136 years ago today, March 4, 1890, Chris’s great grandma, Katie Sansom Kelly was born in Clark County Missouri. She was the second daughter of William Henry Sansom and Ellen Lenore (Rose) Sansom.
Her father was a blacksmith/wood worker/wagon maker in Kahoka first, then Keokuk later.
She married Lee Kelly in Keokuk in 1910. Lee was a machinist and inspector in the local can factory. The couple lived in the household of Katie’s parents for at least the first 10 years of their marriage, still living with them in 1920. Chris’s grandfather was her first born son, Henry. Their second son, Ernest died at just 4 months.
It was a close knit family, local papers in both Keokuk and Kahoka frequently reported Katie and her sister visiting her grandmother in Kahoka and their mother in Keokuk and attending a Rose family picnic (her mother’s side).
There is also an account of the family attending a Sansom family reunion in 1941. The papers reported on two of her sons who served during WW2.
After her father died her mother remarried to the local newsman, which may be why she’s so often mentioned in the papers. Katie died at the age of 76, 4 days after suffering a heart attack.
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