Mrs. Mary Ann Milner Weed

Mary Ann Milner was born in Canada to Thomas and Ann (Bowser) Milner, who were natives of Hull, England. The Milner family moved to Huron, Ohio in 1836. In the 1850 U.S. Census, Mary Ann Milner was residing in Huron Township, Erie County, Ohio with her parents, sister, and brother on the family farm. On July 20, 1858, Mary Ann Milner married John P. Denman. Rev. Samuel Marks, Rector of Christ Episcopal Church, officiated at the wedding.

Sadly, John P. Denman died in 1865, when he was only 35 years of age. He was laid to rest at Sandusky's Oakland Cemetery. The clasped hands on Mr. Denman's tombstone symbolize the welcoming of John P. Denman into the Heavenly kingdom.

In the 1870 U.S. Census, Mary Ann Denman and her eleven year old son Dell were living with Mary Ann's parents, Thomas and Ann Milner in Perkins Township, Erie County, Ohio. An article in the April 11, 1949 issue of the Sandusky Register Star News listed Mary Ann Denman as one of the charter members of the Perkins Grange, which was organized on March 2, 1874. On October 27, 1885, Mrs. Mary Ann Denman married Perkins resident Lee S. Weed. On April 16, 1911, Mrs. Mary Ann Weed died after contracting pneumonia. She was laid to rest in the North Ridge section of Oakland Cemetery, not far from the tombstones of her parents Thomas and Ann Milner. Mary Ann's son from her first marriage, Dell Denman, had died in 1880, as a young man. Mrs. Mary Ann Milner Weed suffered the loss of her first husband, and her son; and she moved several times during her lifetime. In the times in which she lived, I am sure she worked very hard on the farms of her parents and her second husband Lee. Reading between the lines, I think Mary Ann Milner Weed made the best of the situations in which she found herself. Mary Ann was the sister of Henry Milner, who was the adoptive father of my great great grandmother, Sarah Milner Steen.

(Note: While Mary Ann Weed's stone lists her birth date as 1833, her death record gave her birth year as 1835.)