Elizabeth Maria Tinker Sibley (1815-1903)
While Hiram Sibley followed the well-work path of industry and politics, his wife, Elizabeth Maria Tinker Sibley was more comfortable within the familiar realms of female philanthropy – church, education, and health care. While it is her husband, her son, her daughter and grandchildren who have received the most attention over the years, the example Elizabeth Sibley set within her own life influenced her family considerably in their behavior and their legacy. Never backing away from someone in need, her days were filled with doing for others and putting family, friends, and neighbors first. It is as though she read the verses from Proverbs 31 describing the woman of valor, and determined to live her life in pursuit of that biblical ideal: A woman of valor, who can find? Her worth is far above jewels… She opens her hand to the needy, and extends her hand to the poor.
Rochester was the base of most of Elizabeth Sibley’s activity, but she traveled far afield with family and friends. At a time when travel was uncomfortable and fraught with danger, she took extended trips to Europe at least three times (once to assist her daughter Emily’s childbirth in Nice), went back and forth to New York City regularly, and hardly a summer went by that she did not visit family in North Adams, Massachusetts. Interspersed are visits to friends and family in Ohio, trips to Saratoga Springs, and elsewhere. In between trips, she presided over a busy home and multiple philanthropic community organizations. Her July 12, 1903 obituary in the Democrat & Chronicle is filled with resonant phrases and sentences that give words to a life well lived.
“A personality of rare power and loveliness…”
Surely this is what Hiram Sibley saw in eighteen-year-old Elizabeth Maria Tinker of Adams, Massachusetts (now North Adams). Daughter of Giles and Zilpha Tinker, she was born in 1815, grew up in a prosperous manufacturing family and threw her lot in with Hiram Sibley when she married him in 1833 and moved to Livingston County in Upstate New York. Sadly, both parents died that same year, her father in Florida where he had gone for his health, and her mother seven weeks later in Massachusetts. Deprived of parents at such a young age, she poured herself into the role of a loving wife and a parent to four children. Although she married a strong and powerful man, she was never cowed by him and indeed he thanked her quite often for her taming influence. Their correspondence overflows with expressions of tenderness and mutual respect. A letter from April 19, 1863, marking thirty years of marriage, is typical:
My own Dear Husband, I have mourned your absence very much, since you left, and my beautiful bouquet speaks for you constantly….I hope to have a letter from you, I would like to hear how all are at home, and then tis such a comfort to hear from my own blessed husband, I love you dearly you know its so, thirty years (how short the time appears) we have gone on hand in hand, with me the love has been growing stronger, and more enduring, I sincerely hope and pray it may continue to increase until the end….
“She passed the last years of her life surrounded by a group of children, grandchildren and friends who made her the center of a ministration of love which was as beautiful as it was abounding…”
Elizabeth Sibley created a loving home for her four children. As her husband, Hiram, traveled incessantly on business, she was the stable rock of her own household as well as being a sister and mother figure for many others. Louise Sibley was born to her parents, Elizabeth and Hiram, in 1833, the first year of their marriage, followed eight years later by Giles, who lived for only two years. In 1845, Hiram Watson Sibley was born, whose middle name was a tribute to his father’s longtime friend and business partner, Don Alonzo Watson. Emily, the baby, was not born until 1855, when her oldest sister Louise was twenty-two and her mother, Elizabeth, was forty. In 1868, Louise Sibley Atkinson died of tuberculosis, leaving behind two young children who, with their father Hobart, were welcomed into the large Sibley home at 220 (now 400) East Avenue in Rochester. Frequent trips to North Adams cemented close ties to Elizabeth’s extended Tinker family; as the older sister, Elizabeth had a close and enduring relationship with her youngest surviving sibling and only sister, Harriet Tinker Tyler. Harriet’s daughter Elizabeth became Elizabeth Sibley’s companion in her old age.
The devotion and dedication that are expressed in letters to and from Elizabeth Sibley from family, friends, and acquaintances would be hard to surpass. Writers were eloquent in their description of her impact on them. Her son-in-law Hobart Atkinson referred to her as “Mother” long after Louise, his wife and Elizabeth’s daughter, had died, and well into his own old age. To her daughter Emily, she was “Mamakins.” Her son’s tutor, Myron Peck, wrote from Germany on June 3, 1865:
I thank you very much for your kind letter and never shall stop being obliged to you for all your thoughtful kindnesses. You almost spoil me for living in the world, by showing what the world might be, if every one did as much as you do to promote the happiness of others. You have quite spoiled me as I told you you would, and I find myself often wishing I could live where I could feel some of the cheerfulness that you reflect on those around you, reflected on me.
