Ann Druscilla (Tyler) Holmes (1780 - 1874)

Born 4 Apr 1780 in Jefferson, Kentucky

Ancestors

Wife of Jesse Holmes — married 17 Nov 1803 in Shelby, Kentucky, United States

Descendants

Died 15 Feb 1874 at age 93 in Missouri

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Biography

Harry Truman is the great grand son of Nancy Holmes.

The following section is an excerpt from the book, 15 Generations of American Stories: Notable Descendants of Immigrant Job Tyler, (Norman Tyler, 2019).

Ann Drusilla Tyler was born in Shelby County, Kentucky, who married Jesse Holmes, whose daughter married Anderson Truman, bringing the Tyler name into the Hoover genealogy. She married Holmes in 1803 and they moved to Missouri. As described in a Harry Truman biography, at that time Ann Drusilla “led her clan from Kentucky carrying a huge sack of teacakes and a gentleman’s beaver hat in a leather hatbox.” She had slaves to handle her luggage and they paid particular attention to the hatbox, saying, “Get Hannah a bonnet suitable to wear to church.” The hat was not merely a relic of her husband, a remembrance of his passing years later, but of her “indestructible determination” to recognize her marriage. She held the strong view that any woman once a widow should always be a widow, and the hatbox went with her wherever she traveled during the next thirty-five years.

When Ann Drusilla’s husband died in 1840, she remained well off with lands and slaves. “She saw no conflict between slavery and the Fourth of July freedoms.” Indeed, some Truman family records show she may have had some objection to her daughter, Mary Jane, marrying into the Truman family, “because the Trumans were not slaveholders.” In response, Mary Jane ran off with her new husband, Anderson Truman, and the groom’s father did not give formal approval to the marriage until years later when the son brought back the old man’s first grandchild to Missouri to see him. Sometimes old traditions die hard.

Sources

See Also:

• Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/10647218/nancy-drucilla-tyler : accessed 08 February 2022), memorial page for Nancy Drucilla Holmes Tyler (4 Apr 1780–15 Feb 1874),Find A Grave: Memorial #10647218, citing Elmwood Cemetery, Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri, USA ; Maintained by Deb Frantz (contributor 46594371) .
• Sons of the American Revolution Membership Applications, 1889-1970. Louisville, Kentucky: National Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. Microfilm, 508 rolls.
• "Kentucky Marriages, 1785-1979," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/F474-H4H : accessed 15 Nov 2014), Jesse Holmes and Nancy Tyler, Nov 1803; citing , Shelby, Kentucky, reference ; FHL microfilm 259294.
• http://www.trumanlibrary.org/genealogy/index.php?m=family&id=66