16 October was the 150th birthday of my 2x great grandmother, Nancy Taylor Hatton Hendricks.
Nancy was born in Crooked Creek (Rice Station) Estill County, Kentucky in 1875, daughter of Junie and Cynthia Hendricks Hatton.
Junie was a farmer, born in Estill County. Cynthia’s only sister was named Nancy and she died at the age of 33 of “consumption” aka as tuberculosis in 1856 when Cynthia was just 16 years old. Junie and Cynthia were married in Crooked Creek, KY in 1860. They had 10 surviving children between 1862 and 1881 and 4 who died in infancy. Junie died in 1881 at the age of 41, the same year their youngest son, Millard, was born. Cynthia listed “landlord” as her occupation in 1900, living with her 12 year old son in Riddell in a farm house she owned outright. Cynthia lived to the age of 93, living with her daughter Sarah and Sarah’s son’s family in Riddell, KY until 1933.
Nancy married Ed Hendricks, her third cousin, when she was 16 in 1891 in Estill County, KY. Nancy’s mother, Cynthia’s, maiden name was Hendricks, her father, Billy, is the son of Conrad Hendricks who was Ed’s great grandfather. I’ve written a post on Ed previously. They had eleven children between 1896 and 1917, my great grandmother Bessie being their eldest. In 1900 they lived in Bear Wallow, Kentucky, but in 1902 had moved to Richmond KY. Around 1914 they moved to McLean County, settling in Danvers first, then moving on to Deer Creek. Their last two children were born in Danvers.
Ed was a farmer who listed his highest grade completed as 3rd grade. Both Ed and Nancy told census workers they couldn’t read or write in the 1930 census.
In 1896 Bessie was their firstborn, followed in 1898 by Hubert. I’ve previously written blogs on Bessie. Hubert came with his family to Illinois as a teenager; he was 16 when his sister Laura was born in Danvers. His WW1 draft card lists his employment as a farmhand in Marshall IL in 1917. His service record lists his service starting in May of 1918 in Cleveland, Ohio. (The war ended in Nov of 1918).
Hubert married twice, once to a Margaret Grosse in 1920 but she died just 6 years later. Their son, Hubert Jr died in 1938 at only 16 years of age. He fell under the wheels of a Milwaukee freight train in Ottumwa Iowa and died the next day in a hospital. The newspaper account says Hubert Sr came from Bartonville to Ottumwa to claim the body. Hubert worked at Keystone Steel and Wire in Bartonville working as a bundler from 1930-1950. He married Christena Johnson in 1934 in Peoria. They had a daughter named Nancy in 1936. His wife Christena died in 1957. Hubert died at home, alone in his apartment in Peoria at the 81 in 1969.
Annie C Hendrix/Hendricks was the second daughter of Nancy and Ed born in 1900. She came to Illinois with her parents as a young teen and in 1916 at the age of 16 she married 22 year old farmer Hugh Hartford Harris, who was also a Kentucky transplant. They had two children, Roy born in 1917 and Mildred in 1919. Her son Roy was the born just 7 months after her youngest brother, Delmar. The 1930 census shows Hugh and Annie living in a rented farmhouse near Danvers with their 12 and 10 year old children. 5 years later, after her sister Bessie died, they took in 3 of her boys, 9 year old Barney, 4 year old David and 1 year old Harold. In 1940 they have the boys listed as living next door in a rented home with a farm laborer named Bruce Beardsley while they live in a home they own with their 19 year old daughter Irene who has completed 4 years of high school. By the 1950 census no children are listed in the household. The youngest of Bessie’s children they took in, Harold, was serving in Korea in 1950, Dave joined the Army the following year. Barney served in the Air Corps during WW2, enlisting in Nov of 1942.
Annie’s son Roy joined the Navy in June of 1942, having married Midge Freeman 2 years prior. The couple had three sons between 1943 and 1948 and Midge filed for divorce in 1950 listing habitual drunkenness as the reason for the divorce. Mildred married Melvin Thies in 1940 in Burlington Iowa. Melvin, an Illinois native, worked at Caterpillar Tractor Company in Peoria. The couple had four children.
