Chosen Families Project #19: The Quiggle-Gray Family
Hello everyone!
It’s been a while since my last episode of the Chosen Families Project. I am finished with my semester, and now I am able to put more creative energy towards my project.
Although I haven’t performed research in a while, I still have been collecting family photographs and documents to return. There was a new store in my town that had old photographs and I was able to find one that struck me in particular to research. On the back of this couples portrait, it had a name “Anna Quigle.” With some research based on the location of Crawfordsville, Indianna, I was able to locate the couple.
Here is the story of Anna K. (Quigle?/Quiggle) Gray and her husband Elwood Horace Gray:
Anna Quiggle was born on May 19, 1872, in Adams County, Pennsylvania to parents John Singleton Quiggle (1846-1912) and Sarah Ann Rudisill (1848-1920). Her father was a farmer, and her family lived an early part of her life in York Springs, Adams County, Pennsylvania. Some of the family moved to Indiana between 1880-1900 according to census records, and she had grown up with 4 sisters, Mary Elizabeth “Lizzie” (Quiggle) Haverstick, Emma Jean (Quiggle) Glover, Cora C. (Quiggle) Gabriel, and Sadie Alberta (Quiggle) Glover. Something to note, according to Dianna Stoddard on FindaGrave of the couple, John was christened as a Quickel (German spelling) in 1846 not 1845 and changed his name to Quiggle as his Americanized name.
By Dec 8, 1893, Anna would marry her husband Elwood Gray in Fountain County, Indiana, both of them 21 years old. The couple would have one son the next year, named William Carl Gray, who went by Carl. The couple would live in Richland, Fountain, Indiana according to census records from 1900-1930. Her parents and family had moved to Indiana, with both her parents passing away in Fountain County, Indiana. Her father John passed away in 1912, and her mother Sarah in 1920. Both of her parents are buried in Union Chrisitian Cemetery, in Fountain County, Indiana. I was able to locate a 1912 obituary for John 1920 obituary for Anna, which is shown below.
Headstone of Anna’s parents in Union Christian Cemetery
Obituary for John Quiggle (1912) from FindAGrave
Obituary of Sarah Quiggle From FindaGrave,mother of Anna Quiggle
A little bit about Elwood before I continue, Elwood Horace Gray was born on Jan 7, 1872 to parents John Hudson Gray (1849-1928), and Charlotte A. Coen Gray (1848-1938). He grew up with his parents and brother William Mills Gray (1877-1951) in Newton, Fountain, Indiana. Elwood likely named his son William Carl as a dedication to his brother William. Elwood also had Pennsylvania roots, with his father born in Pennsylvania, and his mother born in Indiana, and worked as a Farmer for most of his life. Elwood would pass away at the age of 64 in Danville, Vermilion, Illinois at the St. Elizabeth hospital in Danville, while residing in Wingate, Montgomery, Indiana according to his death record.
His obituary from the Journal and Courrier in Layfayette Indiana from Jan 25 1936 reads:
Another obituary from his Find A Grave memorial reads from Jan 30 1936:
“Elwood Gray, aged 64, prominent farmer of near Newtown, died at five o’clock Saturday morning, at the St. Elizabeth hospital, Danville, Illinois, where he was a patient two weeks. He had been ill several months.
Mr. Gray was born near Newtown January 7, 1872, a son of John and Charlotte Coen Gray. In December, 1893, he married Miss Anna Quigle.
Surviving are the widow, Anna; one son, Carl, at home; the mother, Mrs. Charlotte Gray; one brother, Mills Gray, and one sister, Mrs. Lelia Parnell, all of Newtown.
Funeral services were held at 2 o’clock Monday afternoon at the Presbyterian church in Newtown, Rev. C.C. Ward of Crawfordsville officiating. Burial was made in the Newtown cemetery.”
His wife Anna would reside in Fountain County, Indiana, until her passing.Thanks to the new 1950s census records published this year, I was able to see she was residing in Richland, Fountain County, Indiana with her son Carl and wife Bernis as a widow. She would pass away in Williamsport Indiana at Williamsport Hospital after passing away from arteriosclerosis cardiovascular disease on Aug 12, 1957 at the age of 85 according to her death certificate.She had resided with her son Carl in Wingate, Indiana at the time of her death. She would be buried on August 14, 1957, in Newton Cemetery with her husband.
From an August 12, 1957 in the Journal and Courier I located her obituary, which reads:
Here is the couples headstone in Newton Cemetery, located in Newton County, Indiana
Their son would work as a farmer in his community as well. He would pass away on April 25, 1972 St. Elizabeth Hospital in Lafayette, Indiana at age 76, and was buried in Newtown Cemetery, with his wife Bernis was buried alongside him in after her passing on September 27, 1972, at the age of 72..