Elizabeth Sibley’s friends were from all walks of life and all age groups. One young woman in particular stands out, Emeline Moulson (c.1831 – 1863). The Moulsons were neighbors of the Sibleys on Clinton Avenue in the 1850s and 1860s. Their mother had died, and it was only natural for Elizabeth to take them under her wing, to shop, to sew, to spend evenings together. Her 1850-51 journal attests to that friendship, given to her by Emeline and inscribed:
In after scenes - when turning to survey
The happy joys of many a well spent day
If on this page thou chancst to rest thine eye
Recalling scenes of pleasure long gone by.
Pause ere you turn the leaf and briefly lend
A transient recollection to your early friend
Emeline
“She had a religious character of singular strength and sanity.”
At least five churches were the beneficiaries of her strong belief that religious institutions were fundamental to the common good, and particularly those of the Episcopalian denomination. St. John’s in Honeoye Falls, St. Paul’s in Rochester, St. Andrew’s in Rochester, St. John’s in North Adams, Massachusetts, and the Methodist Episcopal Church in Sibley, Illinois were built, furnished, or supported by her and her family. She was a confidante of ministers, who sought her financial and spiritual support and turned to her for guidance. She wrote movingly of her faith, attended services regularly and with dedication. After moving to Rochester, she joined St. Paul’s church, but observed that its wealthy congregation did not appear to require her time or resources to the degree that a poorer church would, so she affiliated, along with her daughter Emily and granddaughter Marie, with St. Andrew’s Church in what is now called the South Wedge of Rochester. There, her gifts ranged from elegant ritual objects to very practical donations of food.
Her 1850-1851 diary often expressed her deep faith and the solace she derived from it in confronting the precarious nature of mortality. For example, on November 1, 1850, she writes of a point made by the minister in church: “[He] mentioned for a theme of meditation those of our own acquaintances who by example or precept have guided our feet in childhood whose example had made us what we are, to write their names upon our hearts, how nice the forms and features of my beloved parents rise before me, who would wish to live if they had not Hope and Memory, to cheer them, the hope of meeting those dear Friends in another and a better world, and Memory, like the gentle dew, to keep alive the remembrance of what has passed, and the days, months and years that was spent in their society. They have gone to their rests, whilst I am left a little longer, if I am but prepared when the change comes all will be well, ‘Which may God grant for his dear son’s sake.’” pp. 16-17
“She gave freely without regard to denominational or race lines to every good work… What she did personally and privately will never be known. She herself did not know, for as soon as she did a thing she forgot it…It was one of her characteristics that she could be equally at home with the highest and the lowest. She was, in the best sense of the word, a lady. It came natural to her to do the right thing in the right place and in the right way.”
Nineteen-year-old Fannie Danforth, writing in her journal, October 7, 1866, stated,
“Mrs. Sibley is a lovely woman. I think the more one knows her the more one loves and respects her.” [RMSC 2001.79 Volume 2, Page 15]
Her compassion extended well beyond her own socioeconomic class. A series of letters from 1851 document Mrs.Sibley’s kindness to a young woman in Honeoye Falls, NY, who had delivered a child out of wedlock. It may be assumed that for someone as upright and pious as Elizabeth Sibley, the young woman’s predicament would be shameful. Yet, she did not hesitate to visit her, bring nourishing food, and kiss her – indeed, to treat her according to the religious precepts in which she so firmly believed. The young woman wrote:
Dear Mrs. Sibley, I have embraced the first opportunity afforded me, by returning health, to answer your kind letter. I thank you very much for the present that you sent me when we received it, I could eat scarcely anything, and the crackers, and cranberries tasted very nice. I have now a good appetite, and am rapidly gaining strength. My poor little baby is well. You ask what I intend to call her, we have named her Alice Mary. I should like to have her baptized as soon as I can, and I hope that by the blessing of Divine Providence, I may be enabled to so to train her that she may indeed become "a Child of God, and an Inheritor of the Kingdom of Heaven." Father and Mother say they will love my little Alice as dearly as if she was their own child, and indeed I do not know what I should have done, had it not been for my dear Mother, she has had to work very hard since I have been sick, and when I was low-spirited and desponding, she would talk to me cheerfully of the future and encourage me with visions of happiness, that I fear will never be realized, for how can I ever be happy again. Although my friends come to see me and invite me to visit them, yet I feel that they cannot respect me as they have done. I have deeply sinned, but I trust I have sincerely repented, and I hope I shall be forgiven by my savior, who has promised to forgive, all who truly turn unto Him. I hope that you and the rest of the family have quite recovered from the effects of your late illness. Mother and Father send their respects and believe me dear Mrs. Sibley, Gratefully yours, E. A. Davis [Elizabeth A. Davis, Honeoye Falls]
February 10, 1851 D.226 Sibley Papers Addition Box 10 Folder 33 John and Elizabeth Davis to Elizabeth Tinker Sibley 1851
And from Elizabeth Davis’s brother, John A. Davis, on January 12, 1851:
Dear Madam, I cannot describe the emotions of gratitude I felt when I learned from my much loved sister of your very kind visit to her and although she has erred she still can appreciate and feel perhaps more sensibly than ever. I have taken the liberty to enclose to you the letter she wrote me telling me of your very kind attentions by which you will be better able to judge of her feelings than I can tell you and the reason of my doing it is that you may know how much she appreciates your very great kindness and that kiss you gave her at parting was more to her than gold yes it spoke to her heart and assured her that yours indeed was the kindness sympathy and that you were still her friend… John A. Davis, on January 12, 1851 D.226 Sibley Papers Addition Box 10 Folder 33 John and Elizabeth Davis to Elizabeth Tinker Sibley
“She liked above all things to provide for the education of young men and women.”
