Week 38: Favorite Place: Sophia Alice Wombwell

Week 38 (September 17-23) – Favorite Place: What has been  your favorite place to research? Which ancestor came from there?

Amy Johnson Crow challenges to write about a favorite place for the 52 Ancestors theme of the week.  I’ve chosen to highlight an ancestor from Rochester, New York.  I’ve found the availability of access to records in Rochester to be terrific and that helped me to greatly advance my research there.  In particular there is one location that figures prominently in this ancestor’s life.

Title Church of the Epiphany
Date circa 1900.
Physical Details 1 photomechanical reproduction : b&w ; 16 x 11 cm. (6 x 4 in.)
Collection Rochester Public Library Local History Division picture file
Summary The Church of the Epiphany, located on Jefferson Avenue at Adams Street, began as a mission church of St. Luke’s Church. It opened for services in 1870. After 1961 it became the Jefferson Avenue Seventh Day Adventist Church.
Notes Mounted on thin cardboard. Picture caption: Church of the Epiphany.
Subjects Church of the Epiphany (Rochester, N.Y.).
Episcopal churches New York (State) Rochester.
Churches New York (State) Rochester.
Jefferson Avenue (Rochester, N.Y.).
Image Number rpf01488

Sophia Alice Wombwell was born in December 1870, daughter of Alfred Wombwell and Jane Taylor Wombell.  She was baptized at the Church of the Epiphany on 19 February 1871.  She received confirmation at the same church 30 June 1889.  In 1896, the church was the site of her marriage to Thearon Richards.  Their three children, Raymond, Florence and Edna, were also baptized at that church.

Sophia and her husband, Thearon Richards lived their lives in Rochester New York at several addresses, the final 20 or so years were spent at a small home at 19 Delmar Street.  The house, built in the late 19th century, still stands.

Sophia died on 3 January 1948, three years after her husband.  She is buried with Thearon at the Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, NY.