| However, the nature of this marriage deserves speculation. Fannie married William Brown, the brother of her attendant, a man a full twenty years her senior. William came from a well-to-do family of early settlers to the Sandusky (Ohio) area. Unlike Fannie's dad who was a mere tenant farmer, William's father actually owned 22 acres of farmland and in those days to own your own farm was considered a sure sign of financial success. When the dad ,William Sr., passed away in 1875 the property passed on to William Jr. and his three sisters. William worked the farm as best he could with his siblings but as the years passed by one sister married and another became a school teacher so that Bill, Jr. was forced to work harder and longer days to keep the acreage productive. Perhaps "poor" William was ready to toss in the towel when in a last-ditch effort to generate more income to run the farm he allowed his remaining stay-at-home sister Mary to work as attendant to that pathetic-looking big-footed neighbor girl on a probably sure-to-fail exhibition tour. But then much to his surprise he came to learn that Fannie was beginning to earn good money - really good money. Really, really good money! The forty-six year old William proceeded to "fall in love" and proposed marriage to twenty-six year old Fannie. But was Fannie being duped? Did she love William or was she desperate to believe that this was her best chance at a "normal" life? A woman could do worse than to marry a man with such substantial real estate, she must have thought. The disparate couple were married in late 1886. What happened then was certainly not part of the plan as William's gamble began to fail. Fannie got pregnant. |