In one of the more mysterious letters in the collections of the University of Rochester’s Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, her kindness to a young African American medical student at the University of Pennsylvania is acknowledged by him:
My dear Mrs. Sibley, It is with much joy that I write to you this letter. This time one year ago I was a very unhappy young man. Well do I remember the 13th of June 1900; as I stood at 13th and Locust streets waiting for a car to carry me to the depot. I saw the members of my class leaving the Academy of Music which is situated at Broad and Locust Sts. They were leaving with happy hearts; but I a depressed and defeated student looking on with tears in my eyes and with a sad heart. Thanks to my Heavenly Father that such is not the case this time. This afternoon I am one of the most delighted fellows that walks the streets of Philadelphia. I tried so hard to present you with such good news last year but defeat in spite of me stood in my way. That day was you and with your kindness and prayer, I have come out victorious… Using the expression, I certainly had to rough it until I through Providence met you. When I look back I think what would have become of me if such had not have occurred…Accept my best wishes for your good health and thanks for kindness to me during this term in school. From your faithful student Hiram [Hiram Tobias Williams] 12a:7 D.226 Sibley Papers Addition Hiram Tobias Williams to Mrs. Sibley
The letter goes on to mention an upcoming trip to England for Dr. Williams and an African Caribbean colleague, paid for by Mrs. Sibley. It remains unclear how she and these young physicans met, and exactly what role she played in raising Williams up from despair – perhaps financial, perhaps spiritual – but in any case, this letter remains as one outstanding example of her characteristic actions that made all the difference between success and failure.
“She was never a patroness, never a lady bountiful. What she gave, she gave as a mother gives to her children, freely because it was her pleasure so to do…She never caused those who served her to feel that they were her inferiors; on the contrary she had the rare tact to make them think that she was the one who was in the lower place and that they, by their service, were conferring a benefit upon her.”
In addition to caring for her husband, children, grandchildren, siblings, nieces, nephews, and friends, Mrs. Sibley assumed leadership roles in a number of service organizations, among them the Episcopal Church Home, the Industrial School, and the hospitals. Her responsibilities for the Church Home required her to take two week shifts during which she and another Lady Visitor oversaw the welfare of the elderly women and the children who were residents of the Home, which ranged from seeing that there was adequate food and medical care to reading and praying with residents. The founding of the Rochester Homeopathic Hospital, which became the Genesee Hospital on Alexander Street, was credited to her. The story is told that she saw a woman fall in front of her home in 1887, and had her coachman drive the woman to the closest hospital, which was on the other side of town. In that moment, Mrs. Sibley realized that there was a need for a hospital on the east side of Rochester, and that she would make it happen. She supported the hospital in multiple ways following its founding, including serving as the President of the Board of Supervisors from 1888 until near her death in 1803.
“In such lives as that of Elizabeth Tinker Sibley we find the solution of every problem that vexes our human life. “
While Elizabeth Tinker Sibley often acknowledged her faults to her husband as well as her struggle to do better, to her family and her community she was a shining example of generosity and goodness. At her death, Reverend Algernon Crapsey eulogized her in this way:
Not only the City of Rochester, but the Church of God without regard to name, the aged and the young, the poor and the rich, those that are near and those that are far off, mourn to-day the loss of a friend and find this world less of a world to them because Elizabeth Maria Tinker Sibley is dead.