Margaret Belinda Truitt ¹⁶⁹⁵

  Research Notes:

From: Judy Opdycke Apr 2002

Margaret Belinda Truitt was my mother's maternal grandmother. "Grandma Dresser" lived until I was 9 years old. I remember her well. Her husband's name was Nathaniel Augustus Dresser, born in Augusta, Maine about 1833. He had been married at least once before, possibly twice and brought two teenage sons into the marriage (Otto Warren Dresser, and William Dresser). Margaret Belinda had only one child, my grandmother, Audrey Dean Dresser who was born in Indianapolis, Indiana. Audrey Dean died of cancer in 1948. Audrey Dean married Edgar Tennant Ham 1886 - 1952 and they had two daughters, Margaret Elizabeth 1910 - 1986 who never married, and Audrey Evelyn 1913 - 2001, my mother. All of the deceased persons above are buried at Mountain View Cemetery in San Bernardino, CA., including Nathaniel and Margaret Belinda.

I grew up on my grandmother's stories of her mother's large family. One of the stories was that Margaret Belinda was one of about 14 children. The story goes "Margaret's mother gave birth to twins. The babies were placed beside her on the bed for the night and in her sleep she rolled over on one. They attempted to reshape its head and hoped it would live." I was truly horrified, after discounting this story all my life, to see twin boys born to Alvira Josephine in 1857, one of them apparently didn't live long. Now I will forever be afraid that the family lore was true!!!!! My grandmother, Audrey Dean Dresser was college educated, a psychologist and a teacher - rare for her day and age. More lore was that she was the first woman psychologist in CA.
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Margaret married Nathaniel Augustus Dresser. (Nathaniel Augustus Dresser was born about 1833 in Augusta, Kennebec, Maine, USA,¹⁶⁹⁵ died in San Bernardino, San Bernardino, California, USA ¹⁶⁹⁵ and was buried in Mountain View Cemetery (San Bernardino, San Bernardino, California, USA) ¹⁶⁹⁵.)