MIRIAM STANFIELD (''MINNIE'')

 

 

My second cousin once removed

 

Our great-grandmother Ada Stones' sister Hannah Stones Stanfield had a daughter named Harriet Stanfield, born in 1877 in England. She grew up in Hillsdale. There in 1893 she gave birth to a daughter - Miriam, called ‘Minnie’ -  who was so small that she fit into a shoebox. In fact, they wrapped her into a shoebox and took her by horse and carriage to South Bend. The trip lasted three days. There in South Bend they handed her over to the nuns to bring up. Miriam ‘Minnie’ was promptly baptised and stayed with the nuns until she was three years old, when she was taken in by her great-aunt Ada Stones. Later, it seems, the Stanfields wanted to take ‘Minnie’ back, but Ada would not hear of it and did not give her back to them. When  ‘Minnie’ grew up she became a nurse; she married an alcoholic named Henry Casey, whom she outlived. ‘Minnie’ spent her widowhood next door to Fredice Cressy in South Bend, where she lived to be about ninety years old. She is still fondly remembered by all who knew her.  

 

 

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