Kezia Ward was the oldest of the ten children of Naaman and Sarah Ward. She was named after her paternal grandmother, who was probably still living in the village of Scampton when Kezia was born.
Naaman Ward was a shoemaker, a trade he would carry on in the village until at least four years before his death at the age of 80 in 1875. It would be a good, steady livelihood but Kezia clearly wanted to make her own way in the world. In the 1841 census she has already left home and was working as a servant when she married the next year.
Her husband John Leachman had also been a servant at the time of their marriage. Probably there was no call for married servants and John found work as a labourer in Kexby near Upton. Their first child Sarah Anne was baptised there on 21st December 1843 and sadly was buried there in February 1844. (In the civil registration of her death, she is wrongly named as Kezia.)
Our ancestor Phoebe was born in the summer of 1845 and by 1851 she was living with her paternal grandparents. I have found no further records of any kind for either John or Kezia Leachman after Phoebe’s birth. Pending further research, I fear we must assume that they had both died young.
Mother of Phoebe Leachman and daughter of Naaman and Sarah Ward
Baptised on 28 September 1822 at Scampton, Lincolnshire
Married John Leachman on 1 December 1842
No record of death found