So Aunt Elva told Sherry in the letter that Betty was born on Camel's Run, but it was most likely Campbell's Run...Where Charlie McVicker's mother lived with Henry Hawkins before Henry died.  And where Ida Mae's relation John Delaney lived.

                All I can do is read the records. 

Pearl Fox was married to Glenn Wilson.  We knew that.

Charlie McVicker was married to Glen's sister, Lillie Mae Wilson.  We didn't know that.

                                                All I can do is read the records.

From the desk of Lara Lynn Lane, 14 JUNE 2013.

1930--Census shows Lillie and Charlie still married living with Charlie's biological mother.

1930--Census shows Pearl and Glenn still married with two daughters, Betty (9) and Louis(2).

1934--Charlie's mother Della (Jones/McVicker/Hawkins) dies, her place of residence had been on Campbell's Run.

1938--Cora Alice Wilson dies.  23 AUG 1938.  She'd been born a Clayton like so many others...
Joseph Michael, William P., Ida Ellen Lough, Belle Huey, Ulysses Waitman, Andrew J., Mary...All calling their mother "Sonia," "Sine Brumago," "Sina Brummage," Sina C. Brumage, "Sina Anderson," and Elizabeth Brumage.

1940--Glenn's paying five dollars a month in rent and listed as Head of Household with Wife Pearl Wilson.  There are three "lodgers"--Loverna Raber (26), Ella E. (10), Donley E. (7).  Right nearby...Mr.
and Mrs. Hinerman with child James (2).


Loverna's husband Charley Raber had died six years before in 1934.  He was only 32 years old.  His parents were Albert and Nancy (Davis) Raber.  Albert Raber is living with Christopher Raber and Alabama Wilson in 1910 and there is a nine year old Charley Raber who is a cousin to Christopher on that 1910 list.  Albert, in 1910, is a widowed mulatto.  And we find out that Alabama Wilson is a divorced mulatto.  Back in the pre-World War I days there was race crazy-ness.  That movie Birth of A Nation sparked the popular imagination to a bonfire of racism.  The KKK was hellbent on racial purity and a certain order to things, politically.  It was a  period of racial sub-dividing and quartering (mulatto, octoroons, etc.) on steroids compared to the print media spawned classifications that had been inspired by Agassiz in the 1850's and 1860's.  Sometimes people who were couples before the Civil War split up or otherwise did not qualify for legal recognition of marriage, so a "divorce" is unusual in that time and place.  Nancy had died +/-five years 1905.  We find her and Albert on the US Census 1900 in Battelle, Monongalia County with Josephine A.. Alexander, John E., Elisabeth, Thomas C. Florence B., and Epheram who'd been born in May of 1898.


Then by 1910 we find Albert and his children by Nancy Davis in the household with Christopher Raber and Alabama Wilson.  Charley's a cousin and he's nine.  By the Census of 1930 we find Charley married to Vernie Raber (Marion).  Four years later, Charley's dead.


Someone else dies that year--1934...It's Mother McVicker, Della Hawkins (McVicker/Jones).  Della had been married to Civil War Veteran Steen McVicker.  Steen McVicker was a former Confederate Soldier who fought for the Union in '65.  He was a Private in Company A, Regiment 6, Infantry.  (See M1017, film #59).  He and wife Alice had been born in Virginia and married in October of 1870.  Their Post Office in 1870 was Prunty Town in Grafton Township in Taylor County.

Prunty Town, of course, was initially know as Crossroads and eventually became Williamstown.  Taylor County was formed OF Barbour, Harrison and Marion Counties.  It was established as a county in 1844 and Prunty Town was the County Seat until 1878 when Grafton became the County seat. 

Prunty Town was a crossroads between the River and the Turnpike;  The Railroad and mainlines/sidelines.
Grafton is also famous for being a crossroads in loyalties.  At the beginning of the Civil War...

[Grafton Guard--Capt.Latham/Letcher's Guards--Lee/Porterfield]                                      




1920--Elias Wilson and Cora (Clayton) Wilson are 64 & 52 with two of their children still with them Guy Wilson (19) and Monnie Wilson (15).


Elias was born with the "deformity or any special circumstance" of being what looks like a list of "cross" breeded children.  A derogatory way of referencing mulattos and children of Indian/white blood.  Elias had been born to James and Pleasy Wilson--in Mannington.  See Register of births--1855.

Who else lives there in Mannington is Civil War Veteran Christopher Raber (Union service '62/'63, Infantry, Company K, Regiment 9)...in the household just after the Civil War (Census 1870) is a girl named Alabama Raber...these two are +/-18 years apart in age.  And we find them again on the Census of 1910 (same age difference...Christopher is HOH and Alabama Wilson is his "sister." 


Going back to 1870--Fayettville and hill towns...there are two sisters, Alabama (age 5) and Texes (age4) Wilson.  Texes at age 13 goes to live with Uncle J.H. Wilson and his wife Ella (born TN).  In 1907 Texes Wilson has a cerebral hemmorage in Cotton Hill, WVA.  She'd married to Rufus Sutphin and is found as a 34 year old on the US Census 1900.  When we see Alabama Raber in the summer of 1870, she's seven.  She's the only one in the household who can read AND write besides Jacob Raber.


