IMElizabeth on Family Tree Circles

My maiden name is Smith. My great-grandfather, Bernard Smith, immigrated here about 1872 from Ireland. He married, but I am not sure in the US or in Ireland, my great-grandmother, Margaret Traynor, also of Ireland. They married in early 1800 in NYC and had four children, Charles J. (m. Elizabeth Burns) Bernard Eugene, (m. Gertrude Elizabeth Davis) Mary E Smith (m. William Ryan) and Anna L Smith (married William Beckerly). Anna was born in 1892 and her father died in 1893 leaving Margaret to fend for the 4 little ones. I follow her through all the census until her death in 1925.

My grandfather, Bernard, was an adventurer and could never sit still. He traveled all over the world looking for adventure. However, his start in life was very humble and he never even finished grade school. He landed good work on Wall Street and did well. Before he was married, he went off to serve in WW1. Because he had "flat feet, he could serve only as an ambulance driver. My grandmother, from Wisconsin, was a nurse and she too felt it her patriotic duty to serve her country. She also served in France. She actually served as a nurse on his ambulance and they fell in love.

Grandpa decided he wanted to marry her and so he took her to a park in Paris where he proposed to her on a park bench.
She accepted. When the war was over they went home and secretly got married in Los Angeles. Grandpa gave my grandmother the park bench for a wedding gift. Throughout all my father's growing up life and mine, the park bench sat on the lawn where they lived. When grandpa died, my grandmother had it moved to the family cemetery plot where it is maintained in the original French colored paint.

Knowing the story, I took my husband there and proposed to him...(but THAT is another story!)