Elizabeth J. (Bessie) Duffy was the third child and oldest daughter of Francis W Duffy and Margaret Duffy. She was born on July 14, 1879 in Fairview, Butler County, Pennsylvania, at a time when her parents had probably followed her uncle W.G. Duffy from Lockport, New York to Pennsylvania’s oilfields. Her family moved to Allentown, New York when she was a young child, then back to Lockport, New York by 1892, where they lived at 474 Hawley Street. By the time of the 1900 U.S. Census, she was working as a clerk.

On November 27, 1905, she married Edward Marvin Cummings (b 1877) in Aurora, Erie County, New York. Edward was the son of a bookkeeper. He graduated from the Buffalo School of Pharmacy on May 4, 1900 and obtained his pharmacist license. For a time he worked for Hosmer Pharmacy in Buffalo. In 1905, with another pharmacist, George H Sprague, he purchased the pharmacy of a deceased pharmacist and established the Sprague & Cummings Pharmacy on East Main Street in East Aurora,

Elizabeth has no employment listed in any census after her marriage.

The couple had no children and lived their lives together near the pharmacy.  Edward died on October 11, 1963. Elizabeth lived almost exactly seven years after his death. She died on October 10, 1970.  They are buried next to each other in the Oakwood Cemetery of East Aurora.

Patrick Duffy (b 1812) + Elizabeth Dillon (b 1818)
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Margaret J Duffy (b 1850)+Francis (Frank) W Duffy (b 1855)
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Elizabeth (Bessie) Duffy (b 1876)

Sources for this post include:

American Druggist and Pharmaceutical Record, Volume 47, American Druggist Publishing Company, 1905, p 21. Found online 14 February 2018 at https://books.google.com/books?id=7NEAAAAAYAAJ&lpg=PA21&ots=kQepTIyblI&dq=Edward%20M%20Cumming%20pharmacist%20East%20Aurora%20New%20York&pg=PA21#v=onepage&q=Edward%20M%20Cumming%20pharmacist%20East%20Aurora%20New%20York&f=false

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