Elnor Nelson (Jones) Batchelder (1838 - 1922)

Refresh this page to see various historical events that occurred during Elnor's lifetime.

In 1838, in the year that Elnor Nelson (Jones) Batchelder was born, on January 11th in New Jersey, Samuel Morse and two others first publicly demonstrated Morse's new invention - the telegraph. Patented by Morse in 1837, the electrical telegraph used a code developed by him and his assistant, Samuel Vail, and sent a message two miles. In 1844, Morse broadcast from Washington DC to Baltimore Maryland the message "What hath God wrought" and the telegraph took off.

In 1854, by the time she was 16 years old, the fashion house Louis Vuitton was founded in Paris by Louis Vuitton Malletier. Beginning with trunks - and soon new ingenious flat topped trunks that could be stacked - the company now produces trunks and leather goods as well as clothing, watches, shoes, jewelry, sunglasses, books and other accessories.

In 1869, at the age of 31 years old, Elnor was alive when on August 31st, Irish scientist Mary Ward, age 42, was hit and killed by a car powered by a steam engine. The car was built by her cousins. She was the world's first known casualty of a car accident.

In 1914, by the time she was 76 years old, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation designating Mother's Day, the second Sunday in May, as a national holiday to honor mothers. Anna Jarvis had championed a Mother's Day for years but Congress had joked a few years earlier that then they would have to proclaim a "Mother-in-law's Day" as well. The President who championed a woman's right to vote also created a day in their honor.

In 1922, in the year of Elnor Nelson (Jones) Batchelder's passing, on June 22, coal miners in Herrin Illinois, were on strike (coal miners had been on strike nationally since April 1). The striking miners were outraged at the strikebreakers (scabs) that the company had brought in and laid siege to the mine. Three union workers were killed when gunfire was exchanged. The next day, union miners killed 23 strikebreakers and mine guards. No one, on either side, ever faced jail time.