APPLEBEE, Matie and Ruby

Matie Applebee

These individual photos of Matie Applebee and Ruby Applebee were located at the Madison-Bouckville Antique Week sale in 2017. I thought at first that the name "Matie" was a misspelling of Mattie, but that was a wrong assumption. The photos were taken in Albany, New York, likely around 1905.

I believe the girls are cousins. Furthermore, the same hand wrote their names on the back of the photographs.

There are only 8 pages that comprise the 1905 New York State Census for the township of Westerlo, Albany County, New York, but both girls are located there. I start first with Matie.

Matie (spelled that way, with only one T) is age 20, works as a schoolteacher. She lives with her mother Ida (42), brother Albert (16), and step-father Peter Miller (62, farmer).

1900 Federal Census says says Peter was born in Oct 1849 and is 50 years old, so the 1905 State Census appears to have his age incorrect.  Mattie (here spelled with two Ts) was born Dec 1884. Also in the household in 1900 is mother-in-law Eliza Hannay (74).

Using Ancestry.com, I was able to determine that Matie and Albert's father was Charles H. Applebee (1853, d. 21 May 1891, age 37) who died when Matie was only 6 years old. Matie's mother is Ida Stanton Hannay (1863-1939, daughter of Ambrose Hannay and Eliza Stanton). Matie in early Census records is shown as "Mary E. Applebee."

Charles H. Applebee was a son of Gilbert Applebee (b.1820) and Eliza Trenchard (b. 1834)

(click for larger image)

From the book "Genealogy of the Hannay Family, by William V, Hannay, Albany 1913" comes the entry at left.

Matie E. Applebee married retail merchant Albert "Burt" Gibbons in 1912. She died in 1969, having spent her entire life in Westerlo, Albany County. It appears she left no offspring.

Ruby May Applebee

Ruby May Applebee, in the 1905 State Census, is 17 years old. Her father is William Wickam Applebee (52, farmer) and her mother is Hattie Cordelia (Stanton) Applebee (49, keeping house).

Ruby's father William is a cousin of Matie's father Charles. William and Charles' respective fathers were brothers.  Also the maternal line of both girls is the Stanton family.

Ruby married Henry Fish Woodruff, and lived to 1982. They had at least one child; Margaret L. (Woodruff) Seibel (1915-1983).