Alice E. Woodrome was born about 1811 in Tennessee,[1] the daughter of John Woodrome and Jemima Edwards.
One of the first records we have of Alice E. Woodrome is when she married Alfred Goatcher in 1832 in Perry County, Illinois.[2]
We find no further record of Alfred Goatcher. According to marriage records in Lawrence County, Arkansas, Alice married Bazil Sexton in 1841.[3] We assume that Alfred had died prior to 1841, but we know not where nor exactly when. However, we do know that Alfred Goatcher and Alice E. Woodrome had at least two children, the latest born in about 1835 in Illinois.
Bazil Sexton and Alice apparently filed for divorce in 1845[4], but the source of this record is not certain.
However, the 1850 Federal Census for Jefferson Co., AR shows Alice Sexton residing with her parents there along with her sons – William J. Goatcher, age 16 (b. about 1833), and Nicholas E. Goatcher, age 15 (b. about 1835).
We find Alice E. Woodrome Goatcher Sexton again in 1860 in Union Twp., Fulton Co., AR. She resides there with her sister Edna Woodrome Smithee and Edna’s children, Alice’s son Nicholas E. Goatcher, and Nicholas’ daughter Melinda Goatcher. The 1860 Census document shows Alice’s occupation as “Physician.” [5]
Another record we have been able to locate of William J. Goatcher is in Los Angeles, California, in 1852. The Federal Census indicates that William and his Grandfather, John Woodrome, were living in a hotel there, during the year the first Census was taken for California as a state. William also appears in voter registration records in Los Angeles in 1868.
There is, though, a record of the marriage of Nicholas E. Goatcher to Lydia Hardin in Lawrence Co., AR on 4 Jan 1856. Their daughter Melinda Minerva Goatcher was born 1 Feb 1859. Lydia Ann Hardin Goatcher died in 1859 in Fulton County, Arkansas, not long after that birth.
We know from family stories passed on that Melinda Minerva Goatcher (wife of George Washington Smith, and mother of Alfred Mayberry Smith and six other children) was raised by Alice E. Sexton in Fulton Co., AR after the death of Melinda’s father Nicholas E. Goatcher (possibly in early war action, but we find no records).
Alice E. Sexton was widely known in the Ozarks as a traveling doctor during the Civil War period – a woman who was afraid of nothing, and who helped many.
The only other records we have found for Alice are the 1880 Federal Census for Fulton Twp., Fulton Co., AR, and a Federal land record from Batesville, AR dated 18 Oct 1898 for purchase of 41.66 acres.[6] In 1880 Alice was 72 years of age and living with her granddaughter, Melinda Goatcher Smith, Melinda’s husband George Washington Smith, and their son Alfred Mayberry Smith[7]
We might infer from the land purchase record from 1898 that Alice was still living after 18 Oct 1898 (she would have been about 87!), but we have found no record of her death, nor any information about where she may be buried.
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Alice is 22 degrees from Herbert Adair, 20 degrees from Richard Adams, 18 degrees from Mel Blanc, 26 degrees from Dick Bruna, 16 degrees from Bunny DeBarge, 32 degrees from Peter Dinklage, 17 degrees from Sam Edwards, 11 degrees from Ginnifer Goodwin, 18 degrees from Marty Krofft, 15 degrees from Junius Matthews, 15 degrees from Rachel Mellon and 16 degrees from Harold Warstler on our single family tree. Login to find your connection.