PART
FORTY-THREE
The
Staffordshire Line to Kentucky and Michigan 1870 to 2014
This
is the second of three sections of this family line
Updated January 2025
43P61
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John Robert Thomas
Collett, who was
known as Robert, was born in Missouri on 11th December 1871 and that
probably happened at Millard where his father Robert Collett died in May 1880
when John was just eight years old.
Also, at the time of the US Census in June 1880, Robert was recorded
as being eight years old, when he was living with his widowed mother
Elizabeth and the rest of his family at Pettis in Adair County in Missouri. A little while later, during that same
year, Robert was recorded as boarding with his mother and sister Katie (above)
at the Atchison home of his uncle John Collett. According to the census return, eight-year-old
Robert had been born in Missouri and was attending the school in
Atchison. He was described as nephew
to head of the household John Collett. |
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In 1900 Robert Collett was 29, a
single man who was working as a loco fireman, and was in a boarding house in
Thayer Township, Oregon County, Missouri.
At the end of the following decade, Robert J Collett was 38 and a
roomer at Old Manchester Road in St Louis Township, from where he was
employed by the railroad as an axel supervisor. It was around
1923 when Robert Collett married Mary Edna Hoolan in the early 1920s with
whom he had a daughter Mary Joan Collett who was born in St Louis during 1927. |
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Two
years earlier Robert was living at St Louis when he heard the news that he
and his brothers and sisters were to share in a considerable amount of money
left to them by their grandparents back in England. The full details were printed in the San
Antonio Express on 4th February 1925 and are re-produced in
Appendix One at the end of this family line.
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The census return completed in 1930
for St Louis, Missouri, revealed that Robert Collett was 55 (sic) who had
married Mary when he was 47, while Mary H Collett was 40 and was 33 years old
on their wedding day. Robert was a
fuel agent on the railroad who was residing in rented accommodation with his
wife and three-year-old daughter Mary Joan Collett, all of whom were born in
Missouri. They were still living in St
Louis City in 1940, again in a rented property, and still employed as a fuel
agent with the Steam Railroad. Robert
was 60 (sic), Mary H was 48, and Mary Joan was 13. Robert appeared to be embarrassed with the
big difference in their ages since, he would have been 58 in 1930 and 68 in
1940. |
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It
was a similar situation in 1950, except that the family was living at Clayton
in St Louis County, Missouri, by which time Robert had retired and was
recorded as being 75 years of age.
Mary H Collett was 55, and that day their daughter was Joan Mary
Collett who was 23. It is established
that, from around that time, their daughter was known as Joan, who was a
librarian and was very keen on genealogy and is believed to have spent some
time researching her family roots. It
seems that she never married, with the death of 65-year-old Mary Joan Collett
recorded at Missouri Township in December 1991, and was buried there on 29th
December 1991. Robert
Collett died at St Louis in Missouri during the month of April in 1954 and
was buried at Calvary and Mausoleum there. |
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43Q95 |
Mary Joan Collett |
Born in 1927 at St Louis, Missouri |
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43P62
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Helen Maude Collett, who was sometime referred to as Ellen
Maude but more commonly as Nellie, was born in Missouri on 4th May
1874. That may have taken place at
Millard where her father died or at Pettis where Helen was living with her
family in 1880. The 1880 Census for
Pettis in Adair County listed Nellie as being five years of age. Later that year Nellie’s mother was living
with Nellie’s uncle John Collett at Atchison in Kansas with her older
siblings Katie and Robert (above).
That meant Nellie and her sister Minnie, and brothers Arthur and
William must have been looked after by another family, possibly in Missouri. |
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In
1916, Helen was living at 608 West Craig Place in San Antonio. Family legend tells the story that Nellie
attempted to take her own life using a pair of scissors. Apparently, she was a patient at the State
Mental Hospital in Kerrville, near San Antonio in Texas where she died in
1919. The real tragedy of this story
is that six years after she had died, she would have been one of the
beneficiaries to the estate of her English grandparents, the parents of her
mother Martha Elizabeth Simons, which had been placed in trust at Leicester
in England since 1894. |
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43P63
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William Francis
Collett was born in Missouri on 19th August 1877. He was the son of Robert Collett of Colwich
and Martha Elizabeth Simmons of Essington and was born eleven years after his
family had emigrated to America from England.
It seems likely that he was born at Millard in Missouri where it is
known his family was living at the time of the death of his father Robert,
when William was only one or two years old.
The US Census of 1880 for Pettis in Adair County, Missouri simply
recorded that ‘Willie Collett’ was two years old and born in Missouri. On that occasion he was living with his
widowed mother Elizabeth and five of his older siblings, they being Arthur,
Minnie, Katie, Robert, and Nellie. |
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It
is not clear exactly what happened to his family following the death of his
father, except that later that same year his mother, together with his sister
Katie and brother Robert were living as boarders with his father’s brother
John Collett and his family at Atchison.
Where William and his other ‘missing’ siblings were on that occasion
has still not been resolved, or what happened to them over the following
years. |
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Sometime
later and possibly before the end of the century, William left Missouri and
moved south into Texas where he met Maje L Townsend whom he eventually
marriage in 1906. The couple’s
marriage certificate confirmed that the wedding took place on St Valentine’s
Day in 1906 in Maverick County, Texas.
The document was drawn up in the registrar’s office in the town of
Eagle Pass. Maje L Townsend was born
in Texas around 1885. This photograph of her may have been
taken around the time of her marriage. |
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Over
the next four years William and Maje lived over the border in Mexico where
their first child was born, before returning to settle in Texas where their
remaining children were born. It is
established that it was at Crystal City in Texas that his son William was
born, and it may have been there also that his second daughter was born. By 1st January 1920 (the US
Census Day) the family of five was living at Alpine in Brewster County in
Texas and was recorded as follows: |
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William
F Collett of Missouri was 42, his wife Maje was 35, and their three children
were Margaret of Mexico who was 13, William, who was seven, and Martha who
was four years and eleven months old, both of Texas. Shortly after the census the family left
Alpine and move to San Antonio, where the couple’s last child was born. In 1925 William and his family were living
at 104 Haynes Avenue in San Antonio from where he worked for the Southern
Pacific Railroad. It was on 4th
February 1925 that the San Antonio Express (newspaper) published an article
about William and his four surviving siblings inheriting a shared fortune of
$200,000. The full transcript of the
article is re-produced in Appendix One at the end of this family line. |
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By
the time William died at Houston in Texas in 1943 he was 65 and had been
separated from Maje for several years due to his busy work schedule and had
been staying in a boarding house. Maje
survived her husband by twenty-two years when she died at San Antonio in
Texas during 1965. |
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43Q96 |
Margaret Frances Collett |
Born in 1908
at Mexico |
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43Q97 |
William Bruns Collett |
Born in 1912
at Crystal City, Texas |
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43Q98 |
Martha Elizabeth Collett |
Born in 1915
at Alpine, Texas |
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43Q99 |
Mary Belle Collett |
Born in 1921
at San Antonio, Texas |
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43P64
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Dorothy Louise Collett, who was known as Lulu, was born at
Aughton Park in Ormskirk, Lancashire on 3rd June 1858. Around the time she was ten years old her
family emigrated to America and by 1880 they were living in Atchison. The census that year listed Dorothy as 22 when
she was working at home, where she was supporting her mother, Mary. Seven years later she married James Waters
McKelvey, who was known as Jim, on 13th April 1887 at Merriam Park
in St Paul in Minnesota. Jim was a
‘scotch tinner’ and their marriage produced four children for Lulu and James
who were all born at Atchison in Kansas. |
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Dorothy
Louise McKelvey nee Collett died whilst at Kansas City on 23rd
January 1925 and was buried at Mount Vernon Cemetery in Atchison in Kansas on
25th January 1925. Her
husband James (although referred to as John in Lulu’s obituary) died
eighteen months later, on 19th June 1926, at Kansas City and was
buried with his wife in Atchison. An
obituary in the Atchison Globe newspaper read: |
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“Mrs.
Dorothy Louise McKelvey, wife of John W. McKelvey, Kansas City, formerly of
Atchison, dies Friday in Kansas City after a long and painful illness. Mrs. McKelvey was a sister of William
Barrow Collett. She spent most of her
girlhood and many years of her married life in Atchison. She was stricken with the illness which
caused her death several years ago, since when she has been almost entirely
helpless. She was the daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Collett who lived in
Atchison for years. Her father died a number of years ago, but her mother survives and lives
in Richards with another daughter, Mrs Uberrein formerly of Atchison. Besides
her husband, mother and brother and sister, Mrs McKelvey is survived by four
children: John McKelvey, who is editor of a paper in a town in Kansas, James
McKelvey of St. Louis, Mrs. Bessie Mair of Sioux City, and Mrs. Florence
Ellis of Kansas City. Mrs. McKelvey
was a staunch Episcopalian and was instrumental in the building of St.
Andrew's Chapel in West Atchison and it was hoped the funeral might take
place from the chapel. But the main
entrance to the chapel is too small for the casket to be taken through, so
the funeral will take place at 2 o'clock this afternoon from the Hawin &
Douglas Chapel” |
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Their
children were John (Jack) Francis McKelvey born on 21st
July 1888 and died on 24th December 1967, James Brook McKelvey
born during 1890, Florence McKelvey born in 1900 who died on 3rd
February 1925, and Elizabeth (Bessie) McKelvey born during 1902. |
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43P65
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Elizabeth Copeland
Collett was born at
Eastham, across the River Mersey from Liverpool, on 15th June
1859. By 1870 Elizabeth and her family
had emigrated to America, and by 1880 they were living at Atchison where
Elizabeth was twenty-one years of age.
It was much later in her life that she married banker Karl Ueberrhein
on 19th December 1901 in Atchison, who was many years younger than
Elizabeth. She was an accomplished
water-colour artist and she died on 14th January 1927 and was
buried in Whites Cemetery near Richards Township. The cause of death was pneumonia with
influenza. Following the death of his
wife, Karl is understood to have married Della and the couple lived at 528
West Lee, Nevada in Missouri. He was
the Secretary and Treasurer of the Vernon County National Farm Loan
Association of Nevada, Missouri and, after Elizabeth died, he continued to
manage Edgewood Farm at Richards which was still owned by the Collett family. |
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43P66
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Robert William Barrow
Collett was born at
Liverpool on 31st July 1860.
He sailed to America with his mother and younger sister Eliza (below)
when he was just eight years old, his father and two older sisters having
gone on ahead a couple of years earlier.
