Mary Ann (Womack) Franklin (1838 - 1897)

Mary Ann was born 20 March 1838 in Brandon, Rankin County, Mississippi to Abraham J. and Rebecca Jane Womack. Mary Ann and six of her siblings were born in Mississippi between 1838 and 1850. Two more siblings were born in Texas, one 1855, the other 1857. This ties down the date that the Womacks moved to Texas to a five-year interval between 1850 and 1855. It also ties down Mary Ann’s age to have been somewhere between 12 to 17 when they moved to Texas.

Mary Ann was married three times, first to William Ford who died soon after they married (no children from this union), second to Howell Franklin (two children, Laura and George), and third to Dr. James T. Hill (two children, Runie and Rebecca). Dr. Hill was first married to Mary Ann’s sister, Sarah Jane Womack, before he and Mary Ann married.

When Mary Ann and Dr. Hill married in 1875, this newly formed family included 1) Brink Wallace, Sarah Jane Womack’s child from her marriage to Dr. George Marion Wallace, 2) the three living children from Dr. Hill’s marriage to Sarah Jane Womack, and 3) Mary Ann’s two children from her marriage to Howard “Howell” Franklin. They moved, all of them, to Iola where Dr. Hill had his medical practice. A few years later, in about 1877, the Hill family moved from Iola to Willowhole in Madison County where he was a prominent doctor until he died in 1911. Sarah Frances (Baby Sally), the last child from the union of Sarah Jane and Dr. Hill, only lived about a year after Dr. Hill and Mary Ann married. As noted above, Mary Ann and Dr. Hill had two additional children of their own, Runie in 1877 and Rebecca in 1878.

Mary Ann died 5 June 1897 in Madison County at age 59. Dr. Hill, Mary Ann, Sarah Jane, Baby Sally, and Rebecca Jane Womack who had come to live with the Hills after Abram died, are all buried in a little cemetery near Iola.