William M. Wayson

William M. Wayson is one of those ancestors that helps build brick walls in the pursuit of genealogy! Sure, I have been able to find plenty of information that helped me discover his contributions to my family tree such as being listed as the father in his children's birth records, and there is even a record of his marriage to Ada Catherine Dean in 1889. It's not that I'm not appreciative of all that I have found, but I want more!

William's part in building the previously mentioned brick wall comes from the fact that he is absolutely unable to be located in the 1870 census which would help me establish another generation of Wayson's. From later census information and his death certificate, I can almost say with some degree of certainty that he was born around the year 1863. If I rely completely on the death certificate, I can even go as far to say his birthday was on April 29 of that year, but then I would have to forget all the discrepancies in the census data and the fact that I have no other source for his birth. Not good genealogical practice!

Where William was born is an even bigger question. Some census years lead me to believe Ohio. Other years, Kentucky is the place! His daughter, Haley, for her father's death certificate, seemed to think that it was Campbell County, West Virginia which can be ruled out since there is no such county in West Virginia!

Without any solid clues for a location, I have searched the 1870 census for any mention of a William Wayson born about 1863 using all imaginable variations of the name. No luck! I have found a few remote possibilities, but none that seem plausible, but that's okay. I'll just keep hunting and trying all sorts of things until one day, out of the blue, some little piece of information or clue will appear that will be, without a doubt, what I have been looking for. It always happens that way. Until then, there are plenty of other leaves on the tree to shake!

A Life Cut Short - Edna B. Miller Wayson

In a previous post, I introduced you to my great-grandmother, Edna Blanche Miller. Dying at only 22 years of age, her time on this Earth was short, yet I have a little glimpse into her life courtesy of a postcard she sent to her mother. The date is not on the card, yet the picture of her with her first son, William, gives a hint that it must have been written sometime during the latter part of 1914. William was born in March of that year and the way he is posed on his mother's lap is like that of a baby who has reached about six months of age.

While the picture of them is wonderful, it is the back of the card that is priceless. On it, Edna shares a bit of her daily life. The card has been trimmed around the edges, but using context clues, I can tell with some accuracy the few words that are missing. In her note, Edna writes (I have typed it as she wrote it.)

Dear Mam and all,
Will write you a few lines to let you know we are all well and hope you are
all the seam I hav bin caning beans and am going to get 3 hundred
cucumbers to day to make pickles they are only 20 cts a hundred I am
drying some beans to
Mr Wayson has gone up the river to (?find or look? This word is cut off) work he was layed off at the locks
They hav layed off some of the men come down soon all of you a X from William

I do not know where Edna was living at the time, but William was born in Mason County, Kentucky so I am thinking that was where the family was at the time of this postcard. There are also locks present just up the Ohio River from Mason County. Her parents were probably living in Putnam County, West Virginia. I found them there in the 1910 census. By 1920, they are listed in the census as living in Dover, Mason County, Kentucky. It was possibly Edna's death that brought them to Kentucky. They were responsible for much of William and his brother's upbringing after their mother's death.

Ada Catherine Dean Wayson

Ada Catherine Dean was born in Barboursville, West Virginia on March 29, 1871. She was the first child of Stephen and Eveline (Ferguson) Dean. The family would eventually grow to have six additional children.

By the time of the 1880 census, the family had settled in McComas, West Virginia. After her marriage in 1889 to William M. Wayson somewhere in Cabell County, Ada and her husband made their home back in Barboursville. It was in this location that her eleven children were born.

With some of her children grown and living their own lives, William, Ada, and the remaining children made a move to live in Pierce Township which is located in Clermont County, Ohio where they can be found listed in the 1920 census. Ten years later, she, her husband, and one child, William Jennings, were living in Newport, Kentucky.

Around1937, Ada began suffering from arthritis and heart problems. Possibly due to her illness, she moved to Elkhart, Indiana and lived either with or near her daughter, Haley Wayson Moore. It was in Haley's home that Ada died at 12:30 on April 5, 1947. She was buried in Prairie Street Cemetery in Elkhart.

Ernest Wayson

The past couple of days I have been looking for Wayson's. They are very hard to come by unless you are related to the Wayson family in Maryland which as of right now, I can find no connection. My bad luck. My Wayson's are from West Virginia, Ohio, and Kentucky and, to be fair, over the years I have found bits and pieces of their lives lurking in the census records and old newspapers. The pieces are like a puzzle that must be put together, taken apart, then reassembled until it makes some sort of sense. One piece of the puzzle is Ernest.