The crossing from Liverpool was on board the sailing ship ‘City of
Baltimore’ which arrived in New York on 24th April 1867. Once in America, the family made their home
at Atchison, Kansas. And it was there
that they were living at the time of the US Census of 1880. This recorded that William aged 20 and from
England, was still living at the family home from where he was working as a
clerk. |
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He
later married Annie Heermance the daughter of Henry Philip Heermance and
Elizabeth Fonda. Annie was five years
older than William, having been born at Glenco, New York on 26th
February 1855 and baptised there on 31st July 1855. William and Annie remained at Atchison
after they were married, and it was there that their three children were
born. It was on becoming a naturalised
American citizen at the age of 55 on 11th January 1916, that
William Barrow Collett (the first) chose to drop his initial name of
Robert. William Barrow Collett died on
1st September 1930 at Cleveland in Ohio, and was buried in Mount
Vernon Cemetery in Atchison where his wife was also buried following her
death nearly seven years later, on 2nd February 1937. The Atchison Daily Globe carried the
following obituary on 3rd September 1930: |
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"Funeral services
for the late William Barrow Collett, 70, former Atchison insurance man who
died Monday morning at his home in Cleveland, Ohio were held this
afternoon. The body arrived at the
Burlington station at 1.33pm and was taken from the train to Mount Vernon
Cemetery, where the Rev. Early Poindexter, Rector of the Trinity Episcopal
Church conducted a short service at the grave. Pallbearers were Martin Jensen, John Kaff,
Herb Mine, Wirth Hetherington, and Arthur and Ed Lukens. Hawin and Douglas were in charge. Mr. Collett first went into the insurance
business in Atchison in 1887 with Dick Selts as partner. They engaged in the fire insurance business
until 1893 when Mr. Collett became the fourth district agent appointed in the
state of Kansas for the North-Western Mutual Life Insurance Co. Together with Mr. K.W. Poindexter, Swift,
and P.M and E.H. Anderson, Mr Collett formed the Kansas "Old Guard"
of the North-Western Company. Mr.
Collett took part in various civic and public enterprises in Atchison. He was appointed receiver of the Atchison
Coal Company and closed up its affairs. Together with the late Dr. E. T. Shelly and
others, he helped to organise the Committee of Forty, and was instrumental in
organising the Atchison YMCA and the Rotary Club. Mr. Collett's illness began in 1919 with an
attack of intestinal flu. From 1922 to
1924 he lived in Fort Scott, Kansas in order to be
near his farm interests. He returned
to Atchison in 1924, which he always claimed as his home, and lived here until
1929 when he went to Cleveland. At the
time of his death Mr. Collett was still listed as an active agent by the
North-Western Mutual Life Insurance Company.
His son, William Barrow Collett Jr is now production manager of the
company in the Detroit, Michigan." |
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43Q100 |
a Collett
daughter (stillborn) |
Born on
16.09.1887 at Atchison |
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43Q101 |
Mary Elizabeth Collett |
Born in 1888
at Atchison |
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43Q102 |
William Barrow Collett II |
Born in 1895
at Atchison |
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43P67
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Eliza Collett was born in 1861 and very likely at
Liverpool where her brother William (above) was born two years
earlier. When she was only a couple of
years old her father John Collett sailed to America with her two oldest
siblings Dorothy and Elizabeth. The
remainder of the family, comprising Eliza and William and their mother Mary,
followed in due course, when they sailed out of Liverpool on the ship ‘City
of Baltimore’ which sailed into New York harbour on 24th April
1867. The ship’s passenger list
included the names of Mary E Collett aged 36, and her two children William
who was eight, and Eliza who was six.
Whether it was the sea voyage or the one-thousand-mile trek across
America that caused the death of Eliza is not known, but she appears not to
have survived the journey since she was not listed with the family when it
settled at Atchison in Kansas and where they were living in 1880. |
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43P68
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Mary Ellen Collett, who was known as Ella, was born at
Ashby-de-la-Zouch at the end of 1860 and in the April census of 1871 she was
living at The Castle Inn with her parents and was ten years old. Ten years later Mary’s father was still the
inn keeper at The Castle when Mary was 20 years old and working as a draper’s
assistant. The marriage of Mary Ellen
Collett and John Hollis was recorded at Burton-on-Trent (Ref. 6b 82) during
the first three months of 1884 and took place on 3rd February. John, who was known as Jack, was born in
1858 and was 25 and the son of Edward Hollis, and from Ashby-de-la-Zouch,
while Mary Ellen was 23, the daughter of William Collett, and was residing at
23 High Street in Burton. By 1891 the
couple and their two children were living at Burton Road in
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where solicitor’s clerk was John Hollis was 33, Mary E
Hollis was 30, Charles Reginald Hollis was six, and Mabel Alice
Hollis was four years of age. Visiting
the family that day was Mary’s sister Kate Elizabeth Collett (below)
who was 16. According to the next census
in 1901, every member of the Hollis household had been born at
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, when in 1901 they were residing at Ashby Road in Packington
just south of Ashby-de-la-Zouch. John
Hollis was 43 and a solicitor’s clerk, Mary Ellen Hollis was 40, Charles
Reginald Hollis was 16, and Mabel Alice Hollis was 14. |
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It
was a similar situation in 1911, when John was again working as a clerk for a
local solicitor at the age of 53. Mary
Ellen was 50, son Charles Reginald was 26, and daughter Mabel Alice was
24. John’s income from his work was
sufficient for him to employ a domestic male servant, sixteen-year-old George
Arthur Walker. Thirteen years later,
the family was still living in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where John Hollis died on
22nd March 1924 at the age of 65, where he was also buried. |
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43P69
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Annie Collett was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1862
and, in the census of 1871, she was living at The Castle Inn with her parents
and was nine years old. Ten years
later Annie was nineteen and with no specified occupation it seems likely she
was working with her mother looking after their large family. Around the mid-1880s the family left
Ashby-de-la-Zouch when they swapped The Castle Inn for The Albion Hotel in
Burton-on-Trent where they were living in 1891 when Annie was 28. |
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43P70
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Charlotte Collett was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1863
and was missing from the family home at The Castle Inn in 1871 when she would
have been six years old. Her sister
Alice (below) was also absent at that time, although both featured in
later census returns. However, the
census for Burton-on-Trent in 1871 included Charlotte Collett, aged eight
years, as living with her aunt and uncle, Margaret
and Richard Geddes. Charlotte was 17
in 1881 and had returned to the family home at The Castle Inn and, like her
sister Annie, she too was listed as having no occupation. During the next ten years Charlotte’s
father took over as proprietor of The Albion Hotel in Burton-on-Trent, which
was where the family was living in 1891.
Charlotte was still living with her parents at that time when she was
26 years old. |
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Curiously
in the census of 1901, Charlotte was recorded as being 32 while she was still
unmarried and was still living with her parents at The Albion Hotel on
Shobnall Road. Her actual age would
have been nearer 37, so perhaps it is an error in transcription. Ten years later she was a 47-year-old
spinster still living with her parents at The Albion Hotel where she was
assisting her father in the hotel business.
Charlotte Collett of The Albion Hotel died in Burton-on-Trent on 15th
December 1926. She was a spinster and
it was through the office in London that probate was completed on 12th
March 1927 when her sister Agnes Collett (below) was named as the sole
executor of her personal effects amounting to Ł217 6 Shillings. |
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43P71
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Alice Collett was born at Ivanhoe Road in
Ashby-de-la-Zouch on 27th October 1865 and, just like her sister
Charlotte (above), Alice was also missing from the family home in
April 1871. That was perhaps a
temporary arrangement because of overcrowding or some other reason, since
both sisters appeared in subsequent census records. By 1881 Alice was 15 and was the oldest
child in the family that was still attending school while still living with
her family at The Castle in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. Alice has not been found with her family in
the census of 1891 since, by then she was married to Arthur Crofts Blant who
was born on 16th November 1870.
Alice and Arthur would appear to have been married around 1889 and,
over the following thirteen years, they had seven children. |
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They
were Gladys Ellen Blant (born 22.10.1890), Alice Maud Blant (born
04.02.1892), Agnes Elizabeth Blant (born on 26th September
1894), Charlotte Mildred Blant (born on 27th November
1895), John Samuel Blant (born on 19th November 1897), Henry
Edward Blant (born on 18th September 1900) and Gerald
Charles Blant (who was born on 6th October 1902). And it was their youngest child Gerald who,
with his wife Hilda Gladys Gee, was the father of David Blant who made
contact in 2013 and kindly provided all the new information regarding this branch
of the Collett family. |
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43P72
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Lottie Collett may have been born around 1866 at
Ashby-de-la-Zouch where all twelve of her siblings were born. Her non-appearance with her large family in
any census return might indicate that she suffered an infant death before 1871. However, it seems highly likely that she
was the Lottie Winifred Selbey, a married woman, who was granted
administration of the personal estate of her brother Richard Edward Collett (below)
in 1962, when she would have been in her early nineties. |
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43P73
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Agnes Collett was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1867
and was three years old by April 1871 when she was living with her family at
The Castle Inn at Ashby-del-la-Zouch.
Agnes was 13 in 1881 and was still at school and still living at The
Castle Inn. By 1891 Agnes’ parents
were living at Burton-on-Trent, although by then she was not living with them
at The Albion Hotel. It is not clear
where Agnes was in 1901, but by April 1911 she was once again living with her
parents at The Albion Hotel. The
census that year recorded that she was unmarried at the age of 43, when she
was assisting with the family business.
Agnes was still a spinster in 1927 when she was the sole executor for
the Will of her sister Charlotte Collett (above). Agnes Collett was 78 when she died at
Burton-on-Trent in 1946, her death being recorded at the Burton register
office (Ref. 6b 325) during the month of June that year. |
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43P74
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William Henry Collett was born at Ashby-de-la-Zouch in
1869. At the time of the census for
Ashby in 1871 William was two years of age and was living at The Castle Inn
with his family, while ten years later he was still there at the age of
eleven. He was 21 in 1891 by which
time he had moved with his parents from Ashby-de-la-Zouch to Burton-on-Trent,
where the family was living in The Albion Hotel of which William’s father was
the proprietor. It was towards the end
of the decade, when the marriage, by the reading of banns, of William Henry
Collett and Emily King was recorded at Burton register office (Ref. 6b 127)
during the first quarter of 1899. The
wedding ceremony took place at St Paul’s Church in Burton-on-Trent on 26th
February 1899, when William was recorded as residing in the St Johns
Horninglow area of Burton. Emily King
had been born in Ashby-de-la-Zouch.
