Madeline Josephine Brown, 1901-1911 

Headstone GPS Coordinates: Location in the cemetery is unknown

Birth: 03 September 1901, Seattle, King County, Washington.

Death: 12 May 1911, Seabeck, Kitsap County, Washington

Relatives in Seabeck Cemetery: Sarah Brown

American Revolutionary War Patriots*: Possibly on her father’s lines. 

Madeline J. Brown, was born on September 3, 1901, in Seattle, King County, Washington. She was the youngest child of Sarah B. Brown, a Norwegian immigrant, and Henry M. Brown, a ship’s carpenter originally from Maine. Her birth came during a period of upheaval in her parents’ marriage: only months earlier, in January 1901, formal articles of separation had been filed between her parents, marking the end of their life together. Whether her mother was aware of the pregnancy at the time of the separation is unknown, but Josephine entered the world amid uncertainty and change.

Josephine’s mother, born Sigrid Olsdotter Brujordet in 1864 in Bismo, Oppland, Norway, had emigrated to the United States in 1886. By the time Josephine was born, she was living in Seattle under the name Sarah B. Brown. Josephine’s father, Henry M. Brown, was twelve years older than Sarah and had worked much of his life at sea. Shortly after Josephine’s birth, Henry disappeared from Seattle, and there is no evidence that he ever had contact with Josephine or her older brothers thereafter.

In 1907, when Josephine was about six years old, her mother left Seattle and relocated the family to Seabeck, Washington, seeking a quieter place to raise her children. By the 1910 census, Josephine was living there with her mother and two older brothers, Charles R., age thirteen, and William K., age ten. Her mother described herself as widowed—a common designation at the time for women who had been abandoned—and supported the family by working as a hotel cook. The census recorded that Sarah had borne five children, only three of whom were living, underscoring the fragility of family life in that era.

Josephine’s life was tragically short. On May 12th, 1911, at approximately eight years old, she died in a house fire in Seabeck. Her death certificate lists her name as “Josephine,” likely her middle name, though she had been enumerated in census records as Madeline J. Family tradition holds that she ran back into the burning house to retrieve her doll, a poignant detail that has endured through generations. While the death certificate does not specify a burial location, it is believed that her remains were interred in Seabeck Cemetery. A later descendant recalled that the house was rebuilt on the same property, only to burn down again years afterward.