Here is the household from the 1880 federal census:
Harris, Benjim, age 75 - headA census is supposed to show everyone's relationship to the head of household, but this enumerator didn't quite follow the rules!
-------, Nancy, age 70 - wife
-------, David, age 27 - son
-------, Bell, age 20 - wife
-------, Joseph, age 1 - son
Lidyck, Florence, age 10 - grandchild
Of course, Benjim should read Benjamin - but if you're writing too fast it's easy to leave out a few letters here & there. Either that or the census taker was practicing to become a doctor! But I digress ...
It looks like Benjamin had two wives - but there's no polygamy in the Harris family (at least not that I know about). Bell is the former Rosa Belle Rulong; she married David Harris who really is Benjamin's son. So that solves that issue.
How likely is it that a couple aged 75 and 70 have a one-year-old son? Not very. Since Bell is shown with her relationship to David rather than Benjamin, it seems much more likely that Joseph is David and Bell's son. That would make him grandchild no. 1 in this household.
Of course grandchild no. 2 is actually shown as such - although I believe her surname is misspelled and should be Lydick, the spelling used by most of those families in Marshall County. It's a name that has been spelled different ways down through history, including Leidig, Lidick, etc.
Who is this Florence? I believe she is the daughter of Oliver Perry and Mahala Lydick - the very next family on that census sheet. Interestingly, the enumerator spelled their last name correctly as Lydick ... go figure! This is Mahala Harris, the oldest daughter of Benjamin and Nancy Harris - so there's the connection. Perry (as he was commonly known) and Mahala lived next to her parents; so while Florence was living with her grandparents, she was still close to her parents.
As I said at the beginning, you never know what you'll find in a census record!
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