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.