Clara Mae Mabon

Clara Mae (biological child of the unwed union of Clarence D. Gould and Jenny Laughlin. Jenny was employed by Clarence's family as a house maid and was seduced/in love (who knows?) by Clarence, one of the two sons. When it became apparent that she was pregnant the Gould family, to avoid scandal, terminated her employment with them... Jennie was the youngest child born to Edward and Mary Loughlin. Her mother Mary died when Jenny was only 7 years old... Edward remarried a year or so after Mary's death to Rosealtha Freeman. Edward was born in Ireland and some of the Loughlin kids were married in a Catholic church so I understand that they were probably Catholic in values and not long after Clara Mae was born (Jenny named her after her biological father, Clarence), she was thrown out of her own family's home... In 1890 it was scandalous to be an unwed mother... I truly feel if Jenny's own biological mother was still alive that wouldn't have been what happened... but... the story as transcribed from Clara to her daughter Josephine (my grandmother) was that Jenny was walking down the road with baby weeping when Sarah Isabelle Mabon (nee Richardson) aka "Belle Mabon" saw her and took them in. This is confirmed by the 1892 NY State census that shows Jenny and two year old Clara in the Mabon household along with Belle, her husband, Amos and their one biological child, Harold. It would have been shortly after this that Jenny went to find work in Lockport or somewhere and decided to put Clara Mae up for adoption at a newly created home for children that was in Lockport. This is still in operation and I actually spoke with the Director for Development a few years ago and she was able to find the original ledgers that showed when Clara had been brought in (under the name Clara Gould) and when she had been taken for trial adoption by a family (and brought back after a month) and then taken for adoption and kept by a Davis family and then brought back two or three years later by a social worker due to Mr. Davis being arrested for some criminal activity-- and then the entry showing Belle Mabon coming to pick her up with the notes that her biological mother would be claiming her from them... The story goes that Harold, Belle's son who was about seven years older than Clara Mae "prevailed on his parents to 'bring back my baby sister'"... The Mabon side of the family was never keen on the idea of Clara being brought in to be part of the family... but Belle and the Richardson side of the family treated her very kindly... In 1900, ten year old Clara was listed only as a "boarder" in the Mabon family household on the census... Although she was never formally/legally adopted... she was confirmed in the Methodist church under the name Clara Mae Mabon, and she was listed in the 1910 census as a daughter in the Mabon. She also came back to the area to care give for Belle Mabon in her last months of suffering from "pernicious anemia" shortly after her wedding... Jenny visited Clara Mae several times over the years she was at the Mabon household, as did Jenny's older sister, Mary. Mary was a seamstress and every year would make a dress for Clara.... I transcribed the full description of my great Grandmothers story as told and committed to writing by my Grandmother Josephine "Abby" Sebera (nee Robinson) .... It is on her Ancestry.com profile on my big family tree encompassing both my mom and dad's branches...