1860-1940
 

Back to Homepage

Agnes was the eldest child of Sarah and George Hook.  She was born on 19 March 1860 and was baptised at St Mary’s Church, Gillingham on 10 June 1860. 

She spent her early life in England before emigrating to live in New York in 1871 at the age of 11.  After her mother died, shortly after arriving in New York, Agnes was put into a home where she had to work for her room and board, until she was reunited with her father. 

Not much is known about her life until 22^nd May 1881, when she married Edward Dobbelaar in the Episcopal Church in Brooklyn.  Edward, born c1854 was a carpenter in New York City, and they continued to live there after their marriage, before moving to Edgewater, New Jersey.  The couple had five children: 

Edward, born 1882

Fred, born 1883, died in infancy.

Agnes May, (later known as May) born 1884

George, born 1886

Gertrude, born 1897 

Some time between 1886 and 1889 the family moved to Edgewater, New Jersey where they rented a house.  Between the years of 1892 and 1894 Edward built a house with the help of Agnes’s father, who continued to live with the family until his death. 

At the time they lived in Edgewater it was a small settlement on the Hudson River in the town of Fort Lee.  Edgewater was so small that it did not have a Post Office, so the family had to walk a mile up a long hill to collect their mail. 

The Dobbelaar family continued to live in Edgewater until 1923, when Agnes and Edward sold their house and moved to be nearer their daughters, who had all married and moved to Connecticut. The lived at first with May on a farm in Newton, until they bought a house in Stratford.  It was here in 1925, at the age of 71, that Edward died of pneumonia, and was buried in the family grave back in Edgewater. 

After Edward’s death Agnes sold the house in Stratford to Gertrude and her husband, and lived with them until her death in 1940, at the age of 80.  She was also buried in the family grave.
 

Edward Dobbelaar

Fred Dobbelaar

Agnes May Dobbelaar

George Dobbelaar

Gertrude Dobbelaar