So to support me in my new calling, Eric has been indexing a batch a week--meaning, one census page image of 50 names. We often sit down together to sort through the "what letter is THAT?!" moments. Today's page was the most interesting I've ever seen. It was one page from Worcester county in the 1920 Massachusetts census. After a half page of fairly routine names and information (meaning, mostly from Massachusetts or surrounding areas, a few Swedes, and a few boarders and sister-in-laws), we starting seeing very distinctly French names.
All of these French names were female, all unrelated to each other, various ages between 18 and 46, and all single. They stuck out because their relationship to the head of household was listed as "inmate."
As we finished the page, we began speculating about how we stumbled across the women's penitentiary in Massachusetts, and how all of the inmates happened to be French Canadian by birth. Maybe they tried to smuggle across the border?
After we finished the sheet, I checked the "occupation" column just to see what was listed for all of these inmates. "Non" it said, which I guess makes sense, as inmates pretty much just sit around, or occasionally make license plates.
THEN it hit me.
N-U-N.
Think they could have developed a better classification for a convent of religiously devoted women than INMATE?
Why Should You Get Custom Shades?
7 years ago
6 thoughts:
lol:)
That's GREAT! Love the license plate comment. BUT I'd like to see your "French" names spelling, just to see how fluent you've become.
Love Mom
awesome. seriously awesome. maybe they didn't know how to spell novitiate? lol that's nothing like inmate though. sad day.
I worked on that same batch too. It was actually kind of cool since it was the first batch I ever did and Worcester, MA was actually the first place I ever was assigned to serve at in the mission field.
yay for family search indexing...
wow! that's awesome :) i'm impressed. hooray for nuns!
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