Kelley Sibling Obits - Children of John and Nancy Missouri (Owens) Kelley Jr.

©  Kathy Duncan, 2019

John Kelley Jr. and wife Nancy Missouri Owens lived near Camden in Kershaw County, South Carolina. My recent research indicates that Nancy was probably his second wife and that he had a daughter by his first wife.

The children of John and Nancy Missouri (Owens) Kelley were the following:

1. William H. Kelly b. 1840 SC
2. Mancel Pinkney Kelley b. 1 Sept 1843 in Kershaw Co., SC
3. Mary Jane Kelly b. 10 March 1846  SC
4. Harvey H. Kelly b. Dec 1849 SC
5. Singleton Frost Kelley b. 25 Dec 1851 Kershaw Co., SC
6. Edna E. Kelley b. 13 Sept 1854 Kershaw Co., SC

The obituaries of these siblings will be given in the order of their deaths.

William H. Kelly's date and place of death are unknown.

Harvey H. Kelly's obituary has not been found, but this news item appeared. It was common to report on deaths by suicide. Harvey H. Kelley never married, and at the time of his death, he was living in his nephew Stephen Clyburn's household. Harvey's mother Nancy (Owens) Kelly was also living in the Clyburn home.

Mary Jane (Kelly) Clyburn died on 21 May 1909 in Kershaw County, South Carolina. No obituary or death notice has been found for her, but there was an obituary for her husband Capt. Lewis L. Clyburn, who died in Kershaw County, South Carolina on 28 February 1925.

Note that Lewis L. Clyburn's obituary provides the information that his first wife was Miss Mary J. Kelly and that their children were T.B. Clyburn, S.S. Clyburn, L.C. Clyburn, and Dr. W. R. Clyburn.

Mancel Pinkney Kelly died on 19 June 1912 in Tupelo, Coal County, Oklahoma.

This obituary would mislead the reader into thinking that M.P. Kelley had lived in Oklahoma for 20 years. Instead, he lived for many years in Titus County, Texas. I believe that this death notice was placed by brother Singleton Frost Kelly.

Singleton Frost Kelly died on 6 December 1918 in Kershaw County, South Carolina. An obituary for him has not been found, but there was one for his wife who died in 1924.

Her obituary names their surviving children: Mrs. S C Clyburn, Mrs. L. J. Watts, and M. Blake Kelly.

Edna E. Kelley died on 12 January 1923 in Kershaw County, South Carolina.

Edna E Kelley never married. At the time of her death, she was living with her nephew Dr. W. R. Clyburn. 

Thompson Sibling Obits - Children of Solomon R Thompson

© Kathy Duncan, 2019

Solomon R. Thompson, son of Lodowick and Priscilla (Reeves) Thompson, was born 25 May 1804 in South Carolina and died 9 May 1882 in Lancaster County, South Carolina. He had three known children:

1. Rev. Eugene W[illiam] Thompson
2. Elizabeth Ann Rebecca (Thompson) Kelley
3. Henrietta Southerland (Thompson) Floyd

The obituaries of these siblings are arranged in order of their dates of death:

Rev. Eugene W[illiam] Thompson died on 5 April 1877. His death was off by a day in this death notice from the Raleigh, Observer. This notice was a reprint from the Burke Blade. Note that no next of kin is mentioned.

Henrietta Southerland (Thompson) Floyd died in the fall of 1925 in Winfield, Titus County, Texas. Her obituary has not been found, but her death was mentioned in the obituary of her husband, James Winfield Floyd, who died the following year. J. W. Floyd's obituary appeared in The Mount Pleasant Dialy Times on Friday 7 May 1926. His obituary lists his surviving children: Mrs. S.A. Thomas, Mrs. Della Owens, Mrs. Robert Landrum, Mrs. L.E. May, Shell Floyd, Charles Floyd, Mrs. C. R. Gingles, and Mrs. J.A. Buchanan.

