The Storms of Vermont, part 1

My favorite ancestors these days seem to be the Storms. Originally from Panton and Vergennes, Vermont, several members of the family moved to Worcester and Boston, Massachusetts in the 1870s. Once in Worcester, the Storms and other transplanted Vermonters of color formed the Vermont Club at John St Baptist Church, one of the few Black churches in Worcester.

Hattie Storms, my great-great grandmother, was born on 8 October 1871 in Vergennes to (Jonathan) Robert Storms and Orphia Mason. She married Walter St.Clair Bostic, the son of William Bostic and Rachel Ann Steemer of Pennsylvania on 6 Feb 1890 in Boston MA. She married twice more – the marriage record to Richard Taliaferro on 20 May 1901 lists her as a Hettie E. Perkins, widow. It also lists the “Talioferro” marriage as her second when it should be her third.


I haven’t located a marriage record for Hattie and Mr. Perkins. It is possible that the marriage record is wrong and her last name was “Bostic” at the time but I think it would be difficult to mix up the names Perkins and Bostic on an official record. Another puzzle in Hattie’s marriages is what happened between her and her first husband, Walter Bostic. In the 1920 Federal census, Walter St. Clair Bostic is listed as divorced. I have not yet found that record either.

Hattie died 28 Apr 1926 and was buried by her son, my great-grandfather, Walter Andrew Louis Bostic in Hope Cemetery in Worcester, MA.

Aquene,
Cheryll Toney Holley