Hearty Stock

I've been impressed as I look into my family tree and see the number of ancestors who have been healthy and active well into their 80s and 90s. Thanks to Chris Dunham at Maine Genealogy Network, I have this excerpt from the Lewiston Evening Journal of December 29, 1891. Jacob Emmons is my 3rd great-grandfather. 

As I continued to research this family I found a sketch of Jacob's son, Israel F. Emmons in the Biographical Review: This Volume Contains Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens of Franklin and Oxford Counties, Maine. It said that Jacob died at the age of 87 so evidently he was active right up to the end. He was born in Kennebunkport and "bred to the life of a farmer." He moved to Biddeford and then to Greenwood and farmed in both places. The sketch says Jacob and his wife, Sarah Shepherd, were members of the Congregational Church. Jacob is said to have been a Whig and later a Republican. Jacob & Sarah had ten children including my 2nd great-grandmother, Laura Etta Emmons who married Gilbert William Yates. Their son, Estes Gilbert Yates lived until he was 93 and was chopping wood and using a wringer washer until a month before he died. I feel very fortunate to have gotten to know my great-grandfather and had him in my life until I was thirteen. I'm glad he came from such hearty stock.  

Biographical Review: This Volume Contains Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens of Franklin and Oxford Counties, Maine. Boston. Biographical Review Publishing Company. 1897.
Ancestry.com. Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of leading citizens of Franklin and Oxford Counties, Maine. [database on-line]. Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc, 2005.

Original data: Biographical review : this volume contains biographical sketches of leading citizens of Franklin and Oxford Counties, Maine.. Boston: Biographical Review Pub. Co., 1897.