Some folks
lived in Hornby only a short time but still have a story to tell, sometimes a
tragic one. Such is the case for Andrew Beach and Bertha Eugenie (Taylor)
Williams. They appeared in the 1905 Hornby census with their two-year-old son
Harold. Born in Pennsylvania, they were married in 1898, lived in Ashland, Chemung County in 1900 and
Elmira in 1910.
An article
in the 22 October 1907 Elmira Star-Gazette reported that in June 1907 they were
living in Hornby where Andrew worked at a sawmill. He was involved in an
accident that severed his foot. Bertha was pregnant and while he was being
treated at Corning Hospital, she gave birth there to twin girls, Ethel M. and
Edith Rose.
The girls
were taken home to Hornby but Ethel died 29 September, age three months and her
sister Edith died three weeks later on 21 October. Bertha went on to bear two
more sons, Clifford and Carlton, before Andrew died of Bright’s disease in
1914. She remarried Ernest Wood and lived until 1950.
Descendants
still live in the area. One noteworthy granddaughter of Andrew and Bertha,
Elizabeth “Bette” Williams, was very interested in genealogy and I wish I could
have corresponded with her before she died in 2013, age 69. She was a Barbizon
model, then a nurse and finally a special education teacher.