Shortly after that, Emily presented William with a son, by which time
the family of three was settled in Burton.
The census in 1901 listed them as William H Collett, a licenced
victualler aged 32 and from Ashby-de-la Zouch, his wife Emily who was 25, and
their son William M Collett who was just seven months old. At that time in his life William was the
landlord of the British Oak Inn at 36 Byrkley Street in Burton-on-Trent. Helping the family was servant Alice E
Bradley who was 17 and from Burton. |
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Four
years after that the couple added a daughter to their family, but sadly when
she was around four years of age her father died. The family was residing at 35 Derby Street
in Burton when William Henry Collett passed away on 14th August
1910 at the age of 41. His Will was
proved at Lichfield on 7th September 1910, when his widow Emily
was named as the administrator of his estate of just Ł100. Six months after his death Emily Collett
from Ashby-de-la-Zouch was 34 and had living with her in Burton her two
children. They were William Mark
Collett, who was 10, and Eveline Martha Margaret Collett who was five years
old. The family was still living at 35
Derby Street, where they were supported by servants Elsie May Topliss who was
13, while visiting the family was Alfred Alexander Gray who was 26. |
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43Q103 |
William
Mark Collett |
Born in 1900
at Burton-on-Trent |
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|
43Q104 |
Eveline
Martha Margaret Collett |
Born in 1905
at Burton-on-Trent |
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43P75
|
Frederick Charles
Collett was born at
The Castle Inn in Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1871, when his birth was registered there (Ref. 7a 95) during
the first three months of that year, a son of William and Ellen Collett. He was only a few weeks old in the census
of 1871 when he was living at The Castle Inn where his father was the inn
keeper. It was during the following year that Frederick Charles
Collett was baptised at Holy Trinity Church in Ashby-de-la-Zouch on 7th
July 1872. By 1881 he was ten
years old and around 1885 Frederick and his family took over The Albion Hotel
in Burton-on-Trent where they were living in April 1891 when Frederick was
20. Nine years later, the marriage of bachelor Frederick
Charles Collett and widow Ellen Kirk took place in Coventry on 25th
March 1900 and was recorded at Coventry register office (Ref. 6d 1002) during
the second quarter of the year. |
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By
the time of the next census twelve month later, Frederick was a married man
living at 55-56 Worcester Street (Well Street) in Coventry.
Fredk Chas Collett from Ashby-de-le-Zouch was 30 and a grocer’s
assistant. His wife Ellen was 39 and
from Coventry, and with her was her married daughter from her previous
marriage. She was Lizzie Evelyn
Stanton aged 20, who was married to John Stanton, a plasterer from Coventry
who was 27, with whom she had already had two grandchildren. Evelyn Annie Stanton was one year old,
while her unnamed brother was only twelve days old. |
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After
another ten years Frederick Collett from Coventry (sic) was 42 and employed
as the hall keeper at the Hippodrome in Coventry when residing at 46 Cope
Street in the city. Living there with
him was his wife Ellen Collett who was 50, and their daughter Doris Collett
who was only seven years old, having been born and baptised at Coventry in
the summer of 1903 as Elma Doris Collett, daughter of Frederick and Ellen
Collett, recorded as
Helen Collett. It seems the
family of three was residing in the theatre, when the census in 1911 also
listing five other adults who may have been performers or staff. |
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|
It is possible that at some time
during his life, he served with the Grenadier Guards because in 1913,
Frederick Charles Collett of Ashby-de-la-Zouch and born there in 1871,
received a military pension. The death of Frederick C Collett was
recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d 352) during the second
quarter of 1924 when he was 54. He should not be confused with
another of the same name and also born in 1871,
because he was born at Wolvercote in Oxfordshire and died there in 1954. |
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|
43Q105 |
Elma Doris
Collett |
Born in 1903
at Coventry |
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43P76
|
Robert Collett, who was known as Bob, was born at The Castle Inn in
Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1871 but after the census that year which was conducted
on second of April, and he was nine years old in the census of 1881 when he
was still living at The Castle with his family. About four years later the family left The
Castle Inn and moved to Burton-upon-Trent where they set up home in The
Albion Hotel and where, in 1891, Robert was 17 years of age. It was ten year later when Robert Collett married Martha Hyde during the second
quarter of 1901, the event being recorded at Burton register office (Ref. 6b
703) when the witnesses were named as William James Orton and Amy Beatrice
Shilton. |
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Their
marriage had produced three children by the time of the census in 1911 when
the family was living at 14 Mill Hill Lane in Winshill, Burton-upon-Trent. Robert Collett from Ashby-de-la-Zouch was
38 and was working at a local brewery.
He had been married for ten years to Martha who was 37, while their
three children were May Collett who was nine, Katie Collett who was five, and
Robert Collett who was three. Another son was added to their
one year later and, just two years later, Robert Collett died at
Burton-upon-Trent at the age of 43, when his death was recorded at the Burton
register office (Ref. 6b 553) during the first three months of 1914. |
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|
The
births of all four children were recorded at Burton-upon-Trent, when the
births of the following three were registered during the second quarter of
the year. They were May Elizabeth Collett in 1902 (Ref. 6b 468), Katie
Collett in 1906 (Ref. 6b
476), and Walter Collett in 1912 (Ref.
6b 782) when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Hyde. |
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|
43Q106 |
May Elizabeth Collett |
Born in 1902 at Burton-upon-Trent |
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|
43Q107 |
Katie Collett |
Born in 1906 at Burton-upon-Trent |
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|
43Q108 |
Robert
John W Collett |
Born in 1908 at Burton-upon-Trent |
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|
43Q109 |
Walter Collett |
Born
in 1912 at Burton-upon-Trent |
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43P77
|
Kate Elizabeth Collett was born at The Castle Inn in
Ashby-de-la-Zouch early in 1875 (Ref. 7a 62), where she was also baptised on
21st February 1875, who was still living with her family in 1881
at the age of six years. Ten years
later, Kate was no longer living with her parents, instead she was a visitor
at the home of her older married sister Mary Ellen Hollis nee Collett at
their home on Burton Road in Ashby-de-la-Zouch, when Kate E Collett was 16
with no stated occupation. Kate was back
living with her family on Shobnall Road at The Albion Hotel in 1901 when she
was 25, again with no stated occupation, and was there also, ten years later
at the age of 36 when she was still an unmarried lady who was assisting her
father with the running of hotel. Within
six months of the census Kate E Collett married Charles M Robinson, the event
recorded at Burton-on-Trent register office (Ref. 6b 142) during the third
quarter of 1911. No record of any
children has been found. |
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43P78
|
John
Barrow Collett was born in 1877 at The Castle Inn in
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, where he was baptised on 6th April 1877, the
eleventh child of William Collett and Ellen Miller, whose birth was recorded
at Ashby-de-la-Zouch (Ref. 7a 109) during the first quarter of 1877. He was four years old in the Ashby census
of 1881 when he was still living at The Castle Inn with his family. Four years later John and his family gave
up The Castle Inn to take on The Albion Hotel on Shobnall Road in
Burton-on-Trent where, in 1891, they were living and where John was 14 and
still at school. Just after the end of
the century, John was working as a brewer’s number taker and in 1901 was 23
years old and still living with his parents at The Albion Hotel. It is understood within the family that
John’s father was a brewer of ‘Burton Beer’ so it is likely that John, and
his brother Richard (below), were both working for or with their
father. |
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It
is also known from his great granddaughter (see below) that he was working
for the Davenport Brewery Company in Birmingham during the early 1900s, as
illustrated in a family photograph. It
was just over six months after that census day in 1901 when John Barrow Collett married (1) Clara Agnes Jones, with
their marriage recorded at Burton-on-Trent register office (Ref. 6b 764)
during the last quarter of 1901. The
birth of Clara Agnes Jones was registered at Burton-on-Trent (Ref. 6b 393)
during the first quarter of 1881. It
was also at Burton-on-Trent where the couple set up home, and where births of
their two children were recorded. The
birth of Ivy Eleanor
Collett was recorded at the register office (Ref. 6b 438) during the second
quarter of 1902. Tragically, Clara
died during the birth of their second child, at which time her two children
were taken into the care of their grandparents at The Albion Hotel, where
they were recorded in April 1911 as Ivy Eleanor Collett who was nine, and John Edwin
Collett who was six years old, both having been born in Burton-on-Trent. |
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It was previously written here that, “Following the death of his first
wife, John Barrow Collett was married for the second
time during the autumn of 1908 to either (2) Louise Lovett OR Lucy Elizabeth
Perrins, with the event recorded at Coventry register office (Ref. 6d 973-320).” In November 2024 it was discovered that Percy Harold Howe had married
Louise Lovett with whom he was living at Nuneaton in 1911 and with whom he
had a son Percy H Lovett whose mother’s maiden-name was Lovett. Therefore, it was the marriage of John
Barrow Collett and Lucy Elizabeth Perrins that was recorded at Coventry (Ref.
6d 973–92) during the fourth quarter of 1908, where the first of their two
children was born, although the birth was not registered there,
perhaps because the child was born not long after their wedding day. The birth of their second child was recorded
at Aston register office (Ref. 6d 223) during the second quarter of 1910. |
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|
Nine
months later, in the census of 1911, it was just John and the two children
who were living as boarders at 7 Emmeline Street within the Bordesley area of
Birmingham, the home of cabinet maker Frederick William Spilsbury and his
family. John Barrow Collett from
Ashby-de-la-Zouch, a married man, was a motor steerer at the age of 34, who
had been married for three years, during which time he and his wife had given
birth to two children, both living.
