JWR: Do you know where my family is? None of them are here. I’m all alone. Uncle John Fite Ware is here but not my Aunt Ella. Where are they all?
Jane: What is your name?
JWR: I’m John Winfield Richardson.
Jane: When was the last you saw your family?
JWR: I’m 19 and I got real sick with appendicitis. That was the last I saw them.
Jane: I don’t think I know your family. Who are your parents?
JWR: John R. Richardson and my Ma is Frances Gray Richardson. They call her Fanny.
Jane: Did you say your uncle is John Ware?
JWR: Yes, my Pa is Ella Ware’s brother.
Jane: What about the rest of your family?
JWR: I have five sisters and a baby brother Bart. I’m the oldest boy. It’s just Lill that’s older than me.
Jane: Where do you live?
JWR: Back at Henryton in Freedom District. My Pa has a farm. When we aren’t farming Pa mines flint and soapstone. Lots of farmers around do that. We take it over to Uncle John Ware’s flint mill to get it ground up.
Jane: Well, I think I do know some of your family. I knew your Aunt Ella Richardson Ware. She is my great-grandmother. Her maiden name was Margaret Ellen Richardson, but everyone called her Ella. She’s over at St. Barnabas. Don’t you have an Uncle too?
JWR: Yeah, Uncle Randolph. He and Pa inherited a big farm over in Greenspring Valley when my Grandpa Thomas Richardson died. They were kinda young then and not able to make a go of it, so they lost that farm. It had been in the family a long time.
Jane: How did they come by the farm?
JWR: I think it came from the Ridgeleys. Then Pa and Uncle Randolph farmed over near Randallstown. When Uncle Randolph got married he got his own place in Carroll Co and his family went to Mt. Paran church down near Randallstown.
Jane: Yes Ridgeley and Richardson families go way back in Baltimore County. What about your Grandma Richardson?
JWR: Grandma Richardson lived with us when I was born, but I never knew my grandpa. Grandma died when I was 14.
Jane: Do you know anything about your Grandma’s family?
JWR: Oh yeah. Her name was Elizabeth Rudenstein. I heard a lot about them, since my Pa was named John Rudenstein Richardson. Her father came over from Germany and had a bacon store in Baltimore. He was in the 5thRegiment during the bombardment of Ft. McHenry in the War with England, kind of a family hero. Her brother was a Navy Surgeon in the War between the States. .
JWR: But you still haven’t told me where my family is.
Jane: I’m sorry. I think they are over at Springfield Presbyterian.
JWR: That’s strange as we were members here at Holy Trinity. I’ll keep looking for them.
Jane: John Winfield Richardson was born in 1872 and died at the age of 19 in 1891. His sister Sarah Elizabeth married Herbert Oursler and had a family of 14 children. Sisters Clara and Lillian never married.