By Betty Bray Burry
Lavinia was born in Flushing, England, February 24, 1812. She was the only daughter of William Truro and Elizabeth Ann Eddy. Her father ran the Seven Stars, an inn on the main street of Flushing facing the bay and with a view of the city of Falmouth on the other side. The Inn burned down in the late 1900s and was rebuilt. It is still an inn of sorts today with a pub on the first floor. While Lavinia had no full brothers and sisters she had a number of a siblings through her father’s second marriage. Her grandmother Catherine Truro was apparently concerned for her welfare as her will written in 1817 attests. Her children suggest that her family was well off, “My mother’s father, William Truro, kept a large hotel, called the Seven Stars, at Flushing, Cornwall, England, where my mother was raised in comparative luxury and ease (Evolution of a Life, Henry Truro Bray).” These suggestions of modest wealth give rise to curiosity about the families through which Lavinia is descended. Henry also mentions that his mother lived on the Isle of Jersey for some time in an old mansion.
She married Richard Bray on 20 June 1833 and moved with him to a farm in Chacewater (or St. Day), which is a small town in between Falmouth and Truro. As the story, “Forty Miles to Falmouth,” written by her granddaughter Mary Lavinia Bray suggests, the marriage succeeded in estranging her from her family and dooming her to an economic poverty. It is interesting to note that the 1841 UK Census lists Richard Bray as a copper miner and not a farmer.
Marriage record – Parish Kenwyn Husband Forenames Richard Alias Signed BT’s Husband Surname BRAY Alternate Alias Signed BT’s Date 20 Jun 1833 Wife Forenames Lavinia Hore Alias Signed BT’s Wife Surname TRURO Alternate Alias Signed BT’s Date BT’s Remarks
Over time most of her children moved, one by one, to work in the mines of the United States, particularly in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan and Leadville, Colorado. Her husband died in 1864 and she moved afterwards with her youngest son Joseph to be near her two oldest sons Henry Truro and Richard George in Michigan. She lived with Joseph in Marquette, Michigan until his death in 1894 and then moved in with her daughter Priscilla Painter in Negaunee, Michigan for the six years to her own death on June 16, 1900. She is buried in the Negaunee, Michigan Cemetery Plot: Lot 29 Block 31 PAYNTER PLOT.
Her granddaughter Edith Bray Currie Hooper writes about her:
Our grandmother was a proud little woman. Her father was an innkeeper in Truro, Cornwall (Truro was her family name). Lavinia Howe Truro was her given name. She was sent to finishing school, so she never learned the Cornish dialect. Her advice to me – “Remember who you are.” When I went to the library, she would invariably say – “Get me a good love story” and the librarian was always obliging. When in trouble, I always ran to her, was consoled by her loving plus a peppermint candy from a sack which she kept in her apron pocket. She had a chair by the front room window, did a lot of reading and knitting, and very little walking.
Grandma Bray was a plump little lady, about five feet tall, never did any housework, but when our mother was away on an errand, she would find an article she could wash in a basin in deep suds. When our father left this world, she went to live with our Aunt Priscilla in Negaunee, so we lost two members of our family who expressed deep affection for us. I cried, “There is no one left to love me” – remember the time and place of that cry of desolation. The two who showed affection outwardly.
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Sources: census and marriage records from Cornwall and Michigan and, research and writing of Betty Bray Burry, Thomas Henry Truro Bray.