They were recorded as Leonard Collett who was two and born at
Coventry, and Florence Collett who was one year old and born in
Birmingham. What happened to his
second wife is not known, but it seems likely that she had died after the
birth of her daughter, even though no obvious recorded of her death has been
found. |
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Before
the First World War, John Barrow Collett married (3)
Elizabeth Bruce, a widow, with the event recorded at Birmingham register
office (Ref. 6c 559) during the last three months of 1914. Elizabeth Bruce was the former Elizabeth
Tolladay/Tolliday. It was early in the
following year, when the birth of their only child was recorded at Birmingham
register office, when the mother’s maiden-name was recorded as Tolliday. The
later Electoral Roll for the Yardley area of Birmingham in 1939 recorded John
Barrow Collett as residing at 8 Everton Road in Birmingham, where he had been
living since 1927. |
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It
was twelve years after the start of the Second World War that the death of
John Barrow Collett was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 9c 292)
during the third quarter of 1951 when he was 74. His third wife spent the last nineteen
years of her life as a widow, when the death of Elizabeth Collett (born on
28/2/1881) was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 9c 1010)
during the third quarter of 1970. |
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In
November 2022, thanks to Kelly Plant, a great granddaughter of John Barrow
Collett, we now know a little bit more about him, and his third wife. John and his father William, were both inn
keepers during their lives, with Kelly pursuing the same career path in the
twenty-first century, and not far from the family roots in Ashby-de-la-Zouch. She informs us that her great grandmother
was Elizabeth Tolliday from Hackney Wick in London, who later lived within
the Aston area of Birmingham. Kelly
also provided the two photographs (above) of John Barrow Collett, and
John and Elizabeth Tolladay. |
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Recent
research reveals that Elizabeth Tolliday was the daughter of Thomas Tolliday,
a bricklayer in 1881, and his wife Elizabeth, when the three of them were
residing at Prince Edward Road in Hackney where Elizabeth had been born one
month prior to that census day on 28th February 1881. Her birth, as Elizabeth Tolladay, was later
registered at Hackney (Ref. 1b 588) during the second quarter of 1881. By 1901 she was still living with her
family, but at Osborne Road in Hackney, when Elizabeth Tolliday was 20 and
working as a confectionary packer.
Under one year later, she married James George Bruce, their wedding
day recorded at Hackney register office (Ref. 1b 701) during the first three
months of 1902. She was
subsequentially made a widow |
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|
43Q110 |
Ivy Eleanor Collett |
Born in 1902 at Burton-on-Trent |
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|
43Q111 |
John
Edwin William Collett |
Born in 1904 at Burton-on-Trent |
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|
The following are the two children of
John Barrow Collett by his second wife (see above): |
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|
43Q112 |
Leonard Wilfred Collett |
Born in 1909 at Coventry |
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|
43Q113 |
Florence Collett |
Born in 1910 at Birmingham |
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|
The following is the only child of
John Barrow Collett by his third wife Elizabeth Tolladay: |
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|
43Q114 |
Irene May Collett |
Born in 1915 at Birmingham |
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43P79
|
Richard Edward Collett was born at The Castle Inn in
Ashby-de-la-Zouch in 1878 where his father was the inn keeper. The census of 1881 recorded that Richard
was two years old while living at The Castle Inn with his family. A few years after the census day, the
Collett family left Ashby-de-la-Zouch and made their new home at The Albion
Hotel in Burton-on-Trent. That was
confirmed by the census of 1891 when Richard was twelve years of age. Richard was still living there ten years
later in March 1891 when he was 21 and was employed as a brewer’s number
taker with his brother John Collett (above). |
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At
the end of the next decade Richard Edward Collett was a brewery employee and
was still living with his parents at The Albion Hotel where he was recorded
as being unmarried, 33 years of age, and employed by the brewery. Shugborough Hall at Great Haywood, and four
miles from Stafford, is today a museum which includes a brewery. Four letters written in 1895 to Richard E
Collett are held there. They came from
the
Midland Railway Telegraph Department, Superintendent's Office in Derby and
were addressed to Mr Richard E. Collett at The Albion Hotel, Shobnall Road in
Burton-on-Trent and relating to a job of work. |
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It
is possible that he never married, and it was in 1962 that Richard Edward
Collett of 324 Shobnall Street in Burton-on-Trent died while a patient at
Andressey Hospital in the town. He was
82 and his death was recorded at the Burton register office (Ref. 9b 75) in
June 1962. Administration of his
personal effects amounting to Ł488 9 Shillings was granted to Lottie Winifred
Selby, a married woman. |
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43P80
|
Walter Collett was born at The Castle Inn in
Ashby-de-la-Zouch in either December 1880 or January 1881 with the birth
recorded in the town (Ref. 7a 101) during the first three months of
1881. Furthermore, Walter was included
in the census of 1881 as being just three months old. The next census in 1891 listed Walter as
being 10 years of age when he was living with his family at The Albion Hotel
in Burton-on-Trent. Upon leaving
school, it seems Walter helped his father by working with him at The Albion
Hotel since, in the census of 1901, Walter was 20 and his occupation was that
of a hotel proprietor’s assistant.
Whether it was an accident or through illness is not known at this
time, but the death of Walter Collett was recorded at Burton-on-Trent (Ref.
6b 253) during the last three months of 1906 when he was only 25 years old. |
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43P81
|
James Henry Collett was born at Wolverhampton on 6th
November 1868, the eldest child of James Collett and Sarah Georgia
Hopkins. He was 11 years of age in
April 1881 when he was living with his family at Canterbury Villa on the
Warwick Road in Solihull. Ten years
later he was still living with his family at Warwick Road in Solihull when he
was 21 and employed as a brass founder.
It was on 17th April 1897 when James Henry Collett aged 27
married Clara Luckman aged 30 at St Giles Church in the Parish of Sheldon in
Birmingham. James was confirmed as the
son of James Collett, while Clara, who was born in Birmingham on 15th
May 1866, was named as the daughter of William Luckman. Over the following decade the marriage
produced six children for James and Clara, the first three being born at
Birmingham, before James and his family returned to the Solihull area of
south-east Birmingham within the, where they were residing on the census day
in 1901. |
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On
that day James’ occupation was that of a canvasser as confirmed in the census
return, when he was living with his family at Lyndon End off Coventry Road, Bickenhill,
north-east of Solihull. On that
occasion he was recorded as Henry J Collett aged 32, who had been born at
Birmingham rather than Wolverhampton.
That may have been stated as a direct result of the fact that he and
his parents only lived in Wolverhampton for a few months after he was born,
following which the family moved to Birmingham, where all his younger
siblings were born. The remainder of
his family in 1901 were listed as his wife Clara who was 35 and from
Birmingham, and their three daughters Ruth E Collett who was three years of
age, Georgina M Collett who was one year old, and baby Dorothy M Collett who had
just been, although her birth had not yet registered. All three children were described as having
been born in Birmingham, indicating the family had only just moved into the
dwelling at Lyndon End. |
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Staying
with the family on that census day at the end of March in 1901 was James’
younger brother Frederick John Collett, another canvasser from Birmingham,
who was separated from his wife, pending his decree absolute which was
granted three months after. The next two
children of James Henry Collett and Clara Luckman were born at Solihull and
Shirley, with their last child born at Small Heath in Birmingham, who birth
was recorded at Aston register office.
By April 1911, the family was once again living back at Shirley, to
the west of Solihull, and comprised James Henry Collett who was 41 and a
steam and automobile engineer, who was said to have been born at Penn Fields
in Wolverhampton, his wife Clara who was 44 and born at Alcester Street in
Birmingham, and their six children.
They were Ruth who had been born at Alum Rock/Alum Rock Road in the
Glebe Farm area of East Birmingham and was 13, Georgina who was 11 and said
to have been born at Lyndon End at Bickenhill (sic), where Dorothy aged ten
years had been born, Gladys who was eight and born at Solihull, Norman who
was seven and born at Shirley, and Phyllis who was five years old and born at
Small Heath. |
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|
The
death of James H Collett was recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d
820) during the second quarter of 1936 when he was 66. It was just over two years later that his
wife passed away on 23rd August 1938, following which her Will was
proved in Birmingham on 17th October 1938. The Probate Service confirmed that Clara
Collett of 204 Coventry Road at Yardley in Birmingham, a widow, died on 23rd
August 1938 at Lyndon on Queslett Road in Streetly, Staffordshire. The executors of her estate valued at
Ł1,143 11 Shillings and 8 Pence were her eldest daughter Elizabeth Ruth
Cetti, Norman Noel Collett a pattern maker, and Elizabeth’s husband Albert
Victor Cetti, a stockbroker’s clerk. |
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|
43Q115 |
Elizabeth Ruth Collett |
Born in 1897
at Sheldon, Birmingham |
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|
43Q116 |
Georgina
Mary Collett |
Born in 1899
at Sheldon, Birmingham |
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|
43Q117 |
Dorothy
Mabel Collett |
Born in 1901
at Sheldon, Birmingham |
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|
43Q118 |
Gladys
Clara Collett |
Born in 1902
at Solihull |
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|
43Q119 |
Norman
Noel Collett |
Born in 1903
at Shirley, Solihull |
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|
43Q120 |
Phyllis
May Collett |
Born in 1906
at Small Heath, Birmingham |
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43P82
|
Frederick John Collett was born at Birmingham on 19th
July 1870. His age was given at being
nine years in the census of 1881 which might suggest the year of birth was
1871 rather than 1870, since he was 19 years old ten years later, by which
time he was working as a merchant’s apprentice while he was still living with
his family at Warwick Road in Solihull.
