Mary Melva Roberts
Mary Melva Roberts was born to her Father John Roberts and Mother Eliza Jane Bennett in Volusia, Florida more than 148 years ago on October 19th, 1870...
** Interesting events that occurred around the World during Mary's birth year of 1870 included...
• On January 3rd, 1870 construction of the Brooklyn Bridge begins....
• On February 3rd, 1870 the 15th Amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteeing African-Americans the right to vote is passed...
• On February 25th, 1870 Hiram Rhodes Revels, a Republican from Mississippi is sworn into the United States Senate, becoming the first African American ever to sit in the United States Congress...
• On June 28th, 1870 Christmas is declared a federal holiday in the U.S ...
• On July 19th, 1870 France declares war on Prussia hence beginning the Franco-Prussian war... Referred to in France as the "War of 1870," it was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the German states of the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia... The conflict was caused by Prussian ambitions to extend German unification and French fears of the shift in the European balance of power...
• On October 12th, 1870 commander of the Confederate States Army during the American Civil War, Robert E Lee passes away in Lexington, Virginia at the age of 63 after having suffered a a stroke two weeks earlier... Lee was also the Son of Revolutionary War officer Henry "Light Horse Harry" Lee III
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Mary's Maternal Great Grandfather, James Bennett a native of North Carolina served with the Continental Army during the American Revolution...
Mary was the fourth of six children born to the Roberts family... She had two older Sisters named Lucinda and Eliza Jane and an older Brother, Nathaniel... She also had two younger Brothers, Johnny Shephard and James ...
At some point Mary found her way across the Sunshine State to the city of Tampa... It appears as though she never married nor did she have children...
She would pass away 108 years ago yesterday on May 20th 1911.... She was just 40 years old...
Mary Melva... Beloved Daughter and Sister...