Hunting Wabbits...A.K.A. Warrens!

When I think of my Warren branch of the family, and our loss of contact within recent generations, I go through an odd transformation. It begins by getting inspired, then determined, followed by pulling their file for more research - but then my face eventually begins to take on that maniacal look of desperation as so wonderfully demonstrated by my friend Elmur Fudd. He is so representative of the genealogy search! He knows what he wants, he will not give up - nose down and moving forward - but sometimes missing his target as it sits and laughs at him - always taunting and being just out of reach! I apologize in advance for this note of a rather personal and specific nature. However, as the blogs get crawled by search engines, maybe someday, this entry will turn up in a cousin's search result to point them in my direction. I am searching for a specific group of the Warren family from the far Western Kentucky/Tennessee areas.

When I mean searching, I'm not talking about a record search, that I can do and have been doing on my own. I really would like to make some personal contact in the hopes of learning more about our family history as well as hoping they would have a photo or two from this side of the family they would be willing to scan for the rest of us abandoned cousins. Due to a family tragedy, my grandfather Roy Watts and his sister Estelle grew up in a Louisville orphanage with very little contact from the rest of the family. They were the children of James Thomas Watts(1891-1953) and Florence Warren Watts(1898-1923). For more on James' family history, see the previous post about his parents.

I will not plague you with too many details, but here is what we know:
Roy and Estelle's early childhood were spent hopping between Graves County Kentucky and Weakley County Tennessee. We believe the Watts side of the family resided on the Tennessee side of the area, and the Warren family on the Kentucky side - with some cross pollination across the border. Many of the orphanage records for the children have varying places of residence, birth, etc that reflect this transient pattern. We have heard that the two sides of the family did not get along because when this young couple got married (James and Florence m.1914), her Warren side did not approve of her Watts choice. Florence died from tuberculosis at the age of 25 after giving birth to a third child: James Thomas - who either died after being adopted by a Garrett woman from Alabama, or put in another orphanage down south - based on some conflicting family reports - apparently there was a scandal attached to this adoption and we have only gotten a few willing blurbs about the incident.

Roy and Estelle's father was still alive, but handicapped and had to move around a lot in order to find work. Since both sides of the family were at odds, Florence and James' wish at her death was to put the children in a home for a better chance. After entering the Christian Children's Home in Louisville, which was quite far away from the remaining family units, there was minimal contact with the children. James wrote some letters to his children, as did Florence's sister Mae Warren Wiggins. **Aunt Mae was in contact with the family again in the 1980s before her death, but we've even lost contact with her children.

Roy visited the Mayfield area back in the 50s or 60s to reconnect with some of the family, but sadly, no one brought forth much about the family, or he didn't take any notes. Roy and Estelle had a picture of their father since he didn't pass away until the 1950s (seen here), yet, went all of their lives without any picture of their mother. Mention was made of pictures existing, but none were ever shared - which would have been hard to do back then. Roy said one member of the family showed him a small newspaper clipping with a school group photo - which included his mother as a teenager. He spoke of this photo a lot and always told me I resembled his mother (my great-grandmother), and we assumed it was because we were told she had blond hair - my hair was blond when very young, and light brown when older. However, none of us have seen this photo, let alone any other photos from the elusive Warren clan.

My appeal goes out to any living cousins out there that may be descended from this bunch. The family unit that Florence came from is as follows:

Parents:
John and Asalee (Azalee) Gray? Warren

Children:
Arthur
Florence
Mae (married a Wiggins)
Edna (also married a Wiggins)
+ a few others, whose names I don't have on hand at the moment.
This family group can also be seen here in this 1900 Graves County Kentucky census clip:

I have some notes (oral accounts) that list the parents of John as James and Cordelia (?) Warren. As for Asalee above, we heard she was a Gray and in the above census household, Timpa Gray, the "mother in law" was living with them at the time. We had heard her name as Tempy, but always assumed it was short for Temperance. Imagine our surprise when I found this amazing tidbit in Findagrave:

Birth: Mar. 7, 1827
Death: Feb. 17, 1903

Tempay Warren Gray was a 73 year old living with her daughter Azalee and husband John Warren listed in the 1900 census.
Inscription:
wife of R. Warren and E. Grey
Burial:
High Hill Cemetery
Graves County
Kentucky, USA

Soooo, she was married to both a Warren and a Gray...thanks Grandma for making as this clear as mud! This one alone is why I need to make some physical field trips down to the home counties....planning for a trip soon, Mom is chomping at the bit!

