Maggie Gibbs Shipe is my great-great grandmother. She has been a brick wall for me since I began researching my family roots. In fact, she was the reason I began researching, at the behest of my mom. Here is what I know of Maggie:
I believe Maggie was born around 1859 in Pennsylvania. The first confirmed record I have of her is an 1878 newspaper clipping listing her marriage to Jeremiah Shipe, which was published in the Sunbury American. Next is the US 1880 census where she is listed with her husband, Jeremiah and young son, John Henry.
Two more children were born of their union, Susan (Gottshall) and Joseph Edward, my great-grandfather.
In December of 1885, Maggie decided she had had enough of being a wife and left Jeremiah. Later testimony from court records states that Maggie was in the “family way” to a Mr. Anderson, and Jeremiah testified that she left with a Thomas Flood. I have not been able to verify any of this.
Sometime in 1887, Maggie returned to the home while Jeremiah was at work and took the two youngest children with her (Susan and Joseph). Perhaps John Henry was in school? She departed for Shamokin where she was “keeping house” for a James Gable, according to court records. Jeremiah, accompanied with the sheriff, went to Gable’s home and brought the children back. A court battle ensued with Jeremiah being victorious in obtaining custody of the children and then a divorce in 1888.
I lost track of Maggie after that until finding a newspaper notice of an upcoming marriage of a Miss Maggie Gibbs of Sunbury to wed a William Hunter from Middletown. I am sure this is my Maggie, as I haven’t found any other Maggie Gibbs or even any other Gibbs in the Sunbury area. The marriage never took place. Mr Hunter was much younger than Maggie – she kept giving a different age in each record I’ve managed to find for her.
The next possible clue is a newspaper article from October 1894 when a Miss Maggie E Gibbs is robbed by two men after closing the restaurant where she worked. At the time she was living “on the corner of Christian and Church Streets” in Lancaster and working at Frey’s Restaurant.
Less than one year later, Maggie E Gibbs, of Sunbury, marries Jacob Carver, a butcher, from Coatsville, in August of 1895. But alas, marriage the second time around didn’t appeal to Maggie and she left Mr. Carver sometime around December of the same year, according to another newspaper article.
Mr Carver didn’t take too kindly to be abandoned and paid Maggie a visit in December of 1896 at the County House in Lancaster where she was working. She had him arrested. The newspaper article cited that “she was afraid of him and hadn’t seen him in a year.”
The last record I found was a city directory listing a Margaret E Gibbs, cook, Sorrel Horse Hotel in 1896.
One day, I will find out what happened to Maggie. I’m sure of it!
