#52Ancestors Week 14: May (McDaid) Atkinson

Time to fill you in on another of my 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks.  Can you believe this is the 14th week of 2014 already? 

Until 2008, I had no idea what my paternal great-grandma Atkinson looked like.  Luckily, I have a nice cousin who scanned the photos his mom has of her and he emailed them to me! She was obviously very young in this picture.  Her full name was Lilly May (McDaid) Atkinson, but she seemed to have always gone by May.  Even her gravestone is engraved "May L. Atkinson."

She was the daughter of Samuel and Mary E. (Wolfe) McDaid.  She was 28 years old when she married in 1898 and her husband, George Atkinson was 11 years older than she was.  Her first two children, my Pappap, Charles and his sister, Esther, were born early in their marriage, and then she had one more son in 1915 who was named George McDaid Atkinson. 

For a long time, I wasn't especially interested in May Atkinson.  According to what my Mom--who never met her--had heard, she was the mother-in-law from Hell and was the cause of some rocky times in my grandparents' marriage.  I don't remember Pappap ever talking about his mother, but Grandma told me once that May didn't want them to get married...in fact, according to Grandma, Pappap's mother already had someone else picked out for him to marry.  So I imagine it was a blow to her when they got their way and were married in 1926.  But I heard this story long before I was interested in my family history.  It's funny how things you learn about a person you never knew can taint your opinion of that person.  Wouldn't it be interesting to know May's side of that story?

This photograph must have been taken sometime before 1920...May Atkinson with son George, husband George, son Charles, daughter Esther, and an unknown girl.