Elizabeth (Harrington) Watkins (1856 - 1939)

Born 23 Mar 1856 in Haynesville, Clay, Missouri, USA

Ancestors

Wife of James Duncan Watkins — married 1878 in missouri, USA

Descendants

Died 29 Jul 1939 at age 83 in Kidder, Caldwell, Missouri, USA

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Biography

Elizabeth was born in 1856. Elizabeth Harrington ... She passed away in 1939. ^[1]

Elizabeth Harrington Watkins, was the wife of James Duncan Watkins, where they married in Rock Port, Atchison County, Missouri on 08 August 1877. After taking her son James Riley Watkins to the doctor for an upper respiratory infection, she was told by the doctor they needed to move to a location away from the Missouri River as it was too damp for their son. According to family tradition, they traveled by a covered wagon to Cedar County for a time, and then to her husband's birth place in the Old Starfield area of Clinton County where they remained until after her husband's death. I also learned from my Uncle John Watkins, the son, of her son James R. and wife Ethel Riggs Watkins, that Elizabeth made her own fabric with her loom. She must have also grown her own sheep. She took John and his sister Elsie under her wing for a time. John since she was a godly woman who taught him about God, he felt very loved under her care. Elizabeth's husband died from a bad lung infection on 07 May 1913, after driving home on a rainy day from his son, Ril's home in Hemple. His first wife, Ethel had died on 05 October 1911, and he married secondly Ethel's sister, Esther Riggs, on 09 December 1912. James D. took his wife, Elizabeth and daughter Nell, to see Ril & Esther on a warm balmy day for spring in Missouri. Uncle John recalled to me, that a 'noreaster' blew in quickly and his grandfather left his wife and daughter and drove the team him in his bad weather in his shirt sleeves. The death certificate for him gave his cause of death as tuberculosis, but my uncle disputed that to me. Elizabeth lived for 26 years after her husband's death. While living in Kidder, Caldwell, Missouri with her daughter, Nancy Schlup. Her cause of death was nephritis, she also had diabetis incipidis and chronic myocardial failure, all influenced by hypertension. She is buried in the Mount Zion Baptist Church Cemetery next to her husband, in Old Starfield, Clinton County, Missouri. Also buried in the same cemetery are her parents James and Nancy Harrington, and her sister, Hannah Metzger, wife of John Smith Metzger.

In the fall of 1980, my two sisters and I met a Mr. Rose, who was the son of my grandfather, James Riley Watkins' "Ril" best friend, Babe Rose. He took us through the home that Ril's father had built close to Castile Creek at the end of the 1800's before the turn of 1900. It was a place that he and Elizabeth lived while raising their three children. My Uncle Ben has the family pictures taken of them hanging in his living room, the same pictures that Uncle John had in his home until his death. Elizabeth was said to have strawberry blonde hair, and a beautiful woman. James was about her same size being a small man. Their son, Ril, was much bigger. The only son of four daughters also born to this couple, two of them reached adulthood. We called the oldest, Aunt Nan, not Nancy and the younger daughter was Nellie Gertrude, whom we called Aunt Nell. Aunt Nan was small and her husband, Dick Schlup was tall and thin. Aunt Nell was taller and thinner as well, she died at age 45, no children, from chronic glomerulonephritis, and Nell also had cardiac insufficency as well. From years of researching the Harrington family, I see many of them die from some form on nephritis. Elizabeth was in a record.^[2]

Sources

1. ↑ Entered by Marie Mills, Feb 19, 2012
2. ↑ Unclassified: "Missouri, U.S., Death Certificates, 1910-1962"
   Missouri Office of the Secretary of State; Jefferson City, Missouri; Missouri Death Certificates, 1910-1969
   Ancestry Sharing Link • Ancestry Record 60382 #1040494 (accessed 9 October 2021)
   Name: Elizabeth Watkins; Death Date: Jul 1939; Death Place: Caldwell, Missouri, USA; Certificate Number: 25199; URL: https://www.sos.mo.gov/images/archives/deathcerts/1939/1939_00025201.PDF

• Marie Mills, firsthand knowledge. Click the Changes tab for the details of edits by Marie and others.