Although the 1940 Census reveals that Elias and Ida Mae Fox only had education until the fourth grade, it also shows us that there was some security, job security, in farming.

Whereas most of America was scrambling and scrounging for purpose and to eat, Elias and his son Willie recorded having worked six days a week for 52 weeks of the year in 1939.  Ida Mae was tending house, cooking for temporary hands, doing laundry...and she had help.  Willie had gotten married to "Aunt Elva."  And Willie and Elva and a "grandson" to Elias (William) lived with Mammy and Pappy.

Nobody was raking in money, but they were a-raking and hoe-ing and tilling farm produce.

Elias owned his farm by then (he was seventy years old) and it was worth a whopping $800.


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Over in the Liberty Magesterial District of Ohio County, West Virginia Ida Mae's brother, Thomas Arlington Delany was doing emergency public work as a contracting laborer.

He'd been a coal miner with the Elm Bark Mining Company in Tridelphia back at the time of the World War I draft.

But by 1940 his wife, Mary Watson Delany had died.  His daughters Lillian and "Zera" were in their twenties and stayed on in the same house as they'd been in in 1930 (back when Mary was still alive).  In 1930, four of the children were with the parents (Robert, Mary, Lillie, and Vera).

Mary Ann Watson, mother and wife, died in the hard January of 1940.  She died where the family was living in Point Mills.  Mary had been born in September of 1876 in Hundred, West Vriginia to her parents, George Watson and Mary Pethtel.

Mary Ann had married Thomas Arlington over to Monongalia County in January of 1905.  But nobody's parents were listed on the license.  At that time the young couple's place of residence was Wadestown, West Virginia.  They were married by a "Baptish" minister named M.A. Kelly on the "twenty=firsh."  The license and certificate were filed with the County Clerk John M. Gregg.

Mary Ann and Thomas were close in age.  And by 1910 they had two children also close in age:  Robert L. and Flossie G.

We peeked...the "L" stood for Lee.

By 1920 Robert was 15 and Flosie D. was twelve.  Their sister Mary (the third Mary in a row on the girls side) was nine.  And there were younger sisters still...Lillie R. and Christina.  Christina was three so she was really little.

Thomas Arlington was also close in age to his sister, Ida Mae.  Thomas Arlington was born two years after his grandfather John Delany died in Battelle (in 1874).


Thomas and Mary Ann's marriage information is in the County Records of Monongalia.
Thomas Arlington's Draft Registration shows him living in Ohio, West Virginia.

Thomas Arlington's Birth records show him born in March of 1876 to John and Rebecca Delaney.  Thomas was born an alive, white male.  And at that time his parents were residing in Battelle, Monongalia County, West Virginia.

But Thomas' Death records give us his mother's maiden name as Calvert...Rebecca Calvert (born in Greene County, PA); his father was John Delany.  Thomas had a Coronary Occlusion due to Coronary Thrombosis.  No autopsy was performed.  He'd been attended to by a physician named Thomas Thomas.  Who last saw Thomas alive on Christmas Eve of 1960.  Thomas was 83 at the time of his death.  And he died on New Year's Eve, a retired farmer.  And the doctor attended to him at his farm/residence in rural Triadelphia.

Both Thomas and his wife are buried in the West Alexander Cemetery in West Alexander, Pennsylvania.


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7 DEC 1941 Attack on Pearl Harbor