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Note: Mary Ledbow (or Lebdew, or Hendin, or Gendina, or Liebeding), the first wife of William Surenok, was my grandmother. Believed to be the daughter of a wealthy livery-stable owner in St. Petersburg, or of a granary dealer in Kiev, Russia, she fled to America with her husband and, it is said, his brother, during World War I.
There were never any stories told by my grandfather or my mother about this woman, who died in 1934. I have nothing to add to her life story than questions. It was as though she had never existed. I only learned of her accidentally, when I came into possession in recent years of what I believed until very recently was her portrait. I have since uncovered what I am much more certain are portraits of her, one taken in Russia in about 1915, in which she poses, well-dressed and confident, with a young man and an older woman, and the other, in about 1928, a family snapshot of herself, her husband, and my mother at about age 6. That is the only evidence that exists today, to my knowledge, of her life other than her grave marker and her name and pertinent information on my mother's Birth Certificate. I also have a copy of her Death Certificate. She died of a post-operative embolism, two weeks after a miscarriage which had occasioned a hysterectomy. Nevertheless, for whatever reason, I was told when I once asked, and accepted as truth, that she had died of cancer. Why the obvious attempts at concealing the truth?
The portrait I always took to be of my grandmother shows the same calm, serene eyes that are common on my mother's side of the family, and so I take it that this woman may perhaps be Mary's mother. That portrait, included here, shows a beautiful young woman, hair upswept in a complicated style, with captivating eyes and a calm, serene expression on her face. I wonder who she really was? The old-style clothes and hairstyle almost make certain my assumption that this woman, about 20 in the picture, could not have been my grandmother. That woman would have had to been born in about 1870 or so, and we at least know that Mary was born in 1894.
The copy of Helen's Birth Certificate indicates that Mary and William had six children, yet only three (William Jr., Sophia, and Helen) are known to have lived. There is a record in the LDS files of a daughter, Amy, born 8/26/1919 in Indiana, but she must have died very young (this is on film #1760854, and lists Mary's maiden name as Gendina). The date and location of their wedding, as well as the birthplace and dates for the other two children are unknown, probably lost forever. My cousin, Nancy Wiggenhorn, has claimed information that the Ledbow family may have been Jewish. If that and other pertinent information can ever be confirmed or denied, I will happily revise these notes to reflect the truth.
According to notes by Joseph A. Seiler, dated January 22, 1966:
'Mary was a tall, strong woman who had employment as a domestic in Cincinnati with the Nicholas Klein family, who were well-known political figures there. She died in the Cincinnati General Hospital (note: her Death Certificate says Jewish Hospital instead)...'
Even that much may be in dispute: William Surenok was a rather short man, and the family picture I have shows his wife top be even shorter than he was. Take a look and judge for yourself...
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