Andrew and Bertha (Taylor) Williams

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.