Photo: Marguerite Borden at age 15. Photo, taken in
Hopkinton, New Hampshire, is from the
collection of Kenneth Schulte.
By Kenneth Schulte
(Marguerite's Grandson)
Notes from Compiler:
After Marguerite’s divorce from Robert in 1919 she became poor. Not having a lot of money but many books, she would present gifts of books to her children and grandchildren. I have fond memories of her reading fairytales to me and my playmates in the early 1950s in La Mesa. She would encourage me to repeat tongue-twisters like, “The ragged rascal ran around the rugged rocks,” and “A big black bug bit a big black bear.”
My interest in family history has been ongoing for 20 years. Probably nearly everyone who has been at it this long has experienced a strange coincidence or startling finding. I had such an experience one night in 1998 at the Mormon Family History Library in Barstow when I was viewing a microfilmed book on a Rogers family from New Hampshire. At the end of the text I found this hand-written query: “Who were the parents of Margaret Rogers who married Capt. Samuel Borden of Fall River, who sailed the schooner “Nye” to the West Indies?” I was astonished because the query was the very question I was trying to answer, and because it was written by my grandmother, Marguerite (Borden) Head! Although the query wasn’t signed, I know it was hers because the hand writing was a match (Uncle Vic agreed) and she was the only grandchild of Samuel Borden, so no one else would be interested. I wonder what the odds are that a book my grandmother (a librarian in New Hampshire) had written in would be the one chosen for microfilming? Years later I found the answer to that query but only after meeting a distant cousin on the internet who knew what happened to the parents of Margaret Rogers and her sister, Catherine. Oh, the conversations I could have with my grandparents if they were still living!
By necessity there is some overlap between this manuscript and the articles submitted by my Uncle Vic Head. However, I have tried to keep duplication to a minimum.
Kenneth Claude Schulte – January 2010
The Family of Marguerite Borden Head and Robert Head
Photographs from the Collection of Ken Schulte
Poetry by Marguerite Borden Head - Pen Name Zuella Sterling
Vic Head
Zuella Sterling
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