No. 35 Alice

no-35-alice-spencer-dsc_0262According to Audrey Mae’s artistic cemetery map diagram and Audrey Mae’s gravestone numbering system, Alice’s gravestone is Gravestone Number Number Thirty-Five. Using her Smith-Corona typewriter in the 1980s, Audrey Mae typed the following mini-biography of Alice Spencer, an eighth-generation Spencer in East Greenwich, Rhode Island.

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Alice  born in 1858 is the daughter of John Anthony (gravestone No. 32) and Jamima Maxim Spencer (gravestone No. 31). John Anthony is the son of Captain John (gravestone No. 4) and Phebe (née Vaughn) Spencer.  Captain John is the first son of Huldah (gravestone No. 1) and Patriot John (No. 2) Spencer.

Alice only lived to age one.

Bruce MacGunnigle – 45

John Anthony and Jamima Maxim three daughters, Martha, Ella and Alice are buried here in the Spencer Family Cemetery. They died in infancy and early childhood.  Audrey Mae did not record the causes of their deaths but noted that their Spencer great grandparents died at age 70 and age 89, their grandparents died at age 54 and 74 and their parents died at age 85 and 78. Apparently at that time in history, if a child did not die in infancy or childhood, they had a good chance of living to old age. This goes against the thought that our early colonials all died around age 40.  The average age may have been 40, but that is just because the infancy and childhood deaths averaged with those adults who lived to old age skewed the statistics.

Alice’s siblings in the Spencer Historical Family Cemetery:

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Spencer, Johnson, Goff and Vaughn descendants, if you have any additional information on the child, Alice Spencer, please add a comment to this web site and the web site editor will add this to the site. Thanks.”