10th- Mary came home today. Snowed. Geo. & I husked corn east of Brown house.
Jesse does not say outright why Mary is not living with her parents, or where she is living. It appears that she is living with her Uncle Ed and Aunt Sallie McCormick. Since her parents’ household has seven children and Mary is 22 years old, maybe it was to everyone’s benefit that she go live with her aunt and uncle who only had two boys. She could have been useful to her Aunt Sallie while her mother Amanda still had teenaged daughters Leona and Della to help with the younger kids, laundry, cooking, and cleaning. Correction: While she might be helping out with chores and childcare, according to her daughter Jessie Dawkins, “Mom worked in Chillicothe for a lady living near the business college & this lady did sewing.”
Chillicothe-born Jesse Brown is a young day laborer renting a house in Green Township (possibly on the Bench property). In the 1900 census, it shows his wife Mary M. (Reynolds) and their baby daughter, Pearl E., living with him. It is likely that this is the J. Brown Jesse referred to in his May, 1900, entries. His wife Mary is the daughter of Henry C. Reynolds, brother to Sarah Elizabeth Bench and fellow veteran who served with Jim Bench.