Annie’s husband Hugh died in 1958 at the age of 63. He had been in the hospital for 2 months in Bloomington prior to dying. Annie lived on for thirty years after her husband, managing various rental properties in the Danvers area including the house my family rented from her when I was a child. She died at the age of 87 in 1988 in the Heritage Nursing home in Bloomington. Her Social Security Application lists her name as Louvina A Harris, so Annie is likely her middle name. Nancy Hatton had a sister named Viny who was just one year older than her, though she’s believed to have been named Melvina after Melvina Richardson and/or Melvina Alcorn. Viny’s great granddaughter was also named Luvina (Hutchens).
Claude Charles Hendricks was born 16 March 1902 in Richmond Kentucky, the 4th surviving child of Nancy and Ed Hendricks.
In 1925 at the age of 23 he married Deer Creek native, 18 year old, Agnes Smith. In 1930 he listed his employment as a laborer in an asphalt plant and he and Agnes are living in a rooming house at 1012 S Adams Street in Peoria. Agnes died in Deer Creek in 1935 at the age of 27. In 1940 he was living with his brother Sherman’s family and working in an unnamed factory. Claude enlisted in the Army in August of 1942 and served in the 263rd Field Artillery Unit until March of 1943. In 1946 he was living in Peoria working as a machine operator and by 1950 he listed his occupation as the proprietor of a tree nursery, though he admits to not working the week prior and looking for work.
The Deer Creek News posted that Claude and his sister Mary visited their mother in July of 1951.
Claude died in April of 1967, 4 months after his mother. His obituary says he was living in the Quoddy Hotel in Peoria at the time of his death.
Travis Edward “Jay Bird” Hendricks was the 5th child of Nancy and Ed Hendricks, born 22 Feb 1904 in Richmond KY. He was 10 when the family moved to Danvers Illinois. In 1930 at the age of 26 he is listed as living in the same boarding house as his brother Hubert on Depot St in Bartonville and working in the same Wire Mill. He married Pekin native Nellie Lawson May 3, 1933 in Mackinaw and they had three children between 1935 and 1940. In 1940 He is living in Pekin with his wife and three children, working at the wire mill still, but by 1950 the couple are divorced. His 1943 Draft card lists him as transient and unemployed, his wife living in Pekin but directing his mail to Deer Creek. He served in the Coast Guard from January of 1943 until November of 1945. The Woodford County Journal notes he came from San Francisco to visit his family in Deer Creek in March of 1945. In 1948 he worked for the US Chicago and Northwestern Railroad and is living in Peoria. His mother’s obituary lists him as living in Spokane Washington in 1967.
A Spokane newspaper article tells the tale of a Travis Hendricks being stabbed downtown.
From there I lose track of him until he came to live in a cottage behind our home we rented from Aunt Annie around 1976/77 on Rt 9 in rural McLean County near Lily on the way to Danvers. I remember he was a kindly older man who kept a pig or two behind his shed. I remember being concerned about the sores on his legs. He gave me a teddy bear and my brother a bag of army men one day, I think maybe for Easter. He doted on our pet chihuahua Prince. Then suddenly he was gone. His family moved him back to Washington to a nursing home where he died in July of 1978.
Mary D Hendricks was the 6th child of Ed and Nancy Hendricks born 29 July 1906 in Bybee, KY. She was 8 when her family came to Danvers, IL. In 1925 at the age of 18 she married farmer Ray Otis Hild in Mackinaw. Their wedding announcement says they planned to live in San Jose IL where Ray would work on his uncle’s farm.
Mary and Ray had one son, Edward born in Danvers in 1928. In 1930 they were living in Mackinaw where they remained the rest of their lives. When sister Bessie died in 1935 they took in her daughter Aggie who was 7, the same age as their son Ed. Aggie married soldier Robert Carlson in 1945 when she was 18 and moved to Rockford. After her father Ed died in 1947 Mary cared for her mother, Nancy, as reported in the Deer Creek News. Ed married Marian Penn in 1950 when he was 22. He worked for Honeywell Corp for 32 years in the computer information systems department. Her husband Ray died in 1981 at 78.
Mary outlived all but one of her siblings, dying 28 June 1999 in Crystal Lake, Illinois where her son had put her in a hospital.
Sherman Hendricks was born in March 1908 in Richmond, KY, the 7th son of Ed and Nancy Hendricks. Sherm was 6 when the family came to Danvers Illinois. He married Iola Moreland in 1933.
The couple had three children. He started off working in Peoria, in 1940 he was working at Keystone Steel and Wire same as brothers Hubert and Travis. Claude is listed as a lodger in Sherman’s family’s home in 1940. In 1950 he was running his own Autobody shop in Bloomington. His obituary states he was a maintenance worker at GTE and that he served in the Navy, though I can’t find the dates for that. He died in 1990 at the age of 82.
