Rebecca Town

b 21 Feb 1621, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, , England
d 19 Jul 1692, Salem Village, Essex, Massachusetts
bur 19 Jul 1692, Salem Village, Essex, Massachusetts
16 27 Mar 1922,
c 21 Feb 1621, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, , England
24 04 May 1922,
61 26 May 1943, !&		Leonard Towne
	Richard Towne	b 1540
	\| b 12 Dec 1568	Ellen Greene
William Towne	16 03 Apr 1943	b 25 Mar 1544
\|d 24 Jun 1673	\|
\| 16 03 Apr 1943	Ann Denton
\|	b 1569
Rebecca Town	16 08 Mar 1941
\|Francis Nurse		John Blyssynge
\|m 24 Aug 1644	William Blyssynge	b 1549
\|, Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England	\|b 1575	Joane Preaste
Joanna (Jone) Blessing		b 1553
b 1599	\|
d 1682

Children

1	<	John Nurse
2	<	Rebecca Nurse
3	<	Sarah Nourse
4	<	Samuel Nurse
5		Michael Nurse
6	<	Elizabeth Nourse(Nurse)
7	<	Mary Nurse
8	<	Francis Nurse
9	<	Benjamin Nurse
10		Nurse

Notes

Rebecca was in the eyes of those who knew her well the very essence of what a Puritan mother should be. Deeply pious, she was so steeped in Scripture that the country roughness of her speech - she had a Chaucerian fondness for triple negatives - was often shot through with a poetical Scriptural quality. It was not merely a matter of lugging in texts, but a deep, instinctive poetry of feeling that overflowed into her simple, pregnant speech. When Rebecca spoke it was as if one of the grand women of the Old Testament were speaking Naomi or Ruth amid alien corn (Rebecca herself remembered her birthplace, Yarmouth, England), or the beloved Rachel, or indeed her own namesake.

In her home life she had resembled the wise woman of Proverbs, and her children she had reared with loving devotion to both their spiritual and temporal welfare. Now in her old age they rose up and called her blessed, not only her four sons and four daughters, but what perhaps the super most tribute, her three sons-in-law and four daughters-in-law.

This is not to say that she was altogether a saint. Even the Bible women, as anyone can discover by examining Scripture closely, had their off days. The years had made Rebecca hard of hearing and infirm; when she was ill and did not clearly understand what was said to her, she could sometimes lose her temper.

Rebecca was one of 19 hanged as witches in the infamous Salem Witch Trials. Her trial is most often cited for the injustice of this trying period.

The night of the hanging, her family secretly removed her body from a mass grave to their family farm.

Source: 'The Devil in Massachusetts', 1989, Marion L. Starkey, p 78-84, 159-165, 175-176, 189. 'Salem Possessed, The Social Origins of Witchcraft', 1974, Paul Boyer & Stephen Nissenbaum.

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