This is a tough one. Yes, it happened a long time ago, but it still warrants a trigger warning.

This story involves Dad’s side of the family. His grandfather was George Vayo, whose mother was Olive Lambert Vayo.

Olive was born in Orono, Maine, in March of 1854. Five years later, her sister Ada was born.

This is Ada’s story.

Adelaide Lambert was only six years old when her mother passed away at the age of 36.

By the time she was 10, Ada’s family moved to nearby Brewer, about eight miles away. The 1879 census showed father Joseph worked as a millman and sister Olive, at 16, keeping house.

Ada married Joseph Jean Robert Hammond on July 28, 1878, when she was 20; an immigrant from Quebec, he was a decade older than his bride. In two years, they were parents.

A dozen years later, Joseph – a carpenter – had earned himself a reputation of being a hard worker and well liked. On the morning, of December 10, 1890, Joseph headed over to the American Ice Company in nearby Hampden. It was a Wednesday.

Joseph was on a construction crew adding on to one of the ice-storage buildings. The crew was 45 feet in the air, hauling trusses into place that morning, when a two-inch support snapped and five men fell to the icy ground.

Joseph was killed instantly.

Here’s a portion of a newspaper article:

Joseph was the only construction worker who died at the scene, as heavy lumber fell and crushed his skull. A second member of the crew, Thomas Vessar, died the next day.

The story about the accident ran in newspapers throughout the U.S. and Canada. One article mentioned Joseph had been working on finishing the house his family lived in on Main Street.

A week later, a whist club made up of local teens took a collection for the Hammond family, amounting – in today’s dollars – to more than $350.

Something I haven’t yet mentioned: Joseph and Ada had seven children. Eight, actually, but little Stella died in 1888, at just two and a half years old.

Although she certainly didn’t know yet, at the time of Joseph’s death, Ada was a month pregnant. I can’t begin to imagine what that poor woman and her little ones went through.

Brace yourself, because it gets worse: Ada Hammond died in childbirth on August 17, 1891. There were now eight orphans.

All I could find in newspaper archives regarding Ada’s death was this sad, tiny blurb:

Over the years, Marietta – my third cousin once removed – pieced together stories about where those eight children went, posting notes on Ancestry.

The children of Joseph & Ada Hammond:

• Joseph Robert (1880-1944)
• Cora Josephine (1882-1967)
• Lula Eldora (1884-1970)
• Stella T (1886-1888)
• Norman Alphonse (1886-1933)
• Charles Herbert (1887-1953)
• Ellena Grace (1888-1945)
• George Ernest (1890-1960)
• Morris Joseph (1891-1960)

The children were adopted by a variety of relatives and other caring persons. From Marietta’s research, though, we learn the oldest – Joseph, 11 – desperately wanted to keep the family together. When that didn’t happen, he ran off and found work at a series of farms.

Fifteen years later, Joseph married:

In 1908, when he was 28, Joseph reassembled his siblings in their hometown of Brewer for this priceless photo:

All the children went on to marry and raise the next generation of family. I just know their parents would be very proud.

Special thanks to Marietta for contacting me with this story and sharing her years of research and photos.

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