Matrilineal Monday - Bertie McCain Smith

My maternal great-grandmother, Bertha A. McCain

Bertha A. "Bertie" McCain was born on January 10, 1882, in Florenceville, New Brunswick, Canada, the fifth of five children of John McCain (1835-1896) and Harriet A. Harnett (1839-1905).

Bertie, her mother Harriet, and her sister Bess

The 21 year old Bertie, on January 24, 1903, married Wylie Herbert Smith (1874-1952), a 28 year old young man from Elgin, New Brunswick, a 1901 graduate of Acadia Divinity College, and soon to be Baptist preacher. Their first child, a daughter, Evelyn Augusta (1904-1978) was born a year later.

In 1905, she and her young family moved to Maine, settling first in Portland, where their second child was born a year later, a daughter Harriet Cheney (1906-1985), later to Norridgewock, in Somerset County, and then back to Portland.

Bertie died at her home on February 24, 1930. One daughter was married and the other, my grandmother, delayed her planned wedding until later that year, allowing for a proper mourning period.

She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery, in Portland, Maine, alongside her husband.