Finding A New Family

Robert Palmer & Charlotte Elizabeth Parr
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Ettie Hannah Palmer Smith
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Frank Eugene Smith
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Judy Smith Visser
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Me

Nearly two years after Robert's father married his second wife,
Robert Palmer (1809) married Hannah Barber (1821) in Needham, England. This family included Hannah's year old illegitimate daughter named Annie Marie.

Hannah was the the oldest of 9 children. Her mother died at 40 leaving her to care for her siblings. The youngest child was only 15 months old. Not an easy task for a 19 year old. Hannah married 8 years later at the age of 27.

Hannah's second child Robert (1849) was born
in June of about 1852  Robert the father (1809) became very ill. He suffered two weeks and then died. Family legend says that little Robert  took his sand bucket and shovel and attempted to dig his father from his grave. He was buried at Homersfield, on June 13, 1852.

It must have been difficult for the young Widow Hannah to provide for her two small children after the untimely death of her husband. we can only image the void that this meant to her even though she was surrounded with family members in Homersfield and Wortwell. Four years later, Hannah married again to provide herself a husband and a father for her two small children. Annie Marie now age 9 and Robert age 7.  She married a 56 year old James Smith (20 years her senior) a widower and laborer from Bungay Trinity.

The boy and his step father did not get along very well. (Family legends speak of brutal whippings and beatings.) Hannah was afraid for her young son's life. So Robert was sent to live with an uncle at the age of 8 or 9. (No name or place of resident was given as to identity of this uncle.) Family legend goes on to say that his uncle got him a job in a coal mine as a water boy. (Leading donkey laden with water kegs to the thirsty miners.)  The uncle furthered the boy's abuse by stealing his wages and then whipping him because there was not enough money to get totally drunk every Saturday at the Pub. The young boy thought this home was no better than the one he left. He endured it for awhile and then decided to leave this home and go away on his own.

Robert walked all day, and as evening approached he saw a kindly looking woman sitting on her porch in a strange city. He must have been at desperation's door to ask for a sandwich. He was given food, and one can only imagine what was said. He revealed to her that he had no parents and she said that she and her husband had no children. A mutual feeling developed and a young Robert Palmer became a resident in the home of William Scott Cawkwell and his wife Mary England Cawkwell.
He lived witht he Cawkwells more than ten years and found love and acceptance of a degree never before give. He lost contact with his mother, Hannah, as far as any recorded events until her death about Oct. 1866.  at the age of 46.  (Mary England Cawkwells family ties into our family line)

*Robert joined the church and immigrated to the United States with the Cawkwells who introduced him to his future wife Charlotte Parr at the port awaiting the ship.
*Note of interest: Annie Marie (half-sister to Robert) joined the the LDS church in England October 1866.