In order to snag some more cousins, here is a couple of obits that might ring a bell: one for Arthur Warren, Florence's brother, and one for Arthur's son Aubrey aka "Jay" in Calloway County Kentucky - both died in 1983.

As a final note, please do not be alarmed by Elmer Fudd and his shotgun, I am not literally hunting you as he would.....but we would be thrilled to restore contact to this branch of our family.

Btw, many thanks to the Watts cousins out there - you know who you are - who found my web site years ago and sent me some wonderful pedigree info and photos of our ancestors!

To the rest of my readers - thank you for the long indulgence. Now, back to our regularly scheduled programing.

**Newspaper articles taken from the Mayfield Messenger (1923,1983), with the exception of the last obit from the Murray Ledger Times.

Murder Most Foul?

Ok, confession time.....I am one of those serious researchers that gets a certain twinkle in the eye when skeletons are uncovered. After years of romanticizing my ancestors, these skeletons are always ready to pop out with a historic reality check! Let's face it, we all have them....no family is exempt from this proof of human frailty....and our job is to record them for the next generation - or next party topic. Learn to embrace the skeletons. Hiding them allows for an incomplete picture of your family's story, and many times they provide a unique opportunity for deep analysis.

 

After closing down my original website of ten years for a future migration, I have been trying to place some of the important photos here for fellow researchers. This photo of my great great grandparents was always on my site, but without the controversy that surrounded the last years of their lives. William (Billy) Watts and his wife Sally Fuller were married for almost 30 years. They were the parents of eight children and made their lives as farmers in the Western Kentucky/Tennessee areas. Billy died suddenly in 1907 after an accident that involved a shotgun:

Sounds like a pretty straight-forward, albeit icky incident. I'm personally glad we don't include descriptions about brain splatterings when we write about current news stories. But in this case, where is the genealogy CSI unit when  you need them? I mean really - quite the wound angle when removing a gun from over your head! According to family legend (two letters from two different branches of the descended children) - this was no accident. Despite their long marriage and raising of eight children, it was the children who did not believe this report. Instead, they perpetuated the report that their Mother, Sally, contrived with her lover Clarence Clyde Chapman to kill Billy and then married each other the very next year.

Their eight children were widely dispersed in age. At the time of Billy's death, the children ranged in age from 30 to under 9:

• Mary Ann (Bowlin) - b.1877 (Born a year prior to Billy and Sally's marriage)
• Sadie (Bowlin) - b.1885
• William - b.1888
• Bessie (Wilkerson) - b.1890
• James Thomas (My Great Grandfather) - b.1891
• Steven Clyde - b.1895
• Noah - b.1898
• Hetti - b.?

In this case, it would be safe to assume that it was not just older children who had left the nest and were bitter over Mom marrying again so soon, but rather a combination of observers. Yes, a few had left in marriage already, but ironically, even at advanced ages, most of the children had not yet married and were still residing at home at the time of this incident.

Apparently, Sally and Clarence never paid for any "crime" as accused by the children. I did some searching around the time of the death in more local newspapers, but the incident is always described as an accident. I cannot locate an obituary for Billy, but I may need to visit the area to get my hands on more complete runs of the local papers....among other records. The older family group sheets are a fun mix of fact and personal opinion. They include a marriage date for Sally and Clarence as March 15, 1908 - just over one year after Billy's death. Next to Billy's death date of February 9, 1907 they include the word "murdered". Another interesting side note is that Sally was not married to Clarence for very long as she died within 2 years of her second marriage. I'm wondering if her death was suspicious at all? Definitely an area that I will turn some of my research towards.....but who would be the suspicious party? The second husband? The angry children? Karma? Or simply coincidence? Despite the fact that this was only a rumor and never proven, I have a hard time believing that eight children would turn on a devoted and loving mother by declaring her a murderer simply because she got married again the next year. My radar says something foul was going on in that family. Even though we may never know what really happened (all of the children are long gone) I think it safe to conclude that we have another prime example of a dysfunctional family.....eh, so what else is new?
CD