It was on 20th January 1894 that Frederick married spinster
Ada Marian Lea at the Wesleyan Chapel in Sparkhill, Solihull, where he may
have been working at that time, and where Ada, who was known as Marian, had
been born in 1873. The marriage was
also recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 713). |
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|
Ada
was six months pregnant on the day of their wedding and gave birth to a son
just three months after. That child
was followed by three more, two of whom had died by the summer of 1899, with
the death of the third child oddly recorded at Birmingham register office
only weeks after his birth was recorded at Solihull. It was in June 1900 when Ada Marian
Collett, formerly Lea, filed for divorce from her husband on the grounds of
his adultery and cruelty. It was at
the High Court of Justice, Probate Divorce and Admiralty Division on 25th
June 1900 that the petitioner was named as Ada Marrian Collett of Solihull,
the wife of Frederick John Collett. The report confirmed that Ada Marrian Lea,
spinster was, on the twentieth day of January 1894, lawfully married to the
Frederick John Collett at Sparkhill Chapel near Birmingham. It continued that, after her marriage, the
petitioner lived and cohabited with her husband at Sparkbrook in Worcester
and at other places. The same report
also listed the names and dates of birth of their four children two of whom,
Howard and Gordon, were described as already deceased, while it also stated
that the petitioner, who was now pregnant with the couple’s fifth child, had
been assaulted by her husband within one month of their wedding day. |
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|
|
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|
Six
months after filing for divorce, the High Court of Justice sitting at the
Royal Courts of Justice in The Strand, London, issued the decree nisi on 19th
December 1900. The President, the
Right Honorable Sir Francis Henry Jeune KCB, having taken the oral evidence
of the Petitioner and of the Witness produced on her behalf in support of the
Petition filed in this cause, and having heard Counsel thereon, the
Respondent not defending the Suit at the hearing, pronounced that the
Petitioner had sufficiently proved the contents of the said Petition. It was also at The
Royal Courts of Justice in The Strand that the decree absolute was
granted on 1st July 1901 when it was stated that the marriage was
dissolved on the grounds of the adultery, coupled with cruelty, towards the
Petitioner, called Marrian Collett, by Frederick John Collett. |
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|
|
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|
Three
months earlier, at the time the census was conducted in 1901, Ada M Collett
from Solihull was 27 when she and her three surviving children were residing
at the Grocer’s Shop on the High Street in Solihull, the home of her mother
Mary A Lea. Mary was a widow of 64, a
grocer and a shopkeeper who had her own account. Supporting her as assistant grocer was her
son Howard P Lea who was 30, and her daughters Jessie M Lea aged 26, and
Elsie B Lea who was 23. The three
children of Ada Collett were recorded as Cyril F Collett who was six years
old and born at Sparkhill, Phyllis M G Collett who was four and from
Stechford near Yardley, and Margery M Collett who was just five months old
and born at Solihull. |
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|
On
that same day the children’s father, Frederick J Collett who was 29 and from
Birmingham and whose occupation was that of a canvasser like his older
brother James (above), was staying at his brother’s home at Lyndon End
off Coventry Road in Solihull. That
was the last known record of Frederick John Collett who died five years later
during 1906 by which time, it is thought, he may have been a serving member
of the British Army. |
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|
|
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|
By
the time of the census in April 1911 Ada Marian Collett was 37 when she was
still living with her mother at the grocer’s shop on the High Street in
Solihull. The census return confirmed
that Ada was divorced and that she was working as a monthly nurse with her
own account. The form also confirmed
that she had given birth to five children, only one of which had survived, that
being eldest child Cyril. Ada’s mother
Mary Ann Lea was 74 and was still a grocer and a shopkeeper, while still
living with her were Ada’s two younger sisters Jessie May Lea who was 34, and
Elsie Beatrice Lea who was 32, both with no occupation but described as at
home. Three years later, Ada received
the news that her only surviving child had been killed in France, with the
later death of Ada Collett aged 79 recorded at Warwickshire register office (Vol.
96 862) in 1952. |
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|
|
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|
43Q121 |
Cyril Frederick Collett |
Born in 1894
at Sparkhill |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q122 |
Phyllis Mary G Collett |
Born in 1896
at Stechford |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q123 |
Howard
Collett |
Born in 1898
at Solihull |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q124 |
Gordon Victor
Collett |
Born in 1899
at Solihull |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q125 |
Margery Martin Collett |
Born in 1900
at Solihull |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43P83
|
Mary Georgia Collett was born at Birmingham on 14th
March 1872. When she was seven years
of age her family moved out of Birmingham and made a new home in Solihull
where they lived until the end of the century. The census of 1881 confirmed that the
family was residing at Canterbury Villa in Warwick Road in Solihull where
Mary G Collett was eight years old.
She was 18 in 1891 and was still living with her parents at the
property in Warwick Road, Solihull.
During the next decade Mary married John Arthur Young who was born in
1868. Following the death of her
mother in 1899 Mary’s father moved to Newport in South Wales with Mary’s
three sisters (below) as confirming by the census of 1901. Mary also moved to Newport at some time and
she and John are known to have lived at 40 Summerhill Avenue in the town. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43P84
|
Rosa Polly Collett was born at Birmingham on 27th
April 1874. By April 1881 her family
were living at Canterbury Villa on Warwick Road in Solihull where Rosa was
six years old. She was also recorded
as Rosa P Collett in the census of 1891 when she was 15 and still attending
school when she was still living at Warwick Road in Solihull with her
family. However, after her mother died
in 1899, her father took Rosa and her two younger sisters (below) to
live with him at Newport in South Wales where her mother had been born and
where she may have been buried.
According to the Newport census of 1901 she was recorded as Rosie
Pollie Collett aged 25 and from Birmingham.
The only other fact known about Rosie within the family is that she
died at Hereford on 30th May 1932. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43P85
|
Nellie Mabel Collett was born at Erdington on 4th
August 1877, her birth being recorded at Aston register office (Ref. 6d 403)
during the third quarter of that year.
By the time of the census in 1881 she was living with her family at
Canterbury Villa on the Warwick Road in Solihull at the age of three. She was still there at Warwick Road ten
years later in 1891 when she was 13 and still at school. Following the death of her mother in 1898
her father moved to Newport in Monmouthshire, taking his three youngest
daughters with him including Nellie M Collett from Erdington who was 23 in
1901. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Seven
years later Nellie Mabel Collett married Edwin Hubert Harrison, their
marriage being recorded at Newport register office (Ref. 11a 379) during the
second quarter of 1908, when the witnesses were Maggie Brankley and Albert
Edward Walkley. Tragically they were
not married very long when Nellie Mabel Harrison nee Collett died during 1915
when the couple was living at White Cross in Hereford. It may also be significant that Nellie’s
sister Rosa Polly Collett (above) died in Hereford during 1932. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43P86
|
Hilda Ann Collett was born within the Olton district of
Birmingham on 11th September 1881, which is rather strange since
her family was living at Warwick Road in Solihull in both 1881 and 1891. By the time of the census in 1891 Hilda A
Collett from Olton was nine years old.
Her mother died when Hilda was around 18 years of age and, when the
census was conducted in March 1901, she and her two older sisters were living
with their widowed father in Newport, when Hilda Ann Collett from Olton in
Birmingham was recorded 21 rather than 19. If she was born on 11th September
1880, as previously stated here, there is still the mystery as to where she
was in early April 1881 to cause her absence from the census that month. It is also established that she later
married A G Harrison who was born around 1876 and that the couple spent some
years living in India before returning to England to live at Church Road in
Minehead in Somerset. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43P87
|
Alfred Shawcross Collett
was born at Salford,
Manchester, on 7th December 1860, his birth recorded there (Ref.
8d 132) during the first quarter of 1861, who was only four months old in
1861. He was the base-born son of unmarried
Georgiana Collett of Stafford and Rugeley, and his father was very likely John
Shawcross who never married his mother even though they had three more
children together. Oddly, when Alfred
was baptised at St Stephen’s Church in Salford, there was no reference to the
Shawcross name. Instead, Alfred
Collett, the son of John Collett and Georgiana Collett took place on 18th
January 1865. His baptism was arranged
as a matter of some urgency because of his failing health, and it was also
during the first three months of 1865 that he died, the death of Alfred
Collett recorded at Salford (Ref. 8d 12). |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43P88
|
Peter Collett was born at Salford in 1863, his birth
recorded there (Ref. 8d 157) during the second quarter of the year, the
second son of Georgiana Collett who appears not to have been married. Life was difficult for Peter, with first
the premature death of his older brother, and then the imprisonment of his
mother during the following year. Consequently,
no record of any many of his family has been located for 1871. After a further ten years, Peter Collett from
Salford was 18 years old and working was a machine grinder with the company
of E & M. It was towards the end
of the following year that the marriage by banns of Peter Collett and Mary Jane
Carroll took place at St Andrew’s Church in Ancoats, Manchester, on 20th
November 1882, when Peter the son of John Collett was 19, and Mary Jane was
18 and the daughter of James Carroll. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Both
were recorded as residing at 16 William Street in Salford, from where Peter
was employed as a grinder, the same occupation as his father John Collett
(aka John Shawcross), when Mary Jane’s occupation was that of a doubler. Interestingly, both Peter and his sister
Mary Collett (below) made their mark in the marriage register as groom
and second witness, with Mary Jane signing her own name, as did first witness
Robert Crawshaw. By the time of the
1891 Census the family living at Washington Street in Manchester comprised
Peter who 29 and a tool grinder, Jane from Scotland who was 25, and their
four Manchester born children. They
were Mary Jane Collett who was eight, Peter Collett who was four, Herbert
Collett who was two, and baby Martha Collett who was not yet one year
old. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Also
in the census of 1891, Peter’s younger married sister Georgiana Holt aged 22,
was living nearby in Tame Street, with her husband William Ernest Holt, also
22, and their one-year-old daughter Georgiana Holt. Three other members of the extended family
were living at the same address, and they were William’s younger brother
Frederick Holt aged 17, fifty-year-old Georgiana Collett, a shirt maker and
William’s mother-in-law, the widowed mother of Peter Collett (1862-1899), and
William Lowe aged 10 who was a cousin.
He was the son of Fanny Lowe, formerly Fanny Collett (Ref. 43O17), and
Thomas Lowe. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Almost
exactly eight years later tragedy struck the family, when the death of Peter
Collett was recorded at Manchester register office (Ref. 8d 135) during the
second quarter of 1899, at the age of only 37. Two years after her loss, widow Jane
Collett and her four children were still living in Manchester, but at Harding
Street, where Jane Collett was 35 and had no stated occupation, but was
taking in paying lodgers. Her four
children were recorded as Mary J Collett aged 17, Peter Collett aged 14,
Herbert Collett aged 12, and Martha Collett who was 10. Every member of the household was said to
have been born in Manchester. Jane
Collett later married a gentleman by the name of Cadman and he may have been
William, Henry, or John. That was
confirmed by the census of 1911 in which Jane Cadman who was born in
Manchester was still living there and was 46 years of age. On that same day, her youngest child,
20-year-old Martha Collett was a live-in domestic servant and housemaid at
the home of Joseph Lionel O’Kelly in Manchester. During the war years Jane was living at 62
Junction Street in Ancoats, and it was there in September 1915 she received
the sad news that her son Peter had been killed while serving King and
country in France. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q126 |
Mary Jane Collett |
Born in 1883
at Ancoats, Manchester |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q127 |
|
Born in 1886
at Ancoats, Manchester |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q128 |
Herbert Collett |
Born in 1888
at Ancoats, Manchester |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q129 |
Martha
Collett |
Born in 1890
at Ancoats, Manchester |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43P89 |
Mary Collett was born at Manchester in 1868 and was
12 years old in 1881. Near the end of
the next year, Mary was one of the witnesses at the wedding of her older
brother Peter Collett (above). By
1891 she was 21 and was living at Regent Road in Salford. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43P90 |
Georgina Collett was born at Manchester on 5th
June 1869, her birth recorded there (Ref.8d 322) during the third quarter of
the year. At the time of her birth,
Georgina’s mother was Georgiana Shawcross, the assumed wife of John Shawcross,
although no marriage for the couple has been found. However, the fact the child was given her
mother’s maiden-name might suggest that Georgina was not a product of her
marriage to John Shawcross. No census
record for Georgina has been found in either 1871 or 1881, perhaps indicating
that she had been removed from the family, while it is certainly confirmed
that her mother was living with two of her Shawcross siblings at Salford in
1881. After a further five years, when
Georgina Collett was seventeen years old, she gave birth to a son, with the
birth of Alfred Collett recorded at Salford register office (Ref. 8d 210)
during the third quarter of 1886. He
must have been a poorly child, since he was later privately baptised at 24
Muslin Street in Salford on 1st June 1887, arranged by the vicar
of Salford Christ Church, at the home of mother, the spinster Georgina
Collett. Not long after the ceremony,
the death of Alfred Collett was recorded at Salford (Ref. 8d 92) during the
second quarter of 1887. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Just
over two years later, on 28th September 1889, Georgina Collett married
William Ernest Holt at St Andrew’s Church in Manchester, the event recorded
at Manchester (Ref. 8d 229). It is
interesting that the marriage certificate initially shows the father of the
bride to be John Shawcross, but the name was subsequently crossed out,
perhaps resulting from an objection from her mother. William E Holt was born at
Chorlton-on-Medlock in Manchester on 9th March 1869, the son of
William Holt, of Prescot near St Helens in Lancashire, and Anne Moore of
Hampshire. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The
marriage produced twelve children for the couple, all of whom were born in
Manchester, the first group while the couple were living at
Chorlton-on-Medlock and the latter ones at Miles Platting. Only six of them are named below. In the 1891 Census, eighteen months after
they were married, the couple had their first child living with them at Tame
Street in Manchester. Georgina was
listed as being 22, as was her husband William E Holt, with their daughter
being one-year-old Georgiana Holt.