Ernest was born in Cabell County, West Virginia in 1892 to William M. and Ada Catherine (Dean) Wayson. In 1912, at the age of 19, he married Edna Blanche Miller. Four short years later, Edna died of pneumonia leaving Ernest with two young sons to raise.

Pearl F. King became Ernest's second wife in August 1919. He was 26 years old while she was 30. The marriage was registered in Huntington, Cabell County, although the couple listed their residence as Campbell County, Kentucky. To this marriage, four children were born - Carl Leslie, Lillian Catherine, Alice Louise, and Thomas Ernest. The family made their home in Cabell County, West Virginia.

According to his mother's 1947 obituary, Ernest lived in Cleveland, and I am assuming Pearl lived there also. She wasn't mentioned in Ada's obituary. Pearl died in 1963 and at that time, she and Ernest were living in Bethel, Clermont County, Ohio. At the time of Ernest's death in 1970, Ernest was in Cleveland, Ohio. Thomas Wayson was the informant for the death certificate, and I am assuming that he was the son of Ernest.

Ernest is buried in Seaman Cemetery, Seaman, Adams County, Ohio. There is no headstone that I could find.

Edna Blanche Miller

Edna Blanche Miller was the daughter of Charles Wesley Miller and his wife, Mary Elzetta Cochran. Although her headstone states that she was born April 28, 1894, there has been no other record found of her birth. It is interesting to note that the 1900 Putnam County, West Virginia census has Edna's birth year as 1895. Not knowing how accurate the information is, census data can't be used as proof of an event, however, I would like to see a birth record or other reliable source before saying that I am certain her birth year is 1894.

No matter the birth year, it is known that Edna married Earnest (Ernest) Wayson. Edna's niece recalls the date as June 8, 1912. The location of the marriage is not known although West Virginia or Kentucky seem the most probable places. While Edna and her family have not been found in the 1910 census, Ernest was living in Cabell County, West Virginia at that time. Kentucky must also be considered because the Miller family did move to Mason County, Kentucky sometime between 1900 and 1920.

It is believed that Ernest and Edna were living in Mason County when their first son, William Wesley was born on March 23, 1914. Two years later, on January 16, 1916, their second son, Roy Lee was born.

Edna never lived to see Roy Lee 's first birthday. In December of 1916, she and Ernest were preparing to move. The weather was cold and Edna had been cleaning the house. She caught a cold which developed into pneumonia. She died on December 12 in Mason County. She was only twenty two years old. She is buried in Dover, Kentucky.

Ella Myrtle Nower

Described by her daughter as "little, but mighty", Ella Myrtle Nower was born May 7, 1884 into a very, for the time, affluent family. Her father, Samuel J., was a respected banker in Dover, a small town on the Ohio River in Mason County, Kentucky.

The third child and only daughter, Myrtle, as she was known, had four brothers. Earnest and Clarence were born in 1877 and 1880, respectively. Baby Samuel Judd, born February 28, 1888, lived for only four months. Myrtle's youngest brother, Paul, was born in 1890. Their mother, Phoebe Jane Judd Nower, hired a nanny to help in the raising of her young children.

In 1907, Myrtle married Frank Bernard Clark and soon started their family which would consist of six children, four girls and two boys. Her daughter, Frances, remembers her mother as a hardworking woman, "pumping water from a cistern or well, scrubbing clothes on a washboard, canning all our food, sewing clothes". While life was not as comfortable as her childhood had been, Myrtle was known to give parties where as many as seventy-five chickens were fried and served along with the commercial bought ice cream for dessert. Her younger children, Evelyn, Frances, and Irma, dressed alike for these occasions, would serve "goodies" to their guests. Other times would see Myrtle managing her family on very little. No matter the circumstances, however, her determination and strong will earned her the respect of her children and grandchildren.

Frank and Myrtle spent most of their married life in the towns of Dayton, Fort Thomas, Covington, and Dover in northern Kentucky. Toward the end of their lives, they lived on Second Street in Ripley, Ohio. It was at this residence that Myrtle became a widow on September 20, 1960. In June of the following year, with her health rapidly failing, Myrtle was moved to the Georgetown Nursing Home (Georgetown, Ohio) where she died of liver cancer on December 7, 1962. She is buried in Locust Grove Cemetery in Dover, Kentucky.

