S.R. Durand: "Sarah (Poyntell) Relf, the widow of Samuel Relf, had in many respects quite a tragic life, in that she lost two sons when babies, three more to yellow fever when they had gone to New Orleans to enter their uncle Richard Relf's banking and cotton plantation enterprises, and another at the age of 27. Her only daughter, my ancestress Ann (Relf) Kemper, died when only 28, leaving an eight-year-old daughter [whom Sarah was compelled to bring] up. She helped to care for her two small [grandsons] as well,when they were not away in boarding school, after 1835 when their father Jackson Kemper became Missionary Baptist of the Northwest. Fortunately, Sarah (Poyntell) Relf's father and husband had left her well off, so she had sufficient income to maintain a home with servants and to educate her sons, two of whom went to Hartford College. In the summer after her husband's death in 1823, in a letter to her daughter she told of having visited Niagara Falls. In other letters, she often mentioned entertaining friends at dinners, having guests in her home for several days at a time, and visits that she made to her sisters' country homes and to New York. In other letters to her daughter, it is revealed that she often sent presents of clothing for the little children. After her daughter's death in Norwalk in 1832, she sent her servant, Sally Reynolds, to take care of the little boys until 1835 when Jackson Kemper was made a bishop. Then, Sally returned to Philadelphia. I have several letters that Sarah Relf wrote to Bishop Kemper about his children when he was in the Midwest in the years after 1835. I also have a letter that she wrote to my grandfather Samuel Relf Kemper in 1851, in which she expresses her happiness in receiving his letters from Wisconsin telling about his dear wife and their first child. This letter is written with a rather shaky handwriting compared with earlier ones, indicating that she was somewhat enfeebled by age. However, she lived until 1865 and died on September 5, 1865, within a few days of her 85th birthday. At the time of her death she had given up her home, and was living in the Misses Bullock's boarding home at 265 9th Street, near Spruce. She was cared for to the end by her old servant, Sally Reynolds. Sarah Poyntell Relf was buried in St. Peter's Episcopal Churchyard in Philadelphia."

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Record Change December 23, 1999