Dorthy James Recounting Family History

Dear Glenn,

I have a picture of my family taken in 1923 at the England place.  I imagine your mother had some pictures of the time we went to Antrim, Ohio.  I have one with Father standing in the yard with two cousins that he had not known he had.  One with Caryl and Dad at the same time.  I have the large picture of the group taken at Antrim.  I am not in it because I was taking moving pictures on our movie camera and some still pictures.

I have a picture of the grave stones we had put up in cemetery at Judsonia, AR.  The stone that was there was Civil War stone and was faded out until you could not read it.  The three childrens names on concrete edging that was around the lot was faded so.  I knew the names that should be there or I would not know who they were.  A year later we went back and they had not kept it.  There is a magnolia tree in the center of the plot that is very old.

When my Grandmother lost her husband and two girls and the stepson she had nothing left, but her brother that lived in Kansas City, I don't know which one, sent her a ticket to Kansas City and then to Noble to her parents with Father and Aunt Lilly, Father was 4 and Aunt Lilly was 10 years old.  Grandma lived there, her father had a mill ((feed mill, I suppose), when Great-Grand-mother Gray died she bought 3 acres from her father and built a 3 room house.  Her parents lived in a log house.

Aunt Lilly took some kind of course from Normal University to prepare her to teach.  She was 20 when her mother died.  Father went to Uncle Eph and made his headquarters there.  He went to Decatur, IL and worked, I don't know what at, but that was when Father started chewing tobacco.  The Grays just lived about 2 miles north of where Mother lived, they both went to the same grade school, Gray School House.  Father went until 3rd or 4th grade and Mother went until about 6th grade.

I have a list of the Gray brothers and sisters, Uncle Eph, Frank, Orley, Leonard, Rob, and a sister that was mother of Fern Gray that married a Hickle or Hickel.  I will try and find the Gray papers and have them together wit the Meredith papers.

I received a letter or Christmas card from Kathryn Meredith Rolinski Peterson.  Her first husband died, she married Peterson.  I invited her to the 1983 reunion.  Her Dad was first cousin to my Dad.

The Daniel Grays lived about 3 miles from Adam Guyot.  Daniel Gray was Sarah Louisa Gray's father, my grandmother, mother of Robert Leroy Meredith.  She married Robert Campbell Meredith, son of George Meredith.  his youngest son of 13 children was George Washington Meredith and his son was Frank Meredith, father of Kathryn Meredith Rolinski Peterson.  She had one brother, William Meredith who died about 1980.  His wife, Hazel, is still living.  She lives near LaRose, IL where Kathryn lives.

Daniel Gray married Maria Vermilye - 1st wife.  Ten children were born to this union, third in line was Sarah Louisa Gray - 2nd wife of Daniel.  His first wife and 6 children died in Ohio.  Within a year he married Sarah Louisa Gray.  They moved to Judsonia, AR.  Aunt Lilly and my father, Robert Leroy Meredith, were born there.  Two older children were born there but died at birth.  Nora May died at age of 8 years.  Carrie Jane died at the age of 13 years.  They are buried at Judsonia, AR, where Robert Campbell and his son by his first wife, Elsworth are buried, I believe that he was 21 years of age.

When Wilbur and I were in Judsonia, AR at the cemetery, we found that the stone markers had deteriorated to the point that they were hardly readable.  We purchased a new stone and had it put in place of the old one.  The names of the children are in the concrete edging around the plot, it was still there when we were there the last time.  Also, there is a large Magnolia tree in the middle of the plot.

About the spelling of my name, I spell it without the second "O".  Wilbur's sister, Miss Dorothy uses both "O"s to make it easier to keep our two names legally apart.

In your first sheet, the farm where you were born is a mile west and a mile and a half north of Galesville.  Six miles south of Mansfield.  Blue Ridge is on the Wabash Railroad but Galesville is 3 to 4 miles north of Mansfield.  That house is straight across the field from us and one quarter mile south.  Verne Zieders lived one quarter mile north.