New England Families

Marion Hughes was born Maude Clarke on November 19, 1895, in
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Sometime after the 1930 Census, she
began using the first name of Marion. The 1935 Boston City Directory, reflecting the situation in 1934, records her as Marion, living with William at 1 Regent Place, Roxbury.

She was the daughter of
George W. Clarke and Elizabeth J. Aylward. Her father was from
Prince Edward Island, and her mother was from Five Islands,
Colchester County, Nova Scotia. She had two sisters, Millicent,
born in 1893, and Eva Mae, born in 1899. There is more
information in the Clarke family's file.

Maude's mother died in 1907 and her father was unable to care for
the family. Her sisters were boarding with families in Cambridge
and Arlington in 1910,[26] but Maude has not yet been found on
that census. Between her mother's death and her own marriage,
Maude lived in an Episcopal convent, with her sister Millicent
and her husband, and was living with her aunt when she met
William Hughes. (An Episcopal priest named Pole (spelling?)
figures in here somehow. He knew the Clarkes. Grace thinks the
church was somewhere "intown" (Boston). She remembers visiting
this priest when she young or in her teens. He or the church
might be connected to the convent where Maude lived temporarily.)

From other people's research I learned that there was the "Church Home Society for the care of children and young people of the Episcopal Church" in Boston at this time. They had a home for children on Joy St. off Beacon St near Beacon Hill. The person also told me that in 1910 the census did not record people in institutions.This might help explain where Maud Clarke was from 1907 until (when?) and why we can't find her on the 1910 Census.

Soon after William arrived in Boston, he met Maude's aunt and
uncle, who were childless. They introduced William and Maude to
each other and they were married not long after that.
William is listed in the Boston City Directory for 1914 to 1918.
(He may have been in Boston earlier.) He was boarding at 41
Winchester St, in 1914, and at 51 Winchester St. in 1915 to 1918.
He was working as a clerk at 90 Chauncey St. in 1914, and as a
porter at the same address in the later directories.[27]

At the time of their marriage in 1918, William Hughes was living
at 51 Winchester St., Boston. He was a shipper of books. Maude
was an employee of the Women's Educational & Industrial Union.
(This was an organization established in the late 1800's
to address the working and housing problems facing women and children.)
Interestingly, the E & I Union had opened a bookshop for children
in 1916.[28] Did William and Maude meet each other at work? Maude
gave the address of her employer, 264 Boylston St., Boston, as
her residence on her marriage record.[29] The Union might have
provided living quarters to its employees. The couple was married
by a Justice of the Peace, Albert Corey, of 44 Cortes St.,
Boston.[30]

From 1919 until 1946 (his retirement?), William worked as an
elevator operator. The family lived at 52 Melrose Street in 1919
and 1920. According to Grace they also lived on Haven St. while she was a
child. From 1929 to 1933 they were at 40 Cliff St., and from 1934 to
1940 at 1 Regent Place. From 1941 until he went into a nursing
home, William lived at 32 Union Ave, Jamaica Plain, a house that
he owned.[31]

Maude lived in Jamaica Plain, with her daughter Blanche and her
family from at least the early 1950's until the 1960's. She then
moved to Spencer, Mass., near her grandson (Blanche's son) and
his family. Later in her life, in the 1970's, Maude moved into a
nursing home in Jamaica Plain. After she fell and broke her hip,
her daughter Verly cared for her. She died in 1976 at Verly's in
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts.