Family History
Harriet Wheeler Pierson was born in 1874 on her family's farm near Florida, New York. She attended Mount Holyoke College from 1891 to 1894 and graduated from New York State Library School in Albany, New York, circa 1898. While working at the Lenox Library in New York City, she and her cousin, Mary Wilson MacNair, accepted positions as catalogers at the Library of Congress, beginning those jobs in June 1900. Harriet also wrote and edited several publications relating to her work, including Rosemary; Reminiscences of the Library of Congress (1943) and Guide to the Cataloguing of the Serial Publications of Societies and Institutions (1931). After a career spanning over four decades, Harriet retired from the Library in 1942. She died in 1966.
Frances Lupton Pierson Rioch, Harriet's sister, was born in 1870 near Florida, New York. Frances attended Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts, between 1887 and 1891. Frances worked as a teacher at Mount Holyoke for several months in 1892 and also taught at the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute in Hampton, Virginia, from 1892 to 1894. Frances later worked as a nurse from about 1897 to 1900 in Orange, New Jersey. In 1902 she married John M. Rioch Sr., from Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. The couple operated a farm near Florida, New York, from 1902 until 1912, when they purchased a farm near Pine Island, New York. The couple had five children: Stephen P. Rioch, Isabel Kirk Rioch Phillips, Katherine Rioch Layton, John M. Rioch Jr., and Mary Rioch Pace. Frances died on July 14, 1949, in Warwick, New York.
Katherine Frances Rioch Layton, daughter of Frances, married Gerald Layton in 1933. They operated a farm near Pine Island, New York. Katherine was a teacher and homemaker. At her death on April 17, 1984, Katherine lived in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.
Phebe Ann Dusinberre Pierson, homemaker and mother of Harriet and Frances, was born in 1841 in Warwick, New York. She married Stephen Day Pierson in 1864. Stephen and his brother, Wilson, purchased adjoining farms in Pine Island, New York. Phebe died in 1900.