When Elias Wilson marries Cora Clayton in 1888 we find out that his parents' names are James and Pleasy Wilson and hers are Abner and "Sina."  Cora'd been born in Marion County but Elias was Monongalia people according to the wedding information...except we find him and his family in Marion County (Mannington) as well on the Census of 1870.  James Wilson is a farm hand, Pleasey Wilson is keeping house, there's Elias Wilson at age 16, "Sine" Wilson (8) and James Smith, a 19 year old Farm Hand.  Pleasey can't read or write but Elias is in school.


By 1900 on the North Side of Mannington we find Elias and Cora married with children in the house...Roscoe (12), Lillie M (10), Ada B. (8), and Glenn (also 8).

1910--Elias or Lias and Cora have listed...Ada (18), Glen (12), Guy (10), and Monnie (5).

By 1920, there's Elias and Cora with son: Guy Wilson and DAU: Monnie Wilson.  Cora is 52 years old and Elias is 64.


1920--Glenn and Pearl are in their own home (Glenn's 23 and Pearl's 17)--no children with them.

If Louis D. Wilson was nine years old in 1930 then she was born to Glenn and Pearl in +/-1921.



Both Lillie Mae McVicker and Glenn E. Wilson died widowed not divorced.  Lillie Mae is not in the Arnett Cemetery where there are many Wilsons.  There lies Glenn E. Wilson who died in the same year as Elias Fox.  And Roscoe L. Wilson who died in 1938; he'd been born "near Metz."  And married Georgia Rice Wilson.


Ada Blanche Wilson's brirth record is on the last page of the record book (page 318).  She was born on the 10th of October to E. Wilson and Cora Wilson.  The year of the record is not clear to me on the computer.


Willis McVicker born 1884 in Metz to Steen McVicker and Della Morse according to his death cert. F: Steen R. McVicker, M: Della MORSE.  The "Morse" might be the way some folks say Morris or it might've been a directional...telegram somebody.  He'd married Mary E. Lemley in 1910 in the May of '06 over in Monroe County, Ohio  Ella's parents were Phillip and Ruth (Shaw) Vierheller.  In fact he'd been born the fifth of May 1884.  At the time of the WWI Draft Registration he was 34 years old, short, slender, with light brown hair and blue eyes.  His nearest relative is Mrs. Ella McVicker in Metz.  Willis Steen McVicker, his middle name after his father.  Willis is in Arnett Cemetery too.  At the time of his death he was a retired carpenter.  Some of Willis and Mary Ellen's children were Willard Nelson McVicker (who died as a young man, aged 36, a coalmine machine operator); Harold McVicker who married Zelphia Kuhn; Wilford Wayne McVicker who'd married Addie Mae Straight and died on Christmas Eve of 1971.


Willis' brother Darley Herbert McVicker claimed exemption from the draft for World War I on account of his wife and four children depending on him alone for income.  At the time of the draft he was a teamster with Dattilo Fruit Company.  Willis was already a Private, Calvary, and three years in the U.S. 3rd Regular Army.  He'd married his Florence M. Fetter when he was twenty-five in the spring of 1913.

Darley had been one of the children who moved to the Henry Hawkins place on Campbell's Run with his mother (the widow of Steen McVicker) Della.  Listed among four sons and a daughter named Frankie Rice.  By the following Census (1910) Henry Hawkins has passed on.  Willis is about to marry Mary Ellen Lemley.  And Darley's going to marry Florence in three years time.  Charles McVicker is twenty-one years old and the most likely candidate to be married to the daughter-in-law listed:  Lillie McVicker.

And, indeed, by the 1920 Census there's Charles and wife Lillie with mother Deliah McVicker.  It'll be another forty-nine years before Lillie Mae Wilson McVicker has gone home.  She died at home on North Main Street of an instant heart problem.  She'd had a coronory disease for about three years before that June day.  And a general artillisclerosis for at least eight years.  Earl Lough reported it.  Her birthplace at that moment in time was unknown by those around her.  Lillie Mae's parent's on the Death Certificate--Elias Wilson and Cora Clayton.  And Lillie Mae was buried in the I.O.O.F. Cemetery.

Charlie McVicker

Pearl McVicker

Charlie McVicker died in the fall of 1946.  Great-Grandma Pearl called down to West Virginia and whomever she spoke to told her nobody cared.

Pearl's daughter Louise and her husband Charles Hinerman sent flowers for the funeral.

Sometime after Charlie's death but before the close of 1947 Grandma Betty, without Pearl's knowledge, made a trip to West Virginia to try and ascertain the truth.  She was getting married and needed to know who her real father was.  Pearl had explained Charlie McVicker raised her, so he was her real father.  But Betty had memories.  She remembered the carved Fox headboard and hiding under the sheets, deathly afraid of the man throwing Pearl into walls and beating her up with his fists.  Betty demanded to know if that was Charlie McVicker or Glen Wilson.

And Betty slipped off to West Virginia to see what she could find out of her family tree.

Grover Candy (on left--Betty's soon to be husband 1940's)

Grover Candy and Betty

Betty at the McVicker cottage, Skidway Lake, Michigan

Betty and husband Paul Kughn with daughters Gail and Sherry

It wasn't until the 1950's that Mama Sherry (Betty's daughter) went to visit Mammy and Pappy Fox (Elias and Ida Mae) with her own small family.  She'd remarried to Paul Kughn.

Mama Sherry remembers riding there in the car, sitting in the back seat on top of a suitcase.  And the big house.

Betty would've been sent with word for Mammy.  Pearl had remarried too (in 1947).  She was doing very well, living on a farm in West Branch Michigan with her husband Jesse Bohlinger.