Death Certificate of Bernis (Witt) Gray https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/60716/images/45232_354207-00127?treeid=&personid=&hintid=&queryId=9dd9a4320bdb114ce379b8b8948bed2a&usePUB=true&_phsrc=rZo45675&_phstart=successSource&usePUBJs=true&pId=167570
The couples headstone in Newton Cemetery (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/29360257/bernis-marie-gray)
Her obituary from the Journal and Courier from Jan 28, 1972 reads:
I was also able to date the photograph based on information from the photographer thanks to the InGen Web project from Montgomery County, Indiana. (Source: http://ingenweb.org/inmontgomery/bios%20w/--willis---abner-denman.html ) The photographs name was Abner Denman Willis. “He was born on January 14, 1834, near Alamo, in Montgomery county, Indiana, on the farm which his father secured by parchment deed from the national government. He was a son of Benjamin Will and Susanna (Butts) Willis, to whose lot fell the task of rescuing a fertile farm from the primeval wilderness. Abner Denman was apprenticed to a Tinner in Crawfordsville until he was old enough to attend a school of higher learning, when he entered Barnabas Hobbs Quaker Academy at Bloomingdale, Indiana. After graduation there, he taught a district school for several years and while teaching in Vermillion County in the winter of 1863-1864 he met Frances Ellen Comegys, a pupil, to whom he was married on September 29, 1864 near Danville Illiinois. He operated a traveling Photograph Gallery having become especially proficient in the making of daguerreotypes. In 1866 he moved to Crawfordsville where he bought a Photograph Gallery, which he operated for twelve consecutive years. In 1878 he moved to Harrisonville, Missouri, where he operated a Photograph Gallery for three years, after which he returned to Crawfordsville, where he remained in the Photograph business until 1898, when he died of pneumonia while on a business trip to Harrisonville, Missouri. He was the father of six children, of whom three died in infancy. Those who lived were Nathaniel Parker, Lucius Comegys and Anibel Ellen. For thirty years A. D. Willis was one of the most widely know citizens of Montgomery County. As a photographer, in which profession he became best known, he earned a reputation for a conscientious work and the scrupulous care with which he kept faith with his clients. He was buried on December 9, 1898, in Oak Hill Cemetery, the funeral being conducted by the Masonic order". The photograph then dates from 1866-1878, and from 1881-1898, which matches to the date of the couples marriage in 1893.
Another detail I found about Abner D Willis is his son, who was murdered. (http://ingenweb.org/inmontgomery/bios%20w/--willis---nathaniel-parker-.html) “Nathaniel Parker Willis, oldest son of Abner Denman Willis and Frances Ellen (Comegys) Willis, was born at Crawfordsville, Indiana, On August 21, 1868. The tragedy which occurred in a court room in Little Rock, Ark July 29, 1909 which resulted in the death of Nathaniel Parker Willis, a former resident of Greencastle is recalled by a handsome marble shaft recently erected in Oak Hill cemetery near Crawfordsville, Indiana.
For some background “As a boy he had done much work in the Photograph Gallery conducted by his father and he left the government service to take charge of this business, in which he was singularly successful, both from a business and artistic standpoint. He was a prominent exhibitor at the exhibitions, winning the first prize in Class B at the exhibit of the Indiana Photographers Association in 1897. In 1898 and 1899 he again exhibited in the association and took second prize in the same class. He took third prize in the Milwaukee exhibit of 1899 and in 1897 he secured a medal from the Photographers Association of America. While in Chicago he was married, his wife dying a few weeks after the wedding ceremony. Several years later he again married Hattie Bell, of Ladoga, but the union was not a happy one. Shortly after his return to Indianapolis his wife ran away, taking with her their little girl, Mary Frances. The remainder of his life was devoted largely to attempts to see the child who was secreted in various parts of the country. The child was eventually taken to Arkansas and in the courts of Little Rock He obtained permission to visit his child at stated intervals. In 909 he made his customary visit to Little Rock to see Mary, and was securing an order of the court to have her with him at his hotel for a period of two weeks, when the man W. Y. Ellis, whom his divorced wife had married, shot him without warning while in the court room. In the subsequent trial many letters that the subject of this sketch had written to his daughter were read and they showed such a tender regard for the child that the spectators in the court room were moved to tears. For the last few years of his life a desire to see his child was his abiding passion.
Another decription reads “Nathaniel Parker Willis was also a peculiar man. He was born and raised in Crawfordsville. He was a handsome young man of pleasing personality. He was graduated from Crawfordsville High School with honors. Like his father, he was a splendid photographer, but he discovered a cure for the whiskey habit which made him a fortune. He was twice married. The first time to a young lady of his home city who died a few days after the marriage while they were on their honeymoon trip. After several years he married again this time to a Miss Bell of Ladoga. One child was born to them, Mary Frances Laura Willis. It was over this little on e that he was killed.”
About his headstone and more about the case “In Oak Hill cemetery, one and one-half miles northwest of Crawfordsville where the bodies of Gen. Lew Wallace, Maurice Thompson an dother distinguished Americans lie, the most unique and costly monument yet placed there was erected only a few weeks ago. The monument bears an excellent likeness of the victim of W.Y. Ellis, who shot and killed Willis in cold blood. It is at the grave of the late Nathaniel Parker Willis who was slain at a court of justice in Little Rock on July 27, 1909 by WY Ellis. “Willis was shot and almost instantly killed by Ellis, when Judge Guy Fulk of the second division of the Pulaski Circuit Court had handed down a decision granting Willis permission to see his only child Mary Fraqnes Laura Willis, who was the stepdaughter of Ellis. “Murdered in a court of justice in Little Rock, Ark where he had gone by permission of the court to see his own daughter, Mary Frances Laura Willis, whom he loved and from whom he had been separated by the fallacies of the court.”
For the following year, my goals are to expand this project even further, including guests, and doing more photographs to research. Another additional update is that I returned the photograph of Stephanie and Doris Crum, whose son/grandson recieved all the photographs and sent me Christmas photographs of his family with them, which I have included in their article.
If you are related to Anna (Quiggle) or Elwood Gray or their son William Carl, please contact me at thechosenfamiliesproject@gmail.com.
Citation:
The INGenWeb Project, Copyright ©1997-2020 (and beyond), Montgomery County GenWeb site http://www.ingenweb.org/inmontgomery/
