Why leave one child behind?

[KitHannay]

Hi all,

Looking into someone's family history and have come across something curious. I have a family - the Wickhams. Father is Thomas and mother is Catherine. They were married in Roscommon, Ireland in the 1860s. They then had four children: Thomas (1868), Eliza (1872), Anne (1875) and Andrew (1877).

In 1883, I have a passenger arrival document into the US for Catherine and three of her children: Thomas, Eliza and Andrew. I assume husband Thomas was already in the US setting up and preparing for his family to join him.

But it seems as though 8-year-old Anne was left behind. Her parents had one final child, Margaret, in the US in 1887.

Matriarch Catherine died in 1893 and in 1899, then 24-year-old Anne emigrated to the US (I assume to her family?) She married a fellow-Irishman later that year. They had three children in America before moving back to Ireland and having a fourth here.

But my question is, why would her family have left her behind when they all went to the US? I suppose she could have been sick ad unable to travel? Would there have been other reasons?

[aghadowey]

She might have been ill (or just poorly from birth) or perhaps stayed with a relative (grandparent, childless aunt, etc.). Does the passenger manifest list name of nearest relative in home country?

[shellyesq]

https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:JXZQ-H65?lang=en

If this is her on the passenger list, she was going to join her father in Worcester, Mass.

The person above her on the passenger list was also going to Worcester, so it may be the Paul McLoughlin that she married about 6 months later.  https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:N4C1-WKW?lang=en

[Alison55]

The "child left behind" phenomenon is not rare and occurs in many cultures.  I found an example in my own family where mid-19c Irish ancestors left their oldest son, about age eight.  Within ten years, he joined his family in New York  William Bradford, a founder of New England, left his three-year-old son behind. He also joined the family years later.  It is not difficult to find examples when you start looking.

There are multiple reasons for this seemingly strange behavior.  The child was ill or frail can be one but I suspect that it was even more common to leave one child to help the old folks until they died.  As the family in the new country became established and more children were born, the child left behind became increasingly isolated or even alienated from his/her parents and siblings. 

The grandfather (Irish) of a close friend was a child left behind.  His parents and siblings went to Australia.  He never heard from them and understandably became very bitter.  As a young man, his uncle in America sent him a ticket and got him a job.  He never forgave his parents.  Only when Australian cousins contacted my friend after genealogical research, did she learn that the parents had sent tickets and money numerous times but the grandparents in Ireland never told him.  They didn't want him to go.  He went to his grave without ever learning the truth.

A good account of one Irish woman's experience as a child left behind is in the book "Staking Her Claim, Life of Belinda Mulrooney" by Melanie Mayer and Robert DeArmond.  Belinda was a fascinating Irish woman who eventually made and lost several fortunes in the Alaska Gold Rush of the 1890s.  The earlier part of the book tells of her experience as "a child left behind".  It was, as you might imagine, not easy.