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Show Another young members of the was the oldest. family; Try for a 105 Home Albert who had just turned nineteen Albert, the youngest child of John Tanner by his second wife, Lydia, was orphaned when two months old, John then married Eliza beth Beswick who raised his motherless children, as well as a large family of her own. but fourteen months younger twins in size and never like than Albert, boys out who was boss around the farm. The details of what found quite transpired on the Tanner farm are not known, but in his biography, Elizabeth's oldest child, Myron, and the two Myron was were states that Albert "struck out in life for himself." No other account of this event has been found, and it is too bad that Albert, himself, has left no record of what happened. It would be interesting to know more of the details of why he felt impelled to strike out on his own. observing people know that stepchildren, stepmothers and stepfathers have special problems in their families. The stepchild All feels he is not loved try as she will the as much stepmother is as the flesh-and-blood children, and able to convince him otherwise. never When Elizabeth took over as "stepmother" in the John Tanner home, Albert was but seven months old; Elizabeth was the only mother he had ever known, and one might raise the question of why a child under such circumstances would feel he was any different in her affections than her own flesh and blood. There is abundant evidence that Elizabeth was warm and generous in all her ways. and mother is something in a stepchild relationship that baffles - a superior And wife yet there explanation. A certain amount of rivalry among children is normal as they place in society. The nearer two are of the same the rivalry, and the more likely there will keener the and size, age be strife to see who is to be top in the pecking order. seek to make their While John remained in the home, he had managed to keep manageable. But with the "call" reasonably content, to the Eastern States, Albert felt alone, and he abandoned the field to a younger contender who was "flesh and blood." Albert a was at least was no sudden impulse, nor was when John returned later that year, his presence not sufficient to bring Albert back home. He preferred to be His it or pulling out temporary thing; from the fold |
