Nancy (Johnson) Brown and Elizabeth Jane (Johnson) Selvy, sisters

     ©  Kathy Duncan, 2025

Finding Esther (Bryant) Johnson Lacy's death notice a couple of weeks ago, after seeking it for years, was exciting. That success prompted me to lean into the Bryant-Johnson-Lacy family for my Halloween project. 

My first step was to search Kansas newspapers for the Lacy siblings, who were the children of Esther Bryant and her second husband, Robert Lacy. That's where I found a "new" piece of information. C. Selby and his wife were visiting his uncle, A. C. Lacy, and his aunts, Mrs. Henry Pearmain and Mrs. S. C. Brown. Those aunts were Frances L. (Lacy) Pearmain and  Amanda (Lacy) Brown. 

Since the uncle and aunts were all Lacy siblings, my first thought was that Selby was the son of one of the Lacy sisters. However, as far as I knew, none of them had ever married a Selby. Searching for more information on C. Selby turned up nothing. 

Selby returned in 1916 and was still referred to as being a nephew of A. C. Lacy. This clipping from The Buffalo Blade added the given name Cade, but nothing turned up on Cade Selby. 

Fortunately, a different newspaper provided different information. The Fredonia Weekly Herald reported that Cade Selvy (not Selby) was visiting his uncle A.C. Lacey and that Selvy was a special officer for the Santa Fe [railroad]. Selvy was the "correct" spelling. Plenty of information about Cade Selvy turned up. He seemed to be everywhere in newspapers. 

Still, I had no clue exactly how he was connected to the Lacys. I turned to Family Search, where his mother was listed as Elizabeth Jane Johnson, married to George W. Selvy. Someone had added the information that she was born in Pike County, Illinois. 

It took a hot minute to realize that Cade Selvy's mother was the Johnson sister I started searching for a few years ago. Specifically, she was the daughter of Esther Bryant by her first marriage to Samuel Johnson; she was a half-sister to the children Esther Bryant had from her second marriage to Robert Lacy. Everything pointed to Elizabeth Jane (Johnson) Selvy being a sister to Nancy (Johnson) Brown, wife of John DeLoss Brown, and a half-sister to the Lacy siblings. 

However, I really wanted hard proof that there was a connection. The morning after Halloween brought this newspaper clipping from The Albuquerque Daily Citizen of 1895:

Mrs. J. D. Brown [Mrs. John DeLoss Brown/Nancy Johnson] had traveled from Wellington, Illinois [a misspelling of Weldon, Illinois] to Albuquerque, New Mexico, where she met her sister E. J. Selvy [Elizabeth Jane], who had traveled in from Gallup, New Mexico. E. J. Selvy was the mother of Cade Selvy, who visited the Lacy family in Kansas. The two sisters had not seen each other since 1861. That's a post in and of itself. Mrs. J. D. Brown was also there to visit her son J.H. Brown [Joel Herbert Brown] who worked for the Atlantic & Pacific [railroad] shops in Albuquerque. From there Mrs. J.H. Brown planned to travel to Fresno, California to visit another son [probably Charles A. Brown]. 

I have to wonder how this reunion came about after 34 years. It is possible that the two sisters kept up a correspondence with each other over the years. It is also possible that their sons crossed paths in Albuquerque and realized that their mothers were sisters - Joel H Brown may have recognized the Selvy name and asked questions. Cade Selvy was also employed by the Atlantic & Pacific railroad at times, so it would have been natural for him to be in the yard and shops where he might run into J.H. Brown.