Mary E. Hollensworth as born in New York in April 1883. She was the daughter of Jeremiah Hollensworth who as a barber in New York as early as 1859 and Martha E. Johnson. Albert Hollensworth, another son of Jeremiah and half-brother of Mary, married Sarah Emma Cleggett.
Mary was living with her family in Owego, Tioga County, New York in 1900, but in 1910 she was living with the Cleggett/Hollensworth family at 438 State (now 528 W. Fifth St.) and was listed as "niece."
from The Waverly Free Press and Tioga
County Record, Friday, October 22, 1909
In the 1915 Appleton city directory she is a hairdresser, still living on State St. By that time most of the Cleggett/Hollensworth family had died or moved away from Appleton.
from The Binghamton Press,
Saturday, July 24, 1915
Members of the family are listed as mulatto on the 1860 census when they lived in Stevens Point and also on the 1870 and 1880 census schedules when they lived in Appleton. However, in both the 1900 federal census and the 1905 Wisconsin census they are black. By 1910 they were back to mulatto.
Cousin Mary Cleggett's entry in the Lawrence College Alumni Record, 1857-1905 states the family is of "Scotch-Irish-negro ancestry."
By 1920 Mary Hollensworth was back in New York living with her parents and brothers; in 1930 she was living with her widowed mother and two brothers. In 1940 she was living with her two brothers, her sister-in-law, and her niece and nephew.