Staying with the family was William’s brother Frederick Holt aged 17,
and his mother-in-law 50-year-old Georgiana Collett and her nephew William
Lowe who was 10 years old and the child of Fanny Lowe nee Collett. Ten years on, in 1901, the much larger
family was living at Fawcett Street in Manchester when William E Holt was
aged 32 and was working as a stonemason’s labourer. Georgiana Holt was 31, her daughter Georgiana
Holt was eleven, Annie Holt was nine, John William Holt was
seven, Mary Holt was five, and Alfred Holt was still under one
year old. Still living with the family
was widow and shirt maker Georgian Collett who was 62, who passed away
shortly thereafter. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
One
more child was born into the family after that census day, and she was Edith
Holt born in 1913, when their mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as
Collett. It would appear that Georgina
and George lived all of their life together in the Manchester area. And it was in the Ancoats district of the
city that George Collett died on 6th July 1943, following which he
was buried at Philips Park in Miles Platting on 10th July
1943. Sometime during the fourteen
years following her husband’s death, Georgina moved to the Crumpsall area of
Manchester where she died on 2nd June 1957. She too was buried at Philips Park in Miles
Platting four days after her passing on 6th June 1957. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q130 |
Alfred
Collett |
Born in 1886
at Salford; died in 1887 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43P91 |
Alfred Thomas Collett was born at Salford in 1868, his birth
recorded there (Ref. 8d 179) during the first three months of the year. He was the base-born son of Fanny Collett
and in 1871 the pair of them were living with Alfred’s grandmother, 60-year-old
Mary Collett in her home at 12 Corporation Square in Salford. Alfred was three years old at that
time. Following the marriage of his
mother Fanny to Thomas Lowe in 1878, Alfred changed his name to Alfred Thomas
Lowe, as confirmed in the 1881 Census when he was 13 and was living in the
family home at 9 West Charles Street in Salford. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Eight
years later, Alfred was married at Christ Church in Salford on 21st
December 1889, when the groom was named as Alfred Thomas
Collett Lowe aged 20 and a grinder and a bachelor of 4 West Elizabeth Street
in Salford. The bride was Elizabeth
Ann Barlow 19 and a jack-tenter and a spinster of 15 West Elizabeth Street in
Salford. The groom's father was
described as Thomas Lowe (deceased), a spinner, while the bride's father was
John Barlow, a maker-up. The witnesses
at their wedding were William Ernest Holt, the groom’s brother-in-law (above),
and Fanny Lowe, the groom’s mother.
The couple’s first child was born at 2 Heaps Court in Salford just
days before the census in 1891, however she was not with her parents that
day. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
According
to the Salford census that year the young married couple was staying at the
St Stephen Place, Salford, home of Alfred’s mother-in-law Jane Barlow who was
49 and his younger brother-in-law William Barlow who was eight years of
age. Alfred T Collett was 23 was a
grinder and a glazier and Elizabeth A Collett was 18. It is possible their daughter was in
hospital on that census day who, despite being baptised a month later died later
that same year. Just after the turn of
the century the March census of 1901 recorded Alfred Thomas Collett as 33 and
a machine grinder, and Elizabeth Ann Collett as 28, when they were living at
15 Market Street in Salford with their daughters, Elizabeth Collett, who was
six, Emily Collett, who was four, and Alice Collett who was one year
old. Also living with the family on
that occasion was Alfred’s widowed mother Fanny Lowe who was 53, and her son
William Lowe who was 20. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Three
further children were added to the family over the next six years, and it was
at Salford that the family was still living in April 1911, although by then
the couple had suffered another loss with the death of their daughter Sarah
Ellen. Alfred Thomas Collett was 43
and a grinder at an ironworks, and his wife Elizabeth Ann was 38. Their three eldest daughters were confirmed
as Elizabeth Ann Collett, 16, Emily Collett, who was 14, and Alice Collett
who was 11, while the two new arrivals were listed as James Collett who was
six, and Elsie Collett who was three years old. On the occasion of the registration of the
birth of his son James, Alfred’s occupation was that of an electrical
engineer’s labourer. His youngest child
Alfred was only five years old when the death of Alfred Thomas Collett was
recorded at Salford register office (Ref. 8d 136) following his passing at
Salford on 28th July 1918 at the age of 50, following which he was
buried at the Weaste Cemetery in Salford.
He was survived by his widow, with Elizabeth Ann Collett passing away
in Salford in 1837. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Over
the years, the Collett family appear to have moved a great many times, but all the
known addresses were within the Trinity area of Salford and, in addition to
those already mentioned above, the other addresses included Cobbett Street in
1895, Arlington Court in 1905, Rigby Street in 1907, 15 Market Street in
1911, Corporation Square in 1913, and Brewery Street in 1923. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q131
|
Mary Elizabeth Collett |
Born in 1891
at Salford, Lancs. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q132
|
Elizabeth Ann Collett |
Born in 1895
at Salford, Lancs. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q133
|
Emily Collett |
Born in 1897
at Salford, Lancs. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q134
|
Alice Collett |
Born in 1899
at Salford, Lancs. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q135
|
Sarah Ellen Collett |
Born in 1902
at Salford, Lancs. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q136
|
James Collett |
Born in 1905
at Salford, Lancs. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q137
|
Elsie Collett |
Born in 1907
at Salford, Lancs. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43Q138
|
Alfred Collett |
Born in 1913
at Salford, Lancs. |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q1
|
Oliver
Otto Collett was born at Keokuk in |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R1
|
Oliver
Otto Collett junior |
Born in 1920
at Wapello County, Iowa |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q5 |
Preston Collett
was born at Leslie County, Kentucky during April 1876, the eldest of the three known
children of John William Collett and his wife Kittie. He was seven years old in the census of
1880 when he and his family were residing at District 3, Marrowbone, in
Leslie County, where his father was a farmer.
Fourteen years
later, the marriage of Preston Collett and Sarah Asher took place on
14th October 1894 at Jans Hutching in Bell County, Kentucky. The witnesses were Nathan Collett and Wilkerson Asher, with Nathan
being Preston’s uncle, the older brother of his father John William
Collett. Wilkerson was probably
Sarah’s father, whose name was given to the couple’s eldest son. After a further six years Preston Collett
was living at Upper Red Bird (visitation #9) in Clay County and had
been married to Sarah (Asher) for five years, with the result being the birth
of just one child. Preston was a
farmer of a rented property who gave his age as 25, whose wife’s age on the census
form was not recorded, while their son was recorded in error as William and
not Wilkerson Collett who was two years old in 1900. Living close by, at #7 in Upper Red Bird, was Preston’s
younger married brother Ambrose Collett (below). |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Staying with the young family that census
day in 1900 was Preston’s widowed mother and two younger sisters; Katie
Collett was 46 and born in January 1854, Marie Collett was 14 and born in
September 1885, and Daisie Collett was five years of age and born in October
1894. It was also at Upper Red Bird, in Precinct 7,
visitation #25, that the enlarged family was living in 1910 when farmer
Preston was 36, and Sarah was 28, who had been married for 14 years and had
given birth to seven children, all living. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Those
seven children were listed as sons Wilkie Collett 13 (William aged two in
1900), Willie Collett 10 (William in 1920), Thomas Collett seven,
Ella Collett five, daughters Addie Collett four, and Ollie Collett three, and
Norma Collett one-year-old. Still
living with the family was Preston’s mother Kittie Collett aged 55, her
daughter Cattie Collett who was 18, and Cattie’s daughter Pur Collett who was
two years of age. Two other members of the wider Collett family were recorded
nearby at Upper Red Bird with, at visitation #27 was his brother Ambrose
Collett (below) who was 24, and at #29 was Thomas Collett (Ref.
