Field-Stabler Family: Louisa Merritt Field (1826-1914) married Edward Hartshorne Stabler (1813-1877) in 1859. He was the son of Edward Stabler (1769-1831), an Alexandria, Virginia, druggist, by his second wife, Mary Hartshorne. Edward H. Stabler was the third child of this second marriage, and like his father and brothers, became a druggist. His uncle, William Stabler (1767-1806) married Deborah Pleasants (ca. 1763-1854), a Quaker minister, and their family removed to Sandy Spring, Md. His older sister, Mary, married John Leadbeater who succeeded his father-in-law in the Alexandria drug store. Edward H. Stabler established a drug company in Baltimore, Md.

Edward H. Stabler married first, in 1833, Mary Jefferis (1813-1857), and there were two children by this marriage, Lydia (1834-1883) and Edward J. Stabler, who died in infancy. Lydia did not marry, served as assistant clerk of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting of Women Friends (Hicksite), and corresponded with her young half-siblings. Edward H. Stabler married secondly, in 1859, Louisa M. Field; she was 32 at the time of their marriage, and he was fourteen years her senior. They lived in Baltimore, Md., until they removed to Brooklyn in 1866. They had three children: Mary Cope (1862-1869), Edward Lincoln Stabler (1865-1959) who married Elizabeth Tubby, and Louise M. Stabler (1868-1954) who married George Howard Parker. Edward H. Stabler died in February 1877 when his youngest daughter was only eight. His widow, Louisa, lived until 1914.

Louisa M. Field was the daughter of Richard Field (1793-1875) and Deborah Merritt Field (1797-1875) of New York Monthly Meeting. Her older brother, Charles M. Field, married Anna Cromwell. Louisa's parents lived on Willow Street in Brooklyn, and that is where Louisa and Edward H. Stabler lived after 1866. Louisa was descended from the Fields of Purchase Monthly Meeting. Her grandfather, Aaron Field (1764-1844), married Jane Haviland. Aaron's grandfather, Robert Field, manumitted the slave Cuffy in 1776. The family owned extensive property in Greenwich, Connecticut. Richard Field built the house on Willow Street in 1838, and the house remained in the family until 1922 when Edward H. and Louisa's son, Edward L. Stabler, and his family moved to Greenwich.

Louisa had four maiden aunts (Sarah, Ann, Eliza, and Hannah) who lived at Pine Cottage, Port Chester, West Chester Co., N.Y. Eliza Field (1801-1871) was a lifelong invalid, and her sisters wrote an account of her illness and travails. Sisters Sarah Field (1797-1879) and Hannah Field (1804-1903) kept daybooks from 1857-1879, and their niece, Louisa M. (Field) Stabler, continued this habit, maintaining daybooks from 1851-1899 and 1907-1912.

Tubby-Stabler Family: In 1890, Edward Lincoln Stabler (1865-1959), the middle child and only son of Louisa M. and Edward H. Stabler, married Elizabeth Tubby (1866-1951) in 1890. Both had been students at Friends' Seminary, Brooklyn. He was a graduate of Columbia University and worked at Manhattan Life Insurance in New York. She was the daughter of Josiah T. Tubby (1828-1909) and Phebe Anna (Bunker) Tubby (1832-1922), also of Brooklyn.. Phebe Anna was born in Boston, but was part of the Bunker family of Nantucket, the daughter of Paul and Almira (Starbuck) Bunker. Josiah T. and Phebe Anna spent several years in the late 1850s in Des Moines, Iowa.

Elizabeth Tubby was the second of their six children. Her older sister, Almira B. Tubby (1860-1926) and a younger sister, Elsie, were particularly close to the family, and Elsie Tubby maintained a close friendship with Louise M. Stabler, Edward L's sister. Elsie died suddenly in January1893 shortly before her planned marriage to Charles Woodbridge.

Edward L. and his sister Louise, or Lulu, visited their much older sister Lydia Stabler (1834-1883), who lived in Baltimore, Maryland, indicating a continuing relationship with the Maryland branch of the Stabler family. Edward L. and Elizabeth Stabler maintained an active correspondence with their children and grandchildren.

Stabler-Parker Family: In 1894, Louise M. Stabler (1868-1954), the youngest child of Louisa M. and Edward H. Stabler and nicknamed "Lulu" as a child, was married to George Howard Parker (1864-1955). Louise was in the first graduating class of Barnard College, and her husband was a pioneer in experimental zoology and professor at Harvard. George Howard Parker was born in Philadelphia and educated at Harvard. He was a founder of the Woods Hole Laboratory. Louise kept detailed journals before her marriage, from 1886-1895, and the couple corresponded regularly, receiving letters from family members. They had no children and traveled widely. Their home in Cambridge, MA, was a gathering place for students and family, and they generously funded the educations of their nieces and nephews. Louise was active in civic affairs and an expert horticulturalist.

Stabler-Brooks Family: Edward L. and Elizabeth (Tubby) Stabler had four children. The eldest of these was Eleanor Merritt Stabler (1892-1986) who in 1914 married Charles Franklin Brooks (1891-1958), who became a professor at Clark University in Massachusetts and then Harvard University. He was the director of the Blue Hill Meteorological Observatory in Milton, Mass. The Brooks family lived in Milton, Mass., and summered in Silver Lake, New Hampshire. Eleanor and her parents, together with her siblings, Anna B. (ABS), Howard Parker, who married Margaret van Alstyne, and Edward Russell Stabler who married Amna Cope, maintained an active correspondence.

Eleanor and Charles had seven children, Edward M., Margaret, Sylvia, Barbara, Edith, Norman, and Frona. Their second child, Margaret, was born October 23, 1917, and died December 31, 1997. She was married June 21, 1941, to Philip Weber Morse. They had three children; their daughter Eleanor Lincoln Morse is a graduate of Swarthmore College and the donor of the collection.