Part 1: Bessie Amelia Small Erickson 1916-2009

Bessie Amelia Small was born on the family farm in Bucksport, Hancock, Maine to goodly parents on 10 Aug 1916.

She was a whopping 9 pounds
according to this birth announcement. 

It was mailed using a one cent stamp.

In Bessie's words:

"It was a warm day in August that a baby girl was born to Janet Beatrice Giberson and Howard Edwin Small. Several suggested names for the new baby, but the father, who was a quiet man (and only said what he meant) remarked, 'You can call her what you want, but I still like the name of Bessie."

She was always very proud that her papa had named her. Some people tried calling her Elizabeth, assuming Bessie was a nickname, but she quickly corrected them.

Bessie (which is a derivative of Elizabeth) means God's Oath, dedicated. Her middle name, Amelia, means industrious.

Howard could not have chosen a more suitable name for the spiritual, busy person his daughter became.

Her parents met and in New Brunswick, Canada (more on that later) and stayed there for a few years after they married in 1912.

Family Farm

By 1914, before the birth of their first baby, Howard and Janet had returned to East Bucksport, Maine and lived with his parents on the family farm/grocery store.

Joy and Laurel,
Bessie's two older siblings

Bessie and her two oldest siblings (Joy and Laurel)were born at their grandparent's farm. When Bessie was about two years old, it was sold and Howard moved his growing family to Bangor, where Valeda was born.

ROBBED!!!

After selling their combination farm/grocery store, her grandparents traveled to Texas with the idea of finding a house. They took the cash from the sale of the farm with them and during their journey, Bill and Georgia were robbed.

Laurel, Bessie, Joy

Thankfully, Maud had sewn a large amount of cash into her petticoats from the sale of the farm and when they returned to Maine this is what they used to purchase a large home on tree-lined Kenduskeag Avenue (see the house number on the post in the picture with three oldest children).

Kenduskeag Avenue
where Bessie and her sibs grew up

Both of Bill and Maud's children, Howard and Georgia, lived on Division Street. Georgia and her husband Herbert lived in house number 18 and Howard and Janet in number 43

For the first two years of her life, Bessie enjoyed the love and adoration of her parents and two older siblings.

Joy, Laurel, and Bessie
on the running board of Uncle Herbert's car.

Laurel, who was 15 months older than Bessie, told her that their mother had put two-year-old Bessie on a chair in the corner and when asked by someone why Bessie was there, their mother replied, "She can learn to mind as well as the rest of them." The fact that 3 year old Laurel remembered means that the situation made a real impression.

Bessie always cherished this small memory her sister had because she had no memories of her own of either parent. Double-tragedy struck the Howard and Janet Small family when the "Spanish" flu pandemic of 1918 erased them from their children's mortal lives.