Who is Mary Julia Churchward? Part 1

James Churchward married Mary Julia Stephens on December 18, 1871 in Kensington at St. Georges Church. Mary Julia had inherited her father’s tea plantations in Sri Lanka (then called Ceylon.)

Shortly thereafter in the October 15th 1872 Edition of the ‘Overland Ceylon Observer’ announced under Domestic Occurences, Births:

“At Parragalla Estate, Gampola, Oct. 9. Mary Julia, wife of J. Churchward. Esq., of a Son.”

The son mentioned is my grandfather, Alexander Churchward, whose obituary is shown below:

The sad facts I have been able to put together are:

James and Mary Julia were estranged after 1881.

James lost his wife’s tea plantations, was arrested by the authorities, and escaped dressed as a “coolie.” (the term used in the correspondence)

James’ brother Albert helped support Mary Julia and my grandfather.

My father told me that James was persona non grata at his home and not even mentioned (and Mary Julia lived in the same house for six months every year.)

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Mary Julia was an artist as well and made her living from it. The following are examples:

Here is a closeup of her initials at the bottom of her drawings:

This presentation of initials actually raises some perplexing issues which I will cover in the next part.

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As an aside, James resided with the Haier family (Mother Carolin and daughters Harriet, Pauline, Minnie and Louise) beginning in 1907. Later James received a large patent infringement settlement and “Mrs Louise (Haier) Churchward” purchased 7.22 acres on Lake Wononskopomuc in Lakeville, Connecticut in July 1914 where James, Louise, Harriet and her son, Howard Keresey lived until 1922. That year they moved to Mount Vernon, New York.