local foundry, and her oldest son, Thomas, survived to adulthood only to be killed during World War II. But those losses tell only part of Josephine’s story.

She had become a wife and mother while still a teenager, experienced divorce at a time when it was far less common than it is today and at 23 married the 44-year old Lawrence who had two prior marriages.

Pieced together through census records, death certificates, newspaper accounts and family photographs, Josephine’s life is one of those family stories that becomes more remarkable – and more heartbreaking – the deeper you look.

Josephine and her second husband, my great grand uncle, Lawrence Maynard. Lawrence was my great grandfather, Leon Maurice Maynard’s brother. Lawrence is holding one of the eight children he had with Josephine.

In total, Lawrence was married five times and had 11 children. Lawrence’s first marriage was to Jennie Law when he was 21 years old, his second marriage was two years later to Ethel Weld. From the second marriage he had two sons.
The children of Josephine with her second husband, Thomas. Josephine also had a daughter, Alice Marie Dermyer, from her first marriage who was raised by her parents after her divorce from Vincent Dermyer. When Alice marries at the age of 17 to Gustav Brenke, it is noted that her mother, Josephine, grants her permission.
The first of Josephine’s children to pass was a baby girl in 1923. The baby was born premature at 6 months, contributory cause of death was placenta previa. Placenta previa is a pregnancy condition where the placenta attaches low in the uterus and covers all or part of the cervix. Its main sign is sudden, painless bright red vaginal bleeding during the second half of pregnancy. It appears from the death certificate for the baby that Josephine had experienced bleeding for approximately 2 months prior.
The second of her children to die was 8-year old Richard Maynard in 1930.
What’s particularly shocking about 8-year old Richard’s death is that, according to his death certificate, a jury placed the onus on Richard for his own death, stating he was careless, adding what could only have been more trauma to Josephine and Lawrence.
Less than a year later after Richard’s death, in March 1931, Josephine would lose yet another child, her two-year old son, Lewis Joseph Maynard. His cause of death was pneumonia and influenza.
In 1945, their 29-year old son, Thomas Mervin Maynard died overseas in 1945 while serving in the infantry in Germany. He was awarded a Purple Heart. Thomas was the fourth child lost.

Genealogy has a way of reducing a life to dates – births, marriages and deaths neatly recorded on a family tree. But there was nothing neat about Josephine’s losses. Four times she buried a child, each under different circumstances, and somehow continued on. I can document when her children were born and when they died, but I can only imagine what each of those losses took from her. Nearly a century later, perhaps the best I can do is tell their stories, remember their names – and remember Josephine not simply for the children she lost, but as a mother who loved them.

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