Thursday, May 20, 2010

A few branches of the Quigley family tree











































My Dad has been visiting for a week and, at my request, brought all his genealogy information, which includes some old photographs. He has fond memories of Grandpa Hatfield, his paternal grandmother's 2nd husband, and is shown above as a young boy at the workbench Grandpa built for him (1st image) and at the railyard where Grandpa worked (2nd image). My Dad's parents (3rd image) are James Ross Quigley (1920-1976) and Ruby Cecil Fancher (1914-1988). Ruby is pictured as a child (4th image) and her mother Laura Rilla Mathis (1871-1928) is pictured (5th image) holding one of more than dozen children from 2 marriages (Ruby, Blondina, Thelma, Mary, Arminta, Emerson, Clifford, Eliot, Harry, Fred, Ed, James, Sidney, Viola, or Effie). My paternal grandfather, known as Ross, is the smaller child on the right in the next photo (6th image), and a portrait of his maternal grandparents James Newton Horn (1870-1945) and Belle Dora Arnold (1874-1953) follows (7th image). Ross's parents Grover Randall Quigley (1886-1962) and Mary Coda Horn (1892-1950) are depicted below (8th image), but Grover is persona non grata in the Quigley family. He wed Mary in 1914 (marriage certificate, 9th image), but was the cause of their divorce in 1935. Of their 4 children who survived infancy (Eugene, Ross, Kenneth, and Doris), 2 of them (Kenny and my grandfather Ross - who would have been 15 at the time of the split) wouldn't have anything to do with him. Grover (on the left, 10th image) ran the pool hall, confectionery, and ice cream parlor on Main St. in Agency, Missouri, for many years, and Ross would point him out to his young son when they would see Grover selling his wares at wrestling matches, warning, "Stay away from that man." It wasn't until years later that my Dad realized that Grover was his biological grandfather, and he never fully learned why Grover's character was suspect. He never remarried (see his calling card, 11th image) and older relatives only divulged to Dad that he was "weird," in addition to being a supposed kleptomaniac. Grover was also epileptic and is remembered to have had a siezure at his ex-wife's funeral. Doris and Gene placed him in a nursing home on County Farm and when he died he was buried in Agency Cemetery next to his infant son Grover Roy, who had died in 1915.


























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