To Them Were Born Ten Children

Its been a while since I've blogged along with Amy Johnson Crow using her 52 Ancestors prompts. I'm  having a few set backs after my hysterectomy and that has given me a little (a lot) of sit down time. This morning, when I opened my email from her, I saw that this week's prompt is Ten.



A few months ago while recouping from surgery, I came across an excellent resource for old Texas Newspapers from Texas Tech University. It is part of their digital repository of the Southwest Collection/Special Collections Library. In the past I had often turned to The Portal To Texas History for newspaper collections, as well as Newspapers.com  but was always disappointed in the lack of information I could find on my Texas family. This new resource though, has provided so many articles about my RUTHERFORD, JONES, NALL and FOSTER ancestors that lived in the Foard and Knox County areas.



Today I want to share with you the obituary of my 2nd great grandfather, John Thomas Nall. It can be found in the July 18, 1946 publication of The Knox County Herald. As you may notice, the heading of the article gives his middle initial as F but as you read the obituary you'll see that's a typo. It has been my experience that there are often small errors in newspaper articles, but they are great to use along with other records. A few other errors in this obituary are Ophelia's maiden name -- it's actually RICH. According to their marriage certificate they were married Aug 1882 not March 1884.



Another error is her death date. According to her Death Certificate, Ophelia died from cancer of the nose and face on 27 January 1935, not 1937. My great grandfather, Benjamin Rufus was the informant.





John's obituary states that he and Ophelia had ten children. I believe this statement is free from errors. Using census records, that is the amount of children I have attributed to them as well.

In 1900 this family was living in Rockwall, Texas. Ophelia is reported as having given birth to 7 children with only 6 surviving. There were only 5 children listed in the home because the eldest, Emey, had recently married a Mr. Preston Zachary. Also living in the home is Ophelia's younger brother Orville. The deceased child is said to be Charlie Nall b 1894. I'm not certain where that information came from, but I think it was from genealogy information my great Aunt Dean gave us one year at a family reunion years ago.






In 1910 the family was back living in Collin County. Ophelia is the mother of 10 only 7 are still living. New additions to the family are Roy, Mollie and my ancestor, Benjamin. Emey is still alive and well living with her family in Rockwall. James can no longer be found. Minerva is now married to Mr. Robert Ross and living in Collin County as well. Else is also living in Collin County and is now married to Mr. John Anderton. James A is now going by Archie and Ethel can no longer be found.

I have searched all the different ways I could come up with for obituaries for Ophelia and these three children and can't find any article mentioning their deaths or any death record at all for the children. John's obituary says that four children preceded him in death. The fourth child is  Roy Nall who died from complications associated with surgery and typhoid fever in Oct 1926. He was only 26 years old and was the father of two young children.



If anyone has any information on these missing children, I'd love to hear from you.

Until next time,
Becky