paternal great-grandmother

Oh, my Martha Jane. Her story will break your ever-loving heart. She lost her mom when she was five years old. She and her sister were raised by Shakers at Pleasant Hill, KY. Plucked suddenly from that idyllic, utopian children’s life to then carrying the weight of consummate caregiving for a family in crisis.

She was brought to apply all the learning of Shakers care full-time for the family of her eldest sister, Mary Bell Bradshaw Murphy. Martha was thirteen years younger than her sister, who needed help even before her mental breakdown.

Martha Jane broke off a romance after she was scorned by the mother of the man she loved. Martha Jane then married Surber Corman, a young widower with two small children after the recent tragic loss of their mother.

Martha Jane endured burying babies and children from more than one angle. She endured harsh conditions. And, her own tragic end is hard to conceive with the cause of death noted as “2nd & 3rd degree burns over 60% of her body,” according to the KY death certificate.

Traumas and taking on the yoke of someone’s tragedy lives in my DNA. I don’t need 23&Me to tell me that, even if they could. I can think of repeat experiences that fit that depiction.

More on Martha Jane Bradshaw in S1:E 23-E24-E25, coming later.