Jennie Marie (Levenseller) Morse

1877-1907

By Isabel Morse Maresh

A Mother’s Life cut Short 

Jennie stood on the front porch, looking across the lower field at the twin mountains in the distance. Sometimes the mountains were a comfort to her, as they were named for her ancestors. Her parents lived at the base of one of the mountains on the further side.

“Amon! Amon! Where are you?” called Jennie, receiving no answer. That two-year old would be the death of her yet. She thought that he was napping, but he was nowhere to be found. Little Lester was sleeping peaceably.

Jennie’s feet were wet from searching in the back field. The rain was lightly falling as she called out, “Bertha, would you go to Ada’s and see if Amon is there?” Ada was John’s youngest sister, living next door. Ada and Jennie had become great friends.

Bertha returned, carrying a drowsy Amon in her arms. “Where did you find him:” Jennie asked. “Asleep in Uncle Ed’s calf stall with his arm around the newborn calf,” replied Bertha.

Today was Jennie’s thirtieth birthday. She was heavy with her eighth child since her marriage to John Morse twelve years before. She felt so tired these days. Worrying and searching for little Amon had made her feel completely wrung out. It would be so nice to just take a nap. Gram Susan was off doing what she did best, attending to the needs of a neighbor down the road. John had taken a load of lime casks to Rockland and would be gone most of the day. He’d kept so busy, trying to earn some extra money, especially with a new baby coming. Jennie thought about how much had happened in her thirty years of life.

She had been born on the other side of the mountain, in Lincolnville, Maine, at the base of Levenseller mountain, beside the pond, all of which bore the family name.

Jennie’s youth had been carefree, the youngest daughter of Frank and Cynthia Levenseller. Her oldest brother, John lived over in Searsmont. He had married Julia Berry just last year. Addie, who was four years old than Jennie,  had married Howard Elms, called ’Hud’. Ed, her brother who was two years older than she, was working in Boston, Massachusetts. Papa would take him to Rockland in the buggy, where he would catch the Steamer for the remainder of the trip to Boston. Ed had recently visited her, bringing Mamma, when he was home.

The Lermonds, her childhood friends, lived nearby as she grew up. What fun they’d had together! George was her age, with Richard being two years younger. Katie and Maud were closer to Addie’s age, but they had all played together, confiding their girlish secrets to each other as young girls do. The Lermond boys, Fred, Richard, Bernard and Frankie were all handsome boys. They and Ed were great pals. Then there was Dr. Brown’s dapper good-looking son, Amon Brown. He was always in the neighborhood visiting the Lermond boys or Ed.

Jennie remembered the night in 1893, before she had married John, that Katie and George Lermond, Lula Thomas, Helen Leadbetter, Jim Lamb, Ralph Heal, Ed, Addie and Jennie went on a sleigh ride to Northport to visit their friend Alice Knight. Alice gave them a very enjoyable evening, serving them tea and some little cakes that she had made. The moonlit evening was crisp and cold as they returned home in the sleigh pulled by Papa’s best horse. The sound of the sleigh runners in the crisp snow and the ringing sleigh bells still echoed in her ears.

All of the young friends had great fun sliding on bobsleds behinds Papa’s barn, or skating on the Pond across from their house in the winter. Oh, it was such a carefree time, swimming, picnics, and playing with all of their friends in the summer, skating, sliding and playing cards in the winter evenings, visiting back and forth with the Lermonds.

Jennie, Ed and Addie attended the one-room Lamb School down the road. Papa was the school Superintendent for the Town of Lincolnville. He served as Selectman, and was a teacher for over fifty years. He was a strict teacher, not only with his own children, but with all of the students. When her father taught a lesson, you learned it. Learning came easy to Jennie. She was so much like her father, who was of German descent, from the early settlers who came to Old Broad Bay, now called Waldoboro, from the old country in the 1700’s.

In 1893, Jennie stayed with her brother, John, in Searsmont, and attended high school there. She was teaching in the Lincolnville schools when she was sixteen years old.

Jennie sat down on the porch steps to rest. She was seven months pregnant, but she felt pains come and go. This had gone on for several days. She looked across the at the mountains. For a fleeting moment she wished that she could be at home by the Pond with Papa and Mamma, and sleep for a whole afternoon in the big feather bed.

Jennie recalled one summer afternoon, when she was sixteen, she and her friends were by the Pond. A rack of lime casks, driven by a tall dark handsome young man came over the road. As the wagon pulled along beside the young girls, he stopped and chatted before going on to Rockland.

The next week the same young man drove by. Jennie had seen him go by before, when she and her friends were swimming. She began to watch for the twenty-two year, whose name she had learned was John W. Morse from Belmont. One day John asked her if she would like to ride to Rockland with him. Papa had been very strict with his children. She didn’t think that he would allow it. She told Papa about John. He said that he knew John’s mother, and that she was very well thought of in the area.

John was driving by more often that summer. Just to hear the sound of his horse coming over the road made Jennie’s heart beat faster. She confided to her friend, Maud Lermond, that she and John were in love.

Then came the day she told John that they needed to get married. John came by to talk with Papa, to ask for Jennie’s hand in marriage. Jennie had confided to her sister, Addie, that she was ‘in a family way’. Addie had told Mamma, who in turn told Papa. Jennie was seventeen years old.

