Nelson Wilfred Edmands

At the age of 39, Nelson married his first wife, who was also his second cousin, Alice E. Blaney, 27; both of them were descended from our ancestors Lott Edmands, 1791-1877 and Esther Burrill Edmands, 1790-1883.

When their five children ranged in age from 8 years down to 18 months, Alice died at the age of 37. Nelson later married his housekeeper, Gertrude, who (according to the youngest child) was very mean; she wanted to put the children into an orphanage, and she made them sleep in the chicken coop. Nelson's second marriage did not last long.

Nelson was a very hard worker, putting in lots of overtime at his service station. He was a quiet man.

In his late sixties, Nelson went everywhere on his bicycle. He often rode all the way from Saugus to Andover, a 3-to-4-hour trip, to visit his sister-in-law, the widowed Mary Caroline Findley Edmands, 1887-1970, 12 years his junior. We can speculate that he was enamored of her. (In his seventies, Nelson, with a "bum knee," was riding a motorbike, still visiting Mary.)

Nelson was an elder sibling of Ernest Carl Edmands, 1884-1928 (our ancestor).