(Mary) Ada Bothwell was my great-grandmother Violet Elizabeth Myers’s first cousin. Ada’s mother, Mary C. Myers, was sister to Violet’s father, Alfred Palmer Myers.
Their parents were Jacob Myers and Eleanor Gorham. Jacob was born Jacob Miars, but switched to using the more common spelling sometime in the 1860s. Mary was born in Ohio, and Alfred was born after the family had moved west to Berrien County, Michigan. The family would migrate again, next to Clay City, Illinois. Clay City was a railroad hub and a busy market town in the second half of the 19th century. Their father Jacob became a market gardener.
Alfred Palmer followed his parents when they moved again, this time south to Texas.
Mary remained in Clay City because she had married Henry Bothwell, a local postmaster. Five sons and two daughters were born to them, including Ada, but two of the baby boys died soon after birth.
Ada attended school and became a high school teacher. At first teaching in Clay City, she moved north after the death of her father. While teaching at Oak Park High School, near Chicago, she met a fellow teacher who would become her life partner, Theresa Pressl.
Ada and Theresa travelled to Europe several times in the 1930s. The travel seems to have been with school groups during the summer vacations.
After their retirement, Ada and Theresa moved to Asheville, North Carolina, where they lived until they died. Theresa lived 30 years longer than Ada. Both were buried in family plots, Ada in Illinois and Theresa in New England.