All Citizens: Caroline Latham Perry (Wilson, Towne)
/A Look at the Life of Caroline Perry Wilson Towne
Caroline Latham Perry (Wilson, Towne) was born in Mendham, New Jersey on July 2, 1852, to Frederick Perry and Caroline Latham Perry. She joined her older sister, Mary Frederika Perry, who had been born on January 25, 1851. Both the Perry and Latham families had deep roots in both New England history and the Perry family produced several ministers who served in Congregational churches. Her father, Frederick Perry, went to medical school, serving his community both as a doctor and a coroner. The New York State Census of 1855 shows the Perry family living in New York City where Frederick Perry listed his occupation as a doctor.
Click to Enlarge: Ancestry.com. New York, State Census, 1855 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2013.
Sadly, Dr. Frederick Perry died in Mendham, New Jersey when Caroline was just ten years old. There isn’t much information about what happened with the Perry family after 1863 but in June 1870, a marriage was recorded between Caroline Latham Perry and Thomas H. Vance in Coldwater, Michigan. In August 1870, Caroline Latham Perry and her daughters were listed in the census in Coldwater, Michigan with the head of household listed as “Hallack T. Vance”, a farmer. Thomas Vance was born in Mendham, New Jersey but moved away to Cuba, New York by 1860 to run a grocery store.
Click to Enlarge: Michigan Department of Community Health, Division of Vital Records and Health Statistics; Lansing, MI, USA; Michigan, Marriage Records, 1867-1952; Film: 9; Film Description: 1873 Montcalm-1874 Hillsdale
The 1870s were a busy time for Caroline Perry and for her sister, who was calling herself M. Fredrika Perry. Caroline, also known as Carrie, married Louis Wilson, a Michigan native in 1874. Her sister was attending the University of Michigan law school where she befriended another female law student, Ellen Martin. The 1870s could be described as both joyful and sad for Caroline Perry Wilson since she gave birth to a son, Frederick, in 1876 and a daughter, Louise, in 1877 and then was widowed in 1877 when Louis Wilson died at age twenty-four.
There is a gap of information but the 1880 census revealed that the combined Perry-Vance family was now living in Lombard, Illinois. That record lists Thomas Vance as a farmer, his wife Caroline as keeping house, a daughter Mary F. Perry, a lawyer, a widowed daughter, C.L. Wilson, with her two children, simply at home, and a boarder, Ellen Martin, also occupied as a lawyer. In 1884, a DuPage County marriage record indicates that Carrie L. Perry Wilson married Henry B. Towne on January 26th. Caroline gave birth to a daughter, Mary Perry Towne, at the end of 1884.
Henry Towne, the brother of Mary Towne Claflin, served the Village of Lombard as the Town Attorney and was in business in Chicago with his brother-in-law, Isaac Claflin. Carrie was widowed again on July 26, 1885, when her husband, Henry, was found dead in his Chicago hotel room. She gave birth to another daughter, Florence Hayden Towne, on February 26, 1886. Carrie’s sister, M. Fredrika Perry, had died on June 3, 1883, and was buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
219 W. Maple Street Towne Home
In just over a decade, Caroline Perry had been married and widowed twice and had given birth to four children. She had a large house at 219 W. Maple Street in Lombard and needed to bring in an income to support herself and her children. Her mother and stepfather lived just a few blocks away, near Finley Road and West Maple Street. She offered rooms to rent in the big house and Ellen Martin, the law partner of M. Fredrika Perry, was one of her long-time boarders. She also rented rooms to the children of the late Benjamin Sweet - Winifred Sweet, her sister Minnie Sweet, and their brother Benjamin boarded here. Unfortunately, the 1890 census is not available so few records exist that show who lived in the house between 1880 and 1900.
On April 6, 1891, Caroline Towne would join 14 other women of Lombard, including her boarder Ellen Martin, and cast her ballot in the Lombard election for the town president and councilmen. Her name was listed in the newspapers as Mrs. C.L.Towne. She was almost thirty-nine years old. Her sister-in-law, Mary Towne Claflin, and her mother, Mrs. C.B. Vance, also voted in the election.
By the 1900 census, Caroline Perry Towne was living in the Maple Street house with her three daughters. Her son Frederick, now 24 years old, was living in Elgin, Illinois with his grandparents, Caroline Perry-Vance and Thomas H. Vance. Frederick Wilson died in South Bend, Indiana in 1902 of pneumonia. Her mother, Caroline Perry Vance, died somewhere between 1900-1910, but no record of her death has been discovered. Louise Wilson married James Moore in Chicago on December 15, 1903.
Florence Towne, Erie Neighborhood House
They moved to Spokane, Washington by 1920 and had only one child, Florence. Carrie’s daughter, Mary Towne, married Sydney Reed Smith on July 20, 1907, in Oak Park. They moved to Lombard and had several children. Mary Towne Smith died October 29, 1920, and is buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. Her youngest daughter, Florence Hayden Towne, never married but had an illustrious career as the head resident of the Erie Neighborhood House in Chicago, a church-sponsored establishment that provides support to people in need. Her obituary in the Chicago Tribune attributed a quote from Florence “Erie never lost a boy to juvenile court” and Readers Digest dubbed Florence Towne as the “Angel of the Alleys”. The Erie Neighborhood House is still in operation in Chicago.
Find a Grave
Caroline Perry Wilson Towne died in Chicago, Illinois on November 5, 1927. She is buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Glen Ellyn, Illinois.
Written by Jean Crockett, Lombard Historical Society Archivist
