Mabel Gets Married.... Again!

"Unknown", David Kingston, Mabel Brown Stratton, "Unknown"

 

Mabel left her husband Ira Stratton in September of 1900 when baby Mary was just one month old. She fled to her parents (Darling and Ellen Joslin Brown) home at 717 Harris Ave Providence, RI.

(1) Photo is from Mary Bradley Maroney's collection. Handwriting on photo is Mary Maroney's (arrow pointing to Mabel with inscription), "grandmother mother's side". Little else is known about the photo. I am assuming that this is a picture of David Herbert Kingston and that this is Mabel and David's wedding day. I do not know who the other couple is. It appears to me like this is a double wedding. Robin Walker-Maya is in possession of the original photo

717 Harris Ave, Providence, RI   (2019)

(2019 Map) Darling and Ellen Brown and daughter Mabel and her children move from Harris Ave to 52 Atwood Ave, Providence, RI in 1905

For the six years after Mabel divorced Ira, she worked in a mill to support her family. She told the Census taker in 1905 that she was widowed. I am sure it was much easier to identify as widowed than as a divorcee in 1905. However, Ira was very much alive and had already remarried in 1904. It was sometime during this period that Mabel met David Kingston. David was a Canadian who worked as a Teamster in Providence. In 1904 he lost his wife Catherine to tuberculosis, leaving David with two young children to raise, 6 yrs. old Clara and 1 yr. old baby Herbert. Mabel and David were married on 8 March 1906 in Providence by a Baptist Pastor. David identified himself as being a widower, but Mabel stated this was her first marriage. Was it necessary for Mabel to omit the fact that she was divorced for the Baptist Pastor to marry the couple or was it just easier to avoid the whole issue? I hope they both found some measure of happiness in their marriage after all the sadness and hardship they had both endured.