43P39) who was 33 with his larger family. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
In
the census of 1920, conducted
on 21st February, the family was again recorded at Upper
Red Bird, but on the road up to Blue Hole Creek. On the road that year were three Collett
farms adjacent to one another, farms #2, #3 and #4. The middle of the three properties was
owned and farmed by Preston Collett aged 46, where Sarah Collett was 40,
William Collett was 18, Thomas Collett was 16, Ella Collett was 15, Addie Collett
was 13, Norma Collett was 11, James Collett was seven, P L Collett was five,
and Pearl Collett was three. At farm #2
was Preston’s younger
brother Silas Collett (below) with his family who, in the same
1920 census, but on a different day in February, was a neighbour of Joseph
Collett (Ref. 43Q86) on the road up to Lick Fork in Red Bird at Upper Red
Bird. At farm #4 was Wilkie
Collett Preston’s recently married eldest son. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
After
a further ten years Preston Collett was 56 and residing at Blue Hole Creek
Road in Magisterial District 8 of Clay County in rented property which he
farmed as a general farmer in 1930. His
wife Sarah was 51 who had been married at the age of 15, when Preston was
26. Their sons James Collett and P L
Collett were 18 and 16, when daughters Diane Collett and Malvaria Collett
were 11 and six years old. Living in
the next rented property was the couple’s son Willie (William) Collett
and his family, and further along Blue Hole Creek Road was Preston’s eldest
married son Wilkie (Wilkerson) Collett with his family and his
mother-in-law. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Preston Collett was 67 years old when
he died on 23rd September 1941 at Leslie County in Kentucky. Upon the death of his three youngest children, and certainly in 1925,
Preston and Sarah were residing in Roark with their family, where daughter
Norma was married that year, and where daughter Myrtle suffered an infant
death. Also, for the much later deaths
of daughters Pearl and Malvie, their place of birth was recorded as Ashers
Fork, Roark in Clay County. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Ashers
Fork is near Bright Shade in Clay County, while Big Creek is a waterway
running down through Leslie County and into the Red Bird River in Clay County. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The
following are the confirmed children of Preston
Collett and Sarah Asher: |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R2
|
Wilkerson
Collett |
Born in 1898
at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R3
|
William
Collett |
Born in 1901
at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R4
|
Tolman
Collett |
Born in 1902
at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R5
|
Nanna
Collett |
Born in 1904
at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R6
|
Addie
Collett |
Born in 1906
at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R7
|
Ollie Collett |
Born in 1907
at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R8
|
Norma
Collett |
Born in 1909
at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R9
|
Anna
Collett |
Born in 1911
at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R10
|
James
Collett |
Born in 1913
at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R11
|
P L Collett |
Born in 1915
at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R12
|
Pearl
Collett |
Born in 1918 at
Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R13
|
Diane Collett |
Born in 1920 at
Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R14
|
Malvaria Collett |
Born in 1922 at Roark, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R15
|
Myrtle
Collett |
Born in 1925 at Roark, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q8 |
Ambrose Collett
was born at Leslie County on 1st December 1882 and was another son
of John and Kittie Collett. On
completing the subsequent census forms he gave different ages, making the
year of his birth range from anything between 1880 and 1886. His parents had thirteen children and, up to
November 2024, only seven of them had been discovered. It was during December 2024 further work
was carried out to find the missing children, one of whom is believed to be
Ambrose who was living near his brother Preston in 1910. Sadly, no record of the family has been
found in 1891 and by the census day in 1900 their father had died earlier
that year, with Preston and Ambrose both married by that day. |
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|
With no record found for any member
of his family in 1890, Ambrose Collett said he was 17 years old in the Upper
Red Bird, Clay County, census of 1900 when he and his wife Bettie, aged 20,
were staying with Bettie’s Asher farming family at visitation #7. Her parents were Wilkinson and Pollie Asher
and, in addition the Bettie’s siblings, completing the household was single male
J C Collett who was 30 and a farm labourer, an employee of Wilkinson
Asher. The census return stated he was
born during December 1869 but, other than that, nothing is known about
him. Also in 1900, Ambrose’s older married
brother Preston Collett (above) was living at #9 Upper Red
Bird, who had living with him their widowed mother Katie (Kittie) Collett. All three were still residing there in 1910.
|
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|
For
the census of 1910 the two brothers Preston and Ambrose were recorded at #25
and #27 Upper Red Bird, Bright Shade in Clay
County respectively. That year Ambrose Collett was
24 (sic) and a farmer with his own account, whose wife of nine years was Lizzie
Collett who was 30, who had already given birth to four children. They were Emily Collett who was nine, Bige
Collett (Abijah Collett in 1920) who was eight, Preston Collett who was
seven, and daughter Mallie Collett who was one-year-old. Shortly after that census day Lizzie, also
known as Bettie, gave birth to another daughter Lottie Collett born at Bright
Shade that same year. Two more known
children were added to the family, Allen Collett in 1917, and Martha in 1919,
before Bettie was made a widow in 1920. |
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|
For
the first time, in the census of 1920, Ambrose Collett was recorded with his most
accurate age of 40 when he was still living on the road up to Blue Hole Creek
in Upper Red Bird, Clay County, where he was a general farmer. His wife Betsy was 38, and their seven
children were Abijah Collett who was 16 and a labourer on the home farm,
Preston Collett junior was 14, Mallie Collett was 12, B Golden Collett was ten
years four months and described as deformed and dumb, Lottie Collett was six
years four months, Allen Collett was four years two months, and Martha
Collett was six months old. |
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|
Ambrose Collett was 39 when he died
on 5th August 1920 at Ashers Fork in Clay County and was buried at
Collett Cemetery in Clay County. The
burial record stated he had been born on 1st December 1880, the
same year in which his older sister had been born. |
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|
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|
43R16
|
Emily Collett |
Born in 1901 at Bright Shade, Clay County |
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|
43R17
|
Abijah Collett |
Born in 1903 at Bright Shade, Clay County |
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|
43R18
|
Preston Collett |
Born in 1905 at Bright Shade, Clay County |
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|
43R19
|
Mallie Collett |
Born in 1908 at Bright Shade, Clay County |
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|
43R20
|
Golden Collett |
Born in 1910 at Bright Shade, Clay County |
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|
43R21
|
Lottie Collett |
Born in 1912 at Bright Shade, Clay County |
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|
43R22
|
Allen Collett |
Born in 1917 at Bright Shade, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R23
|
Martha Collett |
Born in 1919 at Bright Shade, Clay County |
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|
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|
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43Q9 |
Silas Collett
was born in Leslie County on 6th November 1884 and was one of the
seven surviving children of John and Catherine Collett. The marriage of Silas Collett and Mahala
Collett took place at the Bell County home of R W Asher, the Minister who
issued the licence, and the Deputy County Court Clerk of Bell County, on 21st
March 1902 when the witnesses were William Collett and Sarah Asher. By 1910 the childless couple was living at
Burn’s Spring Precinct, part of Straight Creek in Bell County, when Silas
Collett was 27 and a farm labourer married for eight years to Mahala who was
23. Living in, and working the
adjoining farm, was the family of Nathan Collett and his wife Mahala Collett,
whose family details can be found in the new Part 43 – Other Colletts of
Kentucky. |
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|
On completing the WW1 Draft
Registration Card on 12th September 1918, Silas Collett was 33,
his date of birth 6th November 1884, and was employed in mining
with the Pioneer Coal Company when living at Kettle Island in Bell
County. He signed the form with the
mark of a cross and named Halie Collett as his nearest relative, which was
very likely a shortened version of his wife’s name Mahala. |
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|
By 1920 the family had increased in
size with the birth of two daughters, when they were residing at a rented
farm #2 on the road up to Blue Hole Creek in Upper Red Bird in Clay
County. Silas Collett was 36 and a
farmer with his own account, Mahaley was 30, and their two girls were Hettie
Collett who was 12, and Elizabeth Collett who was 10. Rather than recorded as daughter, they were
described as sister, were they were, and in 1910
Nettie Collett aged two was the niece of Samuel and Annie Slusher from Kentucky,
living at Seymour in Baylor County, Texas. |
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|
Their next-door-neighbour at #3
was Silas’ eldest brother Preston Collett (above) with his wife Sarah
and their eight children, and at #4 was the just-married young couple
of Wilkie (Wilkerson) Collett (Ref. 43R2) with his wife Phronie, who was
Preston’s eldest child. Curiously, two
days after the family of Silas Collett was record at Blue Hole Creek, the
same family, but with very slightly different ages was also recorded as
living at #16 on the road up to Lick Fork of Red Bird, possibly
indicating that Silas was operating/managing two farms. A neighbour at #21 was Joseph
Collett (Ref. 43Q86). |
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|
No record of the family has been found
after 1920, apart that is, from the death of Silas Collett which was recorded
at Bell County on 28th January 1960 when he would have been 75
years old. Afterwards, he was buried
at the Upland Cemetery in Blackmont in Bell County. |
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|
43R24
|
Hettie Collett – adopted |
Born in 1908 at Upper Red Bird |
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|
43R25
|
Elizabeth Collett - adopted |
Born in 1910 at Upper Red Bird |
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|
|
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|
|
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43Q11 |
Catherine Collett, who was known as Cattie, was another of the seven
surviving children of John William Collett and his wife Catherine (Katie/Kittie)
Collett. She was born at Leslie
County, Kentucky in 1892, but was not with her family in 1900 just after her
father had died. Instead, as
18-year-old Cattie Collett she had already given birth to a daughter Pur
Collett who was two years old in the census of 1910. On that day Cattie and her widowed mother
Kitty Collett were staying at the home of Cattie’s eldest married sibling,
her only brother Preston Collett (above) at Upper Red Bird, in
Precinct 7. |
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|
|
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|
What happened to daughter Pur is not
known while, it was within the next four years that Catherine Collett married
Hence Stewart, who already had a daughter from his first wife, who were
living in District 8, Otter Creek in Clay County for the census in 1920. That year Hence Stewart was 35 a farm
labourer having his own account, Mary Stewart was 28, when the three children
listed with them were Margaret Stewart who was 15, Rosie
Stewart who was eight, and Ada Stewart who was four years and
seven months old. Completing the
family was Hence’s widowed mother-in-law Kitty Collett, with all members of
the household born in Kentucky. Hence’s
eldest daughter Margaret was the grandmother of Michelle
Hubbard Smith who kindly provided this information in August 2014. |
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|
|
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|
43R26
|
Pur Collett |
Born in 1908
at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird |
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|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q14 |
Thomas John
Collett was born on 25th July 1874
at Leslie Collett, Kentucky, the first-born child of John Collett and Nancy
Roark who was four years old in the Hayden census in 1880. Thomas married Lucy Mae Asher just prior to the end of the century,
and they are believed to have had ten children. However, in the previous version of this
family line, those ten children were credited in error to another Thomas J
Collett, he being Thomas Joel Collett (Ref. 43P39) born in 1878 who married
Maggie Redman/Redmond at Pineville in Bell County on 26th
December 1900, when their wedding ceremony was conducted at the home of
Farmer Collett, Thomas’ brother, with the witnesses being brothers Farmer
Collett (Ref. 43P37) and Letcher Collett (Ref. 43P36). |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
In 1900 Thomas Collett was 25 and a
farmer living at Bad Creek in Leslie County with his wife of three years Lucy
Collett aged 22 who had already given birth to two children. They were Bertha who was two years of age,
and Grant who was four months old, who did not survive. Living next door to the family was Thomas’
parents, John and Nancy Collett, together with four of the five younger
siblings of Thomas, being John Collett, Lucy Collett, Bradley Collett, and
Harrison Collett. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
It
was at #29 Upper Red Bird in Bright Shade, Clay
County, that Thomas Collett and his family were living in 1910. He was 33 and a farmer with his own account
who had been married to his wife Lucy for thirteen years. During that time, they had given birth to six
children, five of whom were still alive in 1910. Lucy Collett was 26, Bertha Collett was 12,
Chester Collett was 10, son Goldie Collett was seven, Hazel Collett was six,
and Mitchell Collett who was seven months.
