Brown, Louise M.

Louise M. Brown (b.1903)

Marlborough, NH

Louise M. Brown was born about 1903 in the District of Columbia. Sometime in her late 20s, Brown found work as a domestic servant for a private family in Marlborough, NH.  The 1930 census indicates that Louise Brown, a 27 year old woman of color, resided within the household of Fred D. Hemenway at 214 Pleasant Street, where she is listed as a “patient.”  At the time, she was single and could read and write.

Fred D. Hemenway was the founder of the  Minnewawa Manufacturing Company in Marlborough, New Hampshire. The factory was a woven label weaving manufacturer that is still in existence,  although the company relocated to Tennessee in 1939.  Fred D. Hemenway remained in New  Hampshire until his death in 1956.  

It is presumed that Louise Brown worked as a domestic servant within the Hemenway household.  If she was a patient, it might have been under the care of one of the Hemenway daughters. Both Mary E.  Hemenway, age 27, and Ruth E. Hemenway, age 34, were noted as trained nurses on the census.  Brown did not remain in the Hemenway household into the 1940s. 

Many women were named Louise Brown in the D.C. area in the 20th century.  It is unclear what happened to the woman who lived in Marlborough, NH, before or after her enumeration in the 1930 census.

SOURCE MATERIALS

U.S. Federal Census, 1920, 1930, 1940- Ancestry.com

New Hampshire Vital Records, Deaths, Marlborough, 1956- Ancestry.com

GENEALOGICAL SUMMARY

LOUISE M. BROWN was born in 1903 in Washington, D.C. Her father was from Virginia and her mother from D.C.