Tombstone Tuesday - Clayton Richard Ford (1934-1941)

It is always sad when we lose loved ones so young. I never got to know my uncle, but I miss him just the same.

Clayton Richard Ford (1934-1941) was my dad's identical twin. Born to Arthur Elisha Ford and Ethel (Wickliffe) Ford, he was the younger of the two twins. In an interview in 1985, my grandmother, Ethel Ford, stated that Clayton was born a "blue baby" and that he had always been sickly.

I never knew what she meant by the term "blue baby" until recently. I thought it meant that his lungs hadn't fully developed at the time of his birth, causing him to struggle to take in oxygen. I recently looked up the term and it usually means the baby has a heart malformation that prevents the baby's blood from being fully oxygenated. Now I understand more about this young boy's life and how he died.. 

Ethel stated that when Clayton was six years old, he got rheumatic fever and he never fully recovered. The death certificate lists endocarditis as the official cause, with rheumatic fever as a contributing factor. The Mayo Clinic website states that endocarditis is uncommon in people with healthy hearts and those who have damaged heart valves or other heart defects are at greatest risk.

Clayton Richard Ford died in his mother's arms and is laid to rest in West Memorial Cemetery in Quinlan, Hunt County, Texas in a plot next to his grandmother, Sara Elizabeth (Dodd) Ford.

May this little angel never be forgotten.

Census Sunday: Arthur Elisha Ford, 1930 Hunt County, Texas

It's Census Sunday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The census today is the 1930 U.S. Census for my grandparents, Arthur Elisha Ford and Ethel (Wickliffe) Ford, in Quinlan, Hunt County, Texas:

The Arthur Elisha Ford family entry is:

The extracted information for this census is:

* Elisa Ford, head of household, renting, lives on a farm, male, white, 33, married, 24 years old at time of first marriage, he can read and write, born in Arkansas, parents born in United States, speaks English, occupation- farm laborer, trade - farm, class of worker - W, actually employed, veteran of W.W.

* Ethel Ford, wife, female, white, 28, married, 19 years old at time of first marriage, can read and write, born in Arkansas, both parents born in Missouri, speaks English, is not working

* Ezra W. Ford, son, male, white, 7, single, in school, born in Texas, both parents born in Arkansas

* Daisy R., daughter, female, white, 5, single, not in school, born in Texas, both parents born in Arkansas

The citation for this census is:

1930 United States Census, Hunt County, Texas, population schedule, Justice Precinct #7, enumeration district (ED) 116-38, sheet 7A, line 32, dwelling 137, family #137, Elisa [Elisha] Ford household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 08 Aug 2012); citing National Archives Microfilm Publication T626, roll 2360.

Census Sunday: Arthur Elisha Ford in the 1940 Census

It's Census Sunday - time to look in my digital image files to see what treasures I can find for my family history and genealogy musings.

The census today is the 1940 U.S. Census for my grandparents, Arthur Elisha Ford and Ethel (Wickliffe) Ford, in Quinlan, Hunt County, Texas:

The Arthur Elisha Ford family entry:

The extracted information from this census record is:

*  Line 18, Household 98, Family 98, Renting, Monthly rent $4.00, not a farm

* A. Eligh Ford - head, white, male, 43 years old, married, 4 years of education, born in Texas, seeking work, laborer, farm, type of work PW, worked 8 weeks in 1939, income received in 1939 - $40

*  Ethel Ford, white, female, wife, 36 years old, 7 years of education, born in Texas, working as a seamstress, WPA, worked 30 hours the week of March 24-30, 1940, type of work GW, worked 52 weeks in 1939, income received in 1939 - $396

*  Ezra Ford, white, male, 16 years of age, son, no school in 1940, 4 years of education, born in Texas, seeking work, new worker

*  Dasie R. Ford, white, female, 14 years of age, daughter, no school in 1940, 5 years of education, born in Texas, kept house

*  Clay Ford (twins), white, male, 5 years of age, son, no school in 1940, education, born in Texas 

*  Claton Ford, white, male, 5 years of age, son, no school in 1940, no education, born in Texas

It appears that Arthur Elisha Ford gave the information for the census. Have found several errors in the census. Ethel left school in third grade to pick cotton in the fields. This information came from Ethel in an interview in 1985. Elisha and Ethel were both born in Arkansas, not Texas. This evidence comes from other census records found in Arkansas and from the interview with Ethel.

The citation for this census is:

1940 United States Census, Hunt County, Texas, population schedule, Quinlan, Justice Precinct #7, enumeration district (ED) 116-36, sheet 5A, dwelling 98, family #98, A, Eligh [Elisha] Ford household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 07 Apr 2013); citing National Archives Microfilm Publication T627, Roll 4072.

My Immediate Ancestors

             Back row (left to right): Lola Wickliffe, William Ezra Ford, Daisy Ruth Ford
         Front row (left to right): Ethel Wickliffe Ford, Clay Franklin Ford, Arthur Elisha Ford

Arthur Elisha Ford (my grandfather) was born in 1896, the 5th of 6 children. His father, William Preston Ford, died in Arkansas when he was 12 years old. He moved to Quinlan, Texas with his mother, Sarah Elizabeth (Dodd) Ford and younger sister, Mary, when he was about 17 years old. There he met, and fell in love with, Ethel Wickliffe. They married on 14 Mar 1920 in Quinlan, Hunt County, Texas.

Ethel Wickliffe, born in 1903 in Mountain View, Arkansas, was the oldest child of Richard Franklin Wickliffe and Estelle Lynn.  She had 4 younger sisters and a young brother who died when he was about four years old.

Ethel and Elisha had four children. William Ezra (1922-1950), Daisy Ruth (1925-2012), and identical twin boys Clay Franklin (1934-2010) and Clayton Richard (1934-1941). After Clayton died in 1941, Ethel struggled to overcome the depression. She would sit at the cemetery every day and cry. In order to help his wife, Elisha decided to move his family to south Texas to his sisters' ranch. They eventually settled in Corpus Christi, Texas.

As part of the Works Progress Administration (WPA), Elisha dug ditches for the government, and Ethel worked in a sewing room. They became members of the Pentecostal Church of God, 501 Cheyenne Street, Rev. CC Hurst, in Corpus Christi. Elisha started having numbness in his feet and eventually was paralyzed from the waist down. Ethel would put him in his wheelchair before she left for work, and he would wheel about the house, cooking, sweeping, and cleaning. Many different doctors checked him out, but couldn't come up with a medical diagnosis for him. He died two years later on 19 Oct 1946.

They are all gone now. I miss them all so much. I never knew my grandfather or my uncle, as they died before I was born. My grandmother’s stories about them and her life are what got me interested in doing genealogy. I never tire of searching for an elusive ancestor and I have several of those.