The fate of the orphaned Bovey siblings

Three young girls who lost both parents were forced into work as knitters at a Martinsburg hosiery mill by 1910. A brother, later in life, lost his adult son in a gruesome trapeze-act tragedy.

Over a century ago, the seven Bovey siblings of Berkeley County lost both their parents within a few years of each other.

The three youngest, all girls, were eventually sent to live with a Martinsburg family and were forced into work as knitters at a local hosiery mill by 1910, when they were teens.

One of the Bovey daughters later married her late sister’s widower.

The family’s only son, later in life, lost his own adult son in a gruesome trapeze-act tragedy in Missouri. That trapeze artist, Bob Bovey (my fourth cousin), had attended Martinsburg High School.

---

When farmer Daniel "Robert" Bovey died of tuberculosis at age 37 in 1899, he left behind six daughters and a son ranging in age from 3 to 16. 

His widow, Lucy Myers Bovey, a second cousin of my grandmother’s through the Snyders, died eight years later at age 40, leaving all seven children orphaned. 

Three of them were still minors at the time, girls ages 11, 13, and 15. These sisters -- Vallie, Hattie and Martha “Pearl” -- were eventually sent to …