Frank Bernard Clark

On October 16, 1875, Frank Bernard Clark was born in Bradford, Kentucky. He was the firstborn of John Joseph and Belle (Stairs) Clark. By the time he was four years old, the family had moved to Grant's Lick, in Campbell County, Kentucky.

The 1890 census was destroyed by fire, and Frank cannot be positively identified in the 1900 census so there is some question as to where he was located during that time. It is known that he was in the military in the very late 1890's, but his particular place of service is unknown.

In 1907, he and Ella Myrtle Nower were married. Frank and Myrtle did not stay in Kentucky. Their first son, Richard Covell was born in Illinois on March 31, 1908. The 1910 census shows the family living in Kansas City, Missouri, although family members today believe that Juanita, the second child, was born in Indiana in September of that year.

At this time, it is unknown where the next two children, Ernest William (1913) and Evelyn Lucille (1915) were born. However, Frances Irene was born in Covington, Kentucky in 1918 and her sister, Irma Elizabeth, was born in 1920 in Fort Thomas, Kentucky.

Frank was a painter and carpenter, although it is known that he was once a marshal in the town of Augusta, Kentucky. During the early days of his marriage, the fingers of his right hand were cut off in a corn shredder late one night after a long day's work leaving him with only a thumb on that hand.

In their later years, Frank and Myrtle lived on Second Street in Ripley, Ohio. On September 18, 1960, Frank entered the Veteran's Hospital in Cincinnati. Six days later, he died there of heart failure. He was 84 years old. He is buried in Locust Grove Cemetery in Dover, Kentucky.

The Clark Family

It's hard to imagine giving birth to twelve children and having only six survive past their twenties, but that is what John J. Clark and his wife, Belle, experienced.
John and Belle were married in 1874 at the home of her father, Noble Stairs in Kentucky, most likely in Bracken County. On October 16, 1875, their first child, Frank Bernard, was born. At that time, the family was living in Bradford, Kentucky. Frank lived until he was 85 years old, dying in 1960. It is unknown where Edgar Perry, their second child, was born in 1877, although his World War II draft notice states that Franklin County was his place of birth. Nothing else has been found to indicate the family was ever in Franklin County. He died one month before his brother Frank.
In 1879, a daughter, Bessie, was born and a year later, in 1880, she and her family are listed in the Campbell County, Kentucky census. They were living in the town of Grant's Lick. In August of the same year, Bessie died and just a month later, baby Jennie joined the family. She lived until 1900, possibly dying in childbirth.
On April 11, 1882, Belle gave birth to twin boys, Omar and Homer. Little Omar lived only five months. His brother's death date is not known at this time, but from the above photograph, he was still alive in the late 1950's.
Named after his maternal grandfather, Noble Clark was born October 31, 1883. His sister, Vella, arrived two years later on February 22, 1885, but lived only a short time. She died on July 15, 1885. On September 10, 1886, Charles Taylor was born. He would live to the age of 83.
Mary Sudie Clark joined the family on March 30, 1888. She lived until November 25, 1893. Her death is possibly the one that was written about in the Kentucky Post newspaper on November 28 of that same year. The article states that the six year old daughter of J. J. Clark, of Kane Post Office, Kentucky in Campbell County was burned to death. She had been playing near a burning stump close to her home when her dress caught fire. More evidence will need to be found before it can be said for certain that this was Mary Sudie's fate.
Another boy, Carl, was born in May of 1892. He lived only until July. John and Belle's last child was Nelva Ruth. Born on May 2, 1895, she is the only daughter to have survived past the age of twenty. Like her brother Homer, her date of death is unknown at this time.
I would like to thank Ronald Clark, grandson of Edgar Perry, for some of the information about the children of John and Belle Clark.

A Kentucky Genealogy

The roots of my family straddle the Ohio River following the creeks and roads into southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky. This blog will concentrate on the Kentucky side of those roots.

The early members of these families did not, all of a sudden, find themselves living in the counties of northern Kentucky. They came from places like Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Some crossed the river from Ohio and settled in Kentucky.

Some of the families that share these Kentucky roots and will be discussed in this blog are

Clark, Dean, Judd, Miller, Nower, Stairs, and Wayson.

I look forward to sharing their lives with you.