Lorah Standish was a third-generation Plymouth colonist, whose grandparents included names familiar to today’s school-children: Miles Standish, John Alden, and Priscilla Mullins. She was born in the colony about 1660 and married Abraham Sampson about 1680. The trouble came when her father died in 1702.

Her father, Alexander Standish, had married twice. His first wife, Sarah Alden, died about 1688 after bearing seven children, including Lorah, the eldest. It was the custom to remarry quickly—often within weeks. (If you didn’t find a suitable partner yourself, then the town government would identify one.)

He decided to marry a woman twenty years younger than himself, Desire Doty, herself the child of a Mayflower passenger. With Alexander, she bore three additional surviving children. 

With a name like “Desire” and an age difference of 20 years, you just know that this is going to have a soap-opera ending!

Well, Alexander had a will, but on his deathbed, he wrote a codicil, an amendment to the will, leaving almost nothing to the children of his first wife. Lorah's husband, Abraham Sampson, in behalf of himself, Lorah, and three other surviving daughters of the first marriage along with their husbands, contested the will stating that Alexander had promised to remember his daughters in his will. The will was upheld despite their protest. 

But . . . The story has a happy ending. They succeeded in identifying a parcel of land that had not been mentioned in the will, and successfully claimed it. Because it was not practical to divide the land, it was awarded to Lorah's brother, Miles, with the requirement that he pay each of his sisters £10 (ten English pounds)--the equivalent of about $2200 today!

In all, Desire Dotey outlived three husbands.

Lorah Standish is the 7th great-grandmother of the Moore brothers. On another line, Desire's father, Edward Doty is their 8th great-grandfather.