Abbie Frances Ellis (1845-1872)
Abbie Frances Ellis was born in 1845. She was the daughter of Alvin L. Ellis and his wife Martha Bassett Dean Ellis, both of whom are interred in lot 112 as well.
Abbie Ellis was brought up in the village of South Dedham where her father took on various occupations including butcher, packer, teamster, railroad depot master, constable, and town pound keeper (overseeing stray animals until their owners could retrieve them).
Between 1867 and 1871, Abbie Ellis taught at the Everett School which housed the first primary department in the village beginning in 1853. Built c. 1851, the Everett was named for Israel Everett, a Dedham native and veteran of the Revolutionary War. She had previously taught in Canton, Massachusetts.
According to Bryant Tolles in his history of Norwood, there were many able teachers at the Everett and Balch Schools during the final years before South Dedham broke from Dedham, became its own town, and took charge of its own school district. “For their perseverance,” Tolles writes, “these early educators, like soldiers in combat, deserve special commendation. What these individuals accomplished in the face of ignorance, bigotry, fiscal stringency, and poor classroom conditions are shining, though often unrecognized milestones in the town’s pre-independence history.” South Dedham, like many villages across the country “was really a microcosm of educational development.”
Tragically, Abbie Ellis did not live to see the incorporation of the Town of Norwood. She died on January 4, 1872, only a month before the new town was officially founded.
The cause of her death was tuberculosis, a disease which took her parents and several of her siblings. Abbie Frances Ellis was 27.
Commentaires