The 8th child of Nancy and Edward Hendricks was born the 4th of July 1910 in Kentucky. Sarah Elizabeth “Lizzie” Hendricks was just 4 when the family came to Illinois. She was raised in Danvers and Mackinaw and married Lonnie White in Mackinaw in 1930 at the age of 20. They had one son, Clyde, born in 1933. Lonnie worked at Caterpillar in Peoria for 31 years from 1939 to 1970. Lizzie aided her sister Mary at times caring for their mother nancy in Deer Creek in 1951 as reported by the Deer Creek News. In the 1990s they retired to Florida. Lonnie died in 1991 at 80 years old and Lizzie died 6 years later at 87.
Everett “Briggie” Hendricks was the 9th child of Ed and Nancy born the 9th of July 1912 in Kentucky. He was just 2 when they family came to Illinois and was raised in Danvers. In 1931 at the age of just 19 he married Lily White, sister of Lonnie White who married Lizzie Hendricks. The couple had three children between 1934 and 1941. In 1940 he was working in a garage and living in rural Mackinaw. He joined the navy in March of 1944 during WW2 and served until Feb of 1946. In 1950 he owned his own barber shop in Hopedale and raising his family there.
Everett was a barber in Hopedale for 22 years. The paper reported Everett and Lilly celebrated their 25th anniversary in 1956. He lived to see seven grandchildren born. And then in November of 1968 Everett was killed in a head on automobile crash on Stringtown road 2 miles west of Bloomington.
Lillie lived to the age of 95, dying in 2008, outliving her second husband by 16 years as well. Lilly had worked as a secretary for Caterpillar during the war and then as a private secretary at State Farm for 25 years. After retiring in 1977 she worked at the Hopedale Medical Complex.
Nancy and Ed’s 10th child was Laura, the first child born in Illinois in October of 1914. She was raised in Danvers and married Eureka native Fern Boyd in January of 1934 in Aledo when she was 19 years old. Fern worked as a laborer in 1940 and then as a Punch Press Operator at a Farm Implementor Elevator in 1950. The couple had two sons in 1936 and 1937. The Deer Creek news notes that Nancy lived with Fern and Laura in 1951 in Mackinaw for an entire winter while recovering from a surgery.
Fern retired from Caterpillar and the couple resided in Eureka when he died in 1994 at the age of 83. A 2002 article in the Woodford County Journal notes article on the 25th anniversary of the Eureka Bible Church notes that the church started out in the home of Fern and Laura in 1976. Laura lived on twenty years after Fern’s death, 8 months shy of one hundred years old, dying 1 February 2014. She outlived all of her siblings by 15 years.
The youngest of Ed and Nancy’s 11 children was Delmar “Tommy” Hendricks, born 6 January 1917 in Danvers. He married Ruth Hasty in 1937 at the age of 20. The couple had four children together between 1938 and 1943, living in Bloomington-Normal. He joined the Airforce in 1943 during WW2 serving until Dec of 1945. The article on Nancy and Ed’s 50th anniversary notes Delmar is in New Guinea in a hospital in Sep of 1944. The 1950 census has him living in Peoria and working as a Truck Driver, his wife and children still in Bloomington, Ruth listed separated as her marital status. Ruth remarried in 1957 and worked at the Beich candy factory. Delmar’s obituary says he lived in Chicago for 12 years after leaving Peoria in 1956. He died in 1968 in the Veterans Research Hospital in Chicago where he had been a patient for 4 weeks, he was only 49 years old.
After their eldest daughter Bessie died in 1935 Nancy and Ed took in her 9 year old daughter, Mary, and raised her in Deer Creek until she joined the WAVES, Women Accepted for Volunteer Emergency Service, the women’s branch of the U.S. Naval Reserve during World War II. A photo of Ed in 1939 shows him on crutches and he’s no longer working as a farmer in the census that year.
Their golden wedding anniversary occurred during WW2. An article appeared in the Woodford County Journal on Sept 7, 1944:
Ed died in 1947 at the age of 74 when Nancy was 71. She continued to live in Deer Creek as a widow until she moved into the Hopedale Nursing home in 1965 at the age of 89.
Nancy died two years later in 1967, the year before I was born. She was 91.
