Lottie Mandana Nickerson was born on 20 July 1895 in Township No. 32, which was west of Great Pond in Hancock County, Maine. Today, that area is referred to as the unorganized territory Northwest Hancock and as of the 2020 census, there were only two people still living there. Her father was Charles Henry Nickerson and her mother was Mary Eliza (Jackson) Nickerson. Lottie's middle name came from her father's mother, Mandana (Silsby) Nickerson. Her parents were married in 1887 and had four children, but Charles and Mary don't live together on any of the census records from 1900 forward. They appear to have still been married in 1920, but divorced by 1930.
Here's Lottie's birth record:
On the 1900 census, Mary Nickerson was working as a housekeeper for Walter H. Madden in Township No. 32. Her four children were listed as boarders. I have not been able to find Charles anywhere on the 1900 census. This one page lists the entire population of Township No. 32 at the time!
By 1910, there was not much growth in Township No. 32 and Lottie was related to most of the people living there. Mary was still a live-in servant for Walter H. Madden, but Charles was living in the township and his three youngest children were living with him. Lottie's oldest sister, Grace, had already moved out and started her own family nearby with Tobias McIninch. Here's an image of the census record from 1910:
In the summer of 1914, Lottie worked for her sister's brother-in-law, per this blurb in the town of Great Pond, Maine's local news in the Ellsworth, Maine newspaper, The American.
On 30 September 1914, Lottie married Harold Norman Archer from nearby Plantation No. 33, Maine. The wedding took place in Old Town, Maine. The marriage record says Lottie was 20, but she was actually only 19. Here's their marriage record:
Here's a mention from the local Old Town news section of the Bangor Daily News:
Another mention in the Great Pond local news section of The American:
Despite their friends' wishes, the marriage would not end well.
Lottie had two daughters: Alice Maude Wright and Ada Margery Archer. Lottie gave birth to Ada in Township No. 32 on 19 December 1917. Alice was born in nearby Myra, Maine six months earlier on 5 May 1917 to parents William James Wright and Anna Larson. I do not know the story of how/when/why Alice became Lottie's daughter, but in Alice's 2002 obituary it says "a daughter of William Wright and Lottie Carson." William's 1951 obituary also lists Alice amongst his five surviving children. I can't find ANYTHING definitive about Anna Larson, but my best guess is that she didn't stay in Alice's life.
It appears that Lottie fostered Alice when she was still a baby, based on this October 1918 mention in the Great Pond local news mentioning her "little ones":
I have had no luck finding the Archer family on the 1920 census. Presumably, they were living in Milford, Maine in late 1918 based on the article above, but I couldn't find them on the census there. I also can't find them in Old Town even though there's a Harold N. Archer listed as a newly registered voter there in this Old Town local news item from March 1919:
By 1925, Harold was almost certainly a resident of Plantation No. 33 again. He was listed as the assessor there at the 1925 town meeting and in October 1925, it was listed as his residence when he served jury duty in Ellsworth. In January 1926, Harold moved to Boston to attend Suffolk Law School, which was founded by his older brother, Gleason Leonard Archer Sr. It appears that Lottie stayed in Maine with the girls.
Things got very ugly for the family in 1927. Harold accused Lottie of adultery with seven different men (six of whom he could name) and their divorce trial was covered by all the major Maine newspapers: the Portland Press Herald, the Bangor Daily News, the Lewiston Evening Journal and even the Biddeford Daily Journal. The three day trial took place in Bangor, Maine, so to reduce redundancy, I'll just post the articles from the Bangor Daily News.
As stated in the previous article, the judge granted the divorce based on cruel and abusive treatment. Here's the resultant divorce record:
Harold remarried less than a year later, wedding Ruby Winifred Richardson in Pelham, New Hampshire on 16 June 1928.
Lottie married George Henry Carson on 29 August 1929 in Albion, Maine. George had lost his wife five years earlier and was raising six children. They moved to Thorndike, where the family of ten was listed on the census on lines 77–86:
Ada Archer married Raven descendant Henry Boulter on 27 April 1937. I'm not sure where Alice was living on the 1940 census, but Lottie, George, and the three of his children that hadn't yet married and moved out are on lines 9–13 in the following image:
Alice Wright married Norman Nadeau 19 June 1943 in Old Town.
By 1950, George and Lottie were empty-nesters and still living in Thorndike at the time of the census. See lines 14 and 15 in the image below:
After George passed away in Thorndike on 5 May 1963, Lottie lived in a trailer in Knox on her daughter's Ada's property until she suffered from a stroke. After that, she moved north to Stillwater, Maine and lived with her sister-in-law and her husband, Mabel and Norman Ogden. Lottie died at the hospital in Bangor on 7 March 1972. Her obituary:
Lottie was buried in Stillwater Riverside Cemetery in Old Town.
If you see any mistakes or know of information that isn't included here, please