Elizabeth Ann Rebecca (Thompson) Kelley's obituary appeared in The Mount Pleasant Daily Times on 10 January 1935:

“Mrs. Eliza Kelley died Wednesday [January 9, 1935] at the home of her son Richard S. Kelley at Ripley following a stroke at age 90. She would have been 91 in June. She was a native of South Carolina and moved to Texas 40 years ago. She had been living with Richard for the past 15 years. Survivors include, three sons, three daughters; Pink Kelley of Quincy, Florida; Will Kelley of Cass County, Texas; Frank Kelley; Mrs. Edna Foster of Wichita Falls, Texas; Mrs. Bessie Brown of Clarksville, Texas; and Mrs. Annie Price of Fort Worth, Texas. Funeral services and burial was at Bridges Chapel Methodist Church north of Mount Pleasant, Texas.”

The Problem With Obituaries

© Kathy Duncan, 2019

The problem with obituaries is that they are often hard to find. The advent of digitalized newspapers is making the search for obituaries easier, but often even after a newspaper is located in the right timeframe and location, there still is no obituary to be found. Why?

The answer is simple: money. Obituaries are expensive to publish today, and they were expensive in our ancestors' time. Almost all newspapers, from an early time on, charged a fee for publishing obituaries.

I searched Texas newspapers beginning in 1850 and went forward into the 20th century, looking at their requirements for publishing obituaries. Along the way, I found some interesting attitudes expressed by editors toward obituaries.

The Brenham Enquirer treated obituaries the same as advertisements if they exceeded ten lines. Evidently, obituaries under that might have been free. This is exceedingly generous for the time. Advertisements were charged one dollar per square of ten lines. One dollar in 1854 was equal to $29.97 in 2019. Many people living in Texas at that time had little cash money on hand. They lived off the land and bartered. Money only came to hand when their harvest or another commodity was sold. Those proceeds were used to pay property taxes, poll taxes, and purchase essentials that were not produced by the family. These essentials included shoes, fabric, etc. This situation did not change much for the next hundred years.

Evidently, up until 1858, The Colorado Citizen had either been publishing obituaries for free or publishing them on credit. This notice announced their discontinuation of that practice.

In 1877, The Galveston Daily News ran a notice from The Bonham News that expressed the editor's disdain for long obituaries. The editor's feeling was that obituaries appealed only to the deceased's  small circle of friends and that they made the newspaper "less interesting to the mass of readers." Because this could lead to a loss of revenue, the editor required payment for all obituaries and tributes of respect.

By 1879, The Galveston Daily News reported that The Longview New Era was charging a rate of ten cents a line because printing free obituaries did not "buy bread for our family or pay printers."

The charge for obituaries varied widely over the years. In 1883, The Albany Star was charging fifty cents per square in advance. In 1883 fifty cents was approximately $12.46 by 2019 standards. This is more than ten dollars less than what The Brenham Enquirer was charging 20 years before.

Four years later, The Christian Messenger in Bonham, Texas was charging $2.50 for obituaries exceeding ten lines. That $2.50 is equivalent to about $66.24 today. The submitter would have been highly motivated to keep their obituary to less than ten lines.

By contrast, in 1889, The Cass County Sun of Linden, Texas was charging a flat rate of five cents a line. Five cents a line would have been equivalent to $1.37 a line today.

In 1891, the competition, The Linden Alliance Standard of Linden, Texas, was charging five cents a line for all over ten lines, which suggests that obituaries of under ten lines were free.

In 1894, The Daily Hesperian announced its intent to charge five cents a line for obituaries. Otherwise, they ran the risk of having "no room for anything else if it accepted such matter" for free.

The Forney Messenger apparently waited until 1902 to start charging five cents a line for obituaries.

In 1905, The Palestine Daily Herald was also charging five cents per line, but a line was limited to six words. To put that in perspective, you could buy a loaf of bread or a pound of sugar for five cents in 1905.

In 1910, The Sulpher Springs Gazette was charging 1 to 2 cents per word for each word over 250 words while 250 words or less were inserted for free.

