Leta's Origins

Leta Marie Scott was born on April 14, 1894 to David Scott (1855) and Julia A. Snyder—or Snider (1858)—who were married on January 1, 1878. They were farmers in Ohio. Leta was the youngest of four “surviving” children.

I use the word “surviving” speculatively, because of what I’ve learned about David and Julia’s family. The beginning seems normal enough: Julia was 20 years old and David about 23 when they married. Two years later, Julia gave birth to Stephen (1879). But get this: Leta was born fourteen years after Stephen, and there were only two other children in between—Aaron (1882) and Louise (1890). While many married couples space their children, they usually only put two to four years between, especially when the parents are the same for all the children. And the Scotts were farmers, which generally meant they needed as many children on the farm as possible to help do the work. However, the Scott family had one rather large gap.

Here is where the speculation comes in. First, Stephen and Aaron were born three years apart. This constitutes some planning, boys being so important to farmers and of course the patriarchal American culture. But then there was the gap of eight years before Louise was born.

Did the satisfaction David, Julia or both felt with each other lapse for any number of reasons (family illness, a simple mismatch or even infidelity), and then return, making them feel like newlyweds again? Maybe they were terribly poor and another mouth to feed would have been one too many (although being poor has never been a child preventative). Did Julia really want a daughter and work to make it happen? Were their sons not turning out as they had hoped, and they wanted to try for better?

Perhaps Julia was pregnant several other times, but miscarried or gave birth to children that did not survive. This was not uncommon. The reason I wonder this one, particularly, is because my own grandmother—Leta’s daughter Vivian—had several birth complications between the birth of my father and his much younger siblings (12 and 14 years later, respectively).

Interestingly, all four of the Scott children were all in the spring. In any case, by the time Leta was five, her brother Stephen would have been all grown up and most likely on his own, and Aaron would have had one foot out the door. There are nearly two generations here (just as in my dad’s family). This would have impacted her life in some way, especially if her family circumstances were different. Or maybe it didn’t.