Today would have been my great-grandmother Lucinda’s birthday. She was born May 28, 1887. Well, 1887 is most likely the year she was born. This is the year shown in the 1900 census and in the SSDI database. However, on her death certificate, her birth year is listed as 1885. Since the 1900 census is closer to the time, I’ll go with that date.
Lucinda is my mother’s paternal grandmother and my mother remembers her well. She describes Lucinda as being a very sweet person and just the nicest person you’d ever meet! My mother thinks that she is now in life, starting to resemble her grandmother.
Lucinda had nine children. Her husband, Lewis Robinson, died when the youngest child, her only daughter, Lucinda, was about two years old. I understand from my mother that all of her children were very close to their mother Lucinda. When she died in 1969, my grandfather, her youngest son, Herman, put up such a fuss at her funeral in not wanting her to be removed, that when he died, almost 20 years later, the funeral home director remembered him.
Lucinda was from Columbus County, North Carolina, near the NC/SC state line. I know that the family lived in both NC and Georgia at some point, though, they are still elusive to me in 1910 – I have not been able to locate them. When they moved to Manhattan, by 1920, they would stay there. Lucinda lived at 159-48 Apt. 12H Harlem River Drive in Manhattan at the time of her death. She had been living here already for many years. Herman, my mother’s father, remained living in that same apartment (along with his brother Ike) until he died in 1986. I well remember visiting him here and I’m amazed that the family had lived there so long.
I still have research to do on Lucinda’s family – her parents and siblings are still somewhat of a mystery to me. Happy Birthday Lucinda!