One of the ongoing mysteries in the Wood family tree is when/where Mary
Slatter Wood (1869-1925), hubby's paternal grandma, arrived in America. In the spirit of the Gen Do-Over, I'm reviewing unsolved mysteries and looking at gaps in my research with fresh eyes.
Since the Slatters were from London (albeit a very poor part of the city), I conducted an Ancestry search of passengers from London to Canada in the 1890s. After all, the
three musical Slatter brothers were interested in Canada, and Capt. John Daniel Slatter already lived in Toronto by 1884. Previously, I'd tried to trace the Mary Slatter from London to New York or another US port.
Lo and behold, up popped Ada
Slatter (formally
Adelaide Mary Ann Slatter, sister of hubby's grandma
) aboard the S.S. Labrador, from Liverpool to Quebec/Montreal in
the spring of 1895.
Her "calling or occupation" was
Lady (which I guess sounds better than "spinster" as I've seen on so many other manifests). [
SEE BELOW!] She was going to her father in Cleveland. She paid her own passage, had a ticket to her final destination, and held $2.50 in her purse. A $1 in 1895 was
worth approximately $28 in today's money, so she carried the equivalent of $70 when she arrived.
Aunt Ada, as she was known to hubby and his siblings, was born on May 20, 1868. She was the 5th of 6 children of Mary Shehen Slatter and John Slatter. Hubby's grandma Mary Slatter Wood was the baby of the family, born a year after Ada in 1869.
Within a year after Ada joined her father in Cleveland, she met and married John Sills
Baker, a fellow Englishman. Their two children (hubby's first cousins, once removed) were Dorothy Louise Baker and Edith Eleanor Baker.
Now will I find Mary Slatter's trans-Atlantic passage during the Gen Do-Over?
PS On the Canadian passenger manifest (above), Ada Slatter said her profession was "sevt" which must mean . . . "servant." Within a few days, as she crossed the border into Vermont en route to Cleveland, she transformed into a "lady."