Papa paced back and forth across the room, with his hands behind his back, twiddling his thumbs. He then spoke to John. “Son, do you realize the responsibility that you are taking on?” John answered, “Yes sir, I do. I love Jennie and would like to make her my wife.” Papa told John that he had better take very good care of his youngest child.

Their wedding was very inconsequential. John took her to the home of George W. Morse, Justice of the Peace, in Belmont on Valentine’s Day, 1895. He then took her to his parents’ home in Belmont. Six and a half months later, Susie was born.

After Susie's birth, Jennie again taught school in Lincolnville for a short time, but one year later, Bertha was born. She again taught school, as she and John needed the extra money. Two years later, Hazel was born, followed by Clarence, John Everett, Amon and Lester. Now she was expecting another child.

John’s mother’s home was always a busy household. John had two older brothers, Fred and Frank, with an older sister, Etta. Ada, who lived next door, was the youngest. Fred’s wife, Cordelia, died in Massachusetts in 1887, leaving four small children. Gram Susan had gone to Massachusetts on the Belfast Steamer and brought the children back to live on the farm. Charlie was eight years old when Jennie had married John; Fred Jr. was eleven, Gertrude was fourteen, and Maud a year or so older. Then along came John and Jennie’s growing family, adding to an already crowded household.  Fred Jr. had married three years ago, Gert married six years ago, and Maud had married a young Frenchman by the name of Boyea, moving to Canada. Charlie still lived at home, along with Jennie’s family.

Most of the time the house was full of activity. Gram was in charge of the house, but Jennie worked hard, tending her own growing family, helping with the meals, canning and preserving vegetables in the summer. She would carry water in from the well, to do the family laundry, including many, many diapers. It seemed that there was always something to do, with nary a moment to really rest. Gram Susan was known as a very able and capable nurse, tending to the sick, delivering babies, and sometimes called out to ‘lay out’ the dead, preparing them for burial. She and Dr. Tapley also did home operations, such as removing tonsils, sometimes on a kitchen table.

John’s father’s name was Moses. He was a nice old man, and a hard worker. Jennie remembered well the day that he came home from building a stone wall at the Chenery farm down on the Back Belmont Road. A lot of people, about sixty local men and women worked on the farm for Mr. Chenery. John also worked for him at times. Though Moses was elderly, Mr. Chenery appreciated his expertise in many skills, such as stone and mason work.  Moses had walked home for dinner.  He sat down at the kitchen table, saying that he was tired. A few minutes later his head dropped down onto his chest. The children called for Gram to come.  Old Father Moses had died at the dinner table. They buried him in the East Searsmont cemetery.

Oh, my. Jennie winced in pain. There shouldn’t be any pains this early. It had been a month since the day that she couldn’t find Amon. Today the pain was more consistent, and she’d been spotting blood for several days. My, how her back ached. If she could only lie down. She called the girls, Susie, Bertha and Hazel, who were now eleven, ten and eight years old. They were so much help with the younger children. Clarence was six, Everett, four and a half, Amon two, and baby Lester would be a year old tomorrow.

Oh! The pain came again with a gush of bleeding. Jennie didn’t recall a lot after that, except for the pain of childbirth. John came home. Gram was worried. She’d only seen a delivery like this once before and it hadn’t ended well. Gram told John that he’d better send Charlie for Jennie’s mother, because things were not going well. Jennie was bleeding profusely and there didn’t seem to be any way of stopping the bleeding. It was a very hard delivery, but the tiny baby boy was born late in the afternoon. He was two months premature. Gram felt that if the delivery could have waited a month, or even two weeks, the infant would have been stronger.

Jennie was very weak from the loss of blood, but she could hear the voices around her. Did she hear Mamma? Oh, Mamma, I need to feel your hand on my brow. And John. “I love you, John!” John was crying. He really did love her, even though he had worked away so much lately, that she didn’t see much of him during the days. Jennie slipped in and out of consciousness, growing weaker for two days.

Gram was packing Jennie’s body with towels, dipping small ones with cool water from the well. Gram held Jennie’s hand as tears streamed down her face. Old, hard-working Gram with the wrinkled face and calloused hands. Jennie had come to love the old lady, and Gram loved Jennie dearly. “Mamma, where is Papa?”, asked Jennie. Papa came to her side, and for the first time in his life, bent down and kissed his baby daughter’s brow. The children were brought in. The young ones were lifted up to kiss their mother. Jennie heard her baby’s weak cry. Ada was there. “Oh, Ada, watch over my babies.” John’s sister, Etta, from over the road in Searsmont was there also.

Jennie hadn’t chosen a name for her tiny infant yet. His crying seemed so far away. Jennie slipped peacefully away, as the angels came to bear her away to the waiting arms of Jesus. She was beyond pain, and so rested now. The grieving, loving family left behind had a motherless infant, and seven more children to tend to. The date was July 7, 1907. Jennie was thirty years, one month and five days old. Jennie was buried in the family burial plot in the Marriner Yard in East Searsmont with Grampa Moses Morse.

The tiny infant clung to life for two more days. He died on the day of his mother’s burial. The family disinterred Jennie’s home-made coffin, burying her infant son in her arms, to be together for eternity.

The family back at the farm was grieving. Gram once again had a family of small children who were her responsibility. Gram coped, with the older girls helping out. Life, though sometimes very hard, goes on.