In 1912, The Clarksville Times, the paper that would have published my family member's obituaries was charging advertising rates for obituaries. Couple this with the fact that the "oldest business institution in Red River County" destroyed its own early newspapers (before about 1940ish) in a fit of cleaning, and the result is a disaster for researchers. 

In 1949, even The Bogata News in tiny Bogata, Texas, was charging regular advertising rates for obituaries. 

So what is a researcher to do? Consider researching the going rate for obituaries that were charged by your ancestor's local newspaper within the timeframe of your ancestor's death. The charges seem to have fluctuated wildly, but in most instances, there were fees for your ancestor to pay. Take into consideration the income level of your ancestor's family. That will give you some insight into why your ancestor may not have an obituary. The easiest way to find this information is to use the keyword combination: obituaries tributes. Or perhaps use the combination: obituaries resolutions. 

This is why each obituary is such a precious find. Happy hunting. 

Cawthon Siblings' Obituaries - Children of Rutherford P. Cawthon

© Kathy Duncan, 2019

This study in obituary groups focuses on the children of my great-great-grandfather, Rutherford Porter Cawthon. They will be placed in order of death.

Children of Rutherford Porter Cawthon and wife Susan Jane Mason:

1. Leona Gray Cawthon b. 26 January 1855 married John Thomas Chapman
2. James Buchanan Cawthon b. 8 October 1856
3. Mary Charlotte "Maggie" Cawthon b. 8 March 1858, d. 3 March 1918, married William Sargent          Chapman
4. Dick R. Cawthon b. 25 January 1860

Children of Rutherford Porter Cawthon and his second wife, Karen Rebecca Mason:

5. Randolph M. Cawthon b. 18 December 1862, d. 24 June 1891, Arkansas
6. Susan Alice Cawthon b. 15 May 1866
7. Willie Porter Cawthon b. 28 September 1868, d. 12 October 1904, Wylie, Collin Co., TX
8. Rosanah Matilda Cawthon b. 25 August 1870, d. 11 February 1933
9. Jesse Franklin Cawthon b. 15 March 1876, d. 15 January 1961 m. Clara Follett
10. Charles Dallas Cawthon b. 21 March 1878, d.  m. Susie Lawrence Britt
11. Robert Lee Cawthon b. 30 April 1874

James Buchanan Cawthon died as an infant. No death notice.

Dick R. Cawthon died as an infant. No death notice or obituary.

Susan Alice Cawthon seems to have died young. No death notice or obituary.

Leona Gray (Cawthon) Chapman died in Mt. Pleasant, Titus County, Texas in 1886. No death notice or obituary has been found.

Randolph M. Cawthon died on 24 June 1891 in Arkansas. No death notice or obituary.

Mary Charlotte (Cawthon) Chapman died in Mt. Pleasant, Texas on 3 March 1918 of the measles. No death notice or obituary.

Willie Porter Cawthon died 12 October 1904 in Wylie, Texas. No obituary. His death in Wylie, Texas, however, made the headlines in McKinney and Dallas, Texas. The following is a news item. More detailed articles ran in the McKinney newspaper. No obituary has been found.

Note that Will Cawthon's surname has been misspelled as Cochran. 

Rosa (Cawthon) Watson died on 11 February 1933 in Mt. Vernon, Franklin County, Texas. No death notice or obituary has been found. 

Robert Lee Cawthon died on 25 November 1937 in Spokane, Washington. No death or obituary has been found. However, a news item about his accidental death appeared in the newspaper. 

Charlie Dallas Cawthon died on 19 April 1952 in Dallas, Texas.

Note that this obituary does not mention Charlie Cawthon's parents, but does name his sole surviving brother, Jesse F. Cawthon, of Clarksville, Texas.

Jesse Franklin Cawthon died on 15 January 1961 in Clarksville, Red River County, Texas.

While Jesse Cawthon's only immediate survivor was his wife Clara (Follet) Cawthon, two of his pallbearers were relatives. W.S. Chapman was his nephew, and DeWitt Lennon was W.S. Chapman's son-in-law. Note that this obituary names his parents as Rutherford and Caren Mason Cawthon.