Two of his neighbours that year were members of the extended Collett
family, being the brothers Preston
Collett (Ref. 43Q5) residing at #25 Upper Red Bird, and
Ambrose Collett (Ref. 43Q8) at #27. |
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|
|
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|
By the time of the census in 1920 the
family was recorded at Lothair Precinct in Perry County where Thomas Collett
was 45 and a carpenter working at a local coal mine. His wife Lucy was 42, and their six
children were confirmed as Goldie Collett who was 18, Hazel Collett who was
13, Mitchell Collett who was 10, De Witt Collett who was eight, Edna Collett
who was five, and Thomas Collett junior who was three years old. One more child was added to their family
over the next three years. Also living
at Lothair, in Perry County, was the couple’s recently married son Chester
Collett. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The next census in 1930 revealed that
Thomas had been first married at the age of 21, when Lucy was 18. It was at Laurel County in Kentucky that
the family was then living. Thomas J
Collett was no longer a carpenter, but was a farmer at the age of 56. Lucy was 52 and the five children still
living with the couple were named as Mitchell Collett who was 20 and a coal
miner, Dee Collett who was 18 and also employed as a coal miner, Edna Collett
who was 15, Thomas Collett who was 14 and Joe C Collett who was seven years
of age. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The census in 1940 reported that the
family was living at London, Laurel County in 1935, and it was in 1938 that Thomas
and Lucy left Kentucky to live in Miami County, Ohio. That happened after married son Mitchell Collett
moved there around 1935, and where he was living with his family in 1940 and
1950. Once there, the elderly couple
settled in Casstown, Lost Creek Township, Miami County, where Thomas J
Collett from Kentucky was 65 and a labourer on farmland, when his wife Lucy
Mae Collett was 63. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Lucy Mae Collett, the daughter of
James Asher and Phoebe Howard, died in hospital at Casstown on 26th
December 1948 at the age of 70, her death certificate confirming they had
lived in Casstown for ten years. Her
date of birth was confirmed as 8th May 1878, the wife of Thomas
Collett aged 74. The informant of her
passing was her son Mitchell Collett of Covington, Ohio, following which she
was buried at Casstown Cemetery on 30th December 1948. Three years after being widowed, Thomas J
Collett was 76 when he died in the Stouder Memorial Hospital in Troy, Miami
County, on 21st January 1951, when his home address was Main
Street in Casstown, Lost Creek Township.
He had been a carpenter with Howard Brothers (his late wife’s family
business), and was confirmed as the son of John Collett and Nancy Roark and
was buried with his wife at Casstown Cemetery. |
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|
|
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|
43R27
|
Bertha Collett |
Born
in February 1898 in Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R28
|
Grant
Collett |
Born
in 1900 in Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R29
|
Chester
Collett |
Born
in 1901 in Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R30
|
Goldie Collett |
Born
in 1902 in Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R31
|
Hazel Collett |
Born
in 1907 in Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R32
|
Mitchell
Collett |
Born
in 1910 in Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R33
|
De Witt
Collett |
Born
in 1912 in Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R34
|
Edna Collett |
Born
in 1915 in Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R35
|
Thomas
Collett |
Born
in 1917 in Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R36
|
Joseph C
Collett |
Born
in 1922 in Leslie County |
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|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q15 |
Wiley Collett was
born on 20th October 1879 at Hayden in Leslie County, where he was
living with his family in 1880 at the age of seven months. He was another son of John and Nancy Collett, and he married
Chloe/Clare Napier around the end of the century and, according to the Bad
Creek census in 1910, his wife had given birth to five children, all
living. That year Wiley was recorded
at farm #64 as Wiley Collett junior who was 35 (sic), married for
eleven years and a general farmer with his own account. His wife Chloe Collett was 34 (sic), and
the five children were Maude Collett who was 10, Woodard Collett who was
eight, Berga Collett who was seven, Stella Collett who was five, and Mallie
Collett who was two years of age.
|
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|
|
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|
At Bad Creek farm #65 in 1910 was
the family of Will Collett, his wife Emily, and seven of their eight
children. Ten years later, the same
family was living one property away from Wiley and Chloe at Bad Creek - see
below. |
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|
|
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|
After another ten years Wiley Collett
was 39 and a general farmer with his own account, and the owner of his farm
at #36 Bad Creek, Precinct No. 6 in Leslie County in 1920. His wife Clare Collett (nee Napier – see
below) was 41, and their seven children were Maudie (Maude) Collett
aged 19, sons Wardon (Woodard) and Burgie (Berga) Collett were
18 and 15, Stella Collett aged 14, Mallie Collett aged 10, Harrison Collett
who was eight, and Ballard Collett who was six years old. The couple’s four eldest children were
recorded as labourers working on the family farm. At farm #38 in Bad Creek in 1920 once
again, was the family of Will Collett, his wife Ella, with their five
children, who were next-door-neighbours in 1910. Their details can be found in the new Part
43 – Other Colletts of Kentucky. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Ten children were living with Wiley
and Clare at #26 Jacks Creek Road in Bad Creek on the day of the
census in 1930, while next door at #25 was the large family of Robert
and Millie Collett. Wiley was 48 (sic)
and renting the family home but still a farmer with his own account. Chloe was 52 who was 24 when she married
Wiley when he was 20. Nine children
were living with the couple that day, and they were unmarried Mallie Collett
was 22, Harrison Collett was 19, Ballard Collett was 16, twins (?) Lucy and
Henry Collett were 10, twin-sisters (?) Elizabeth and Golda Collett were four
years of age, with twin-sisters (?) Obel (Opal) and Lela Collett being
twelve months old. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
That 1930 census return raises a
query regarding Chloe’s advanced years; were the four youngest children living
with them more grandchildren of Wiley and Chloe Collett? Certainly, the 1940 Census for the couple’s
daughter Maudie Bowling, married for a second time during the previous year, revealed
she had living with her, her son Henry Collett who was 18 and a farm hand. He was described as the stepson of Bristo
Bowling and, since Henry appeared to be the twin-brother of Lucy Collett in
1930, both them, and some of their four younger siblings, may have been the
children from Maudie’s first marriage. The following census in 1940, when Chloe was
63, again had very young children living with the family for whom she could
not have been the mother. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
That year (1940), the enlarged family
was residing at #112 Bowens Creek Road in Bad Creek, where Wiley was
56 and the owner of his farm, with his own account. Chloe was 63 when, listed as their children
were Mallie Collett who was 35, Harrison Collett who was 34 and a labourer
with the W P A Roads, Ballard Collett was 25 and working with his father on
the farm, Lucy Collett who was 20, Elizabeth Collett who was 14, Opal Collett
who was 10, Joe Collett who was eight, and Ada Collett who was seven years of
age. Living close by at #110
Bowens Creek Road was the couple’s eldest married son Woodard Collett with
his wife and their family. Ten years
later, the two families were living together as next-door-neighbours. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
On 27th April 1942 a Draft
Registration Card was completed at Hayden in Leslie County for Wiley Collett,
referred to as Little Wiley Collett aged 64 residing at Roark, who signed the
form with the mark of a cross. Once
again Wiley’s closest relative was his wife Chloe Collett of Roark, but
curiously his date of birth was incorrected stated as 25th January
1879. Wiley Collett was 91 when he died
at Roark, Leslie County, on 4th April 1971 and was buried at
Bowens Creek Cemetery in Essie, Leslie County. His burial recorded provided his date of
birth as 20th October 1879. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R37
|
Maude Collett |
Born in 1900 at Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R38
|
Woodard Collett |
Born in 1902 at Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R39
|
Bergie Collett |
Born in 1904 at Leslie County; died 13.12.26 |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R40
|
Stella Collett |
Born in 1906 at Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R41
|
Mallie Collett |
Born in 1908 at Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R42
|
Harrison Collett |
Born in 1911 at Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R43
|
Ballard Collett |
Born in 1913 at Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q18 |
Bradley Collett was
born at Leslie County on
29th April 1894 and was another child of John and Nancy
Collett who were living in Bad Creek in 1900 when Bradley was eight years of
age. Towards the end of the following
decade Bradley moved out of the family home with his younger brother Harrison
(below) and in 1910 the pair of them was staying with the Thompson
family at Big Creek in Leslie County where they were employed as farm
labourers. He served with the military from 20th
May 1918 until 15th February the following year after which
Bradley became a married man to a much younger wife, Mary Ellen Revis. As a consequence of their ten-year age
difference, he lowered his age in the subsequent census returns, most likely
to reduce the embarrassment. One
member of the Revis family of Big Creek in 1910 was George Revis a farmer
whose live-in farmer labourer was Gordon Collett. With no link yet found to this family line,
his details, and those of near neighbour Johnnie Collett, can be found in
the new Part 43 – Other Colletts of Kentucky. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
It was at Gilberts Creek in Big Creek
for the census of 1920 that Bradley Collett said he was 24, rather than 27,
with his wife Mary Ellen Collett being only 17. During the next ten years, Mary Ellen gave
birth to five children who were all living with the couple in rented
accommodation 1930 in Clay County, where Bradley was 36 and a labourer at a
coal mine. The census return stated
that 28-year-old Mary had married at the age of seventeen, when Bradley was
25. Their five children were John aged
nine, Gracie aged seven, Melvin aged six, Rose who was four, and Hans who was
two years and two months old. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Over the following years, the family
returned to a rented property at Gilberts Creek in Leslie County where
Bradley was a farmer with his own account in 1940 and, by which time, a
further five children had been added to his family. Bradley was 47, Mary Ellen was 38, John was
19 and a farmer, Grace was 17, Mel was 16 and a farmer, Rose was 14, Harris was
12, Jean was eight, Neil was six, Stanley was four, Myrtle was three, and
Joyce was one year old. The census
returned confirmed that the family had been living at the same address in
1935. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The WW2 Draft Registration Card for
Bradley Collett was completed at Hyden on 27th April 1942 and
confirmed the following details. He
was 49 and born on the day stated above, he was a farmer at home in Marcum,
Leslie County, and his wife was Mary Ellen Collett. Sadly, she died later that same year around
the time of the birth, or just after, the birth of the couple’s last
child. Those two events were recorded
in the next census of 1950. Widower
Bradley Collett aged 58 was continuing to work as a farmer, when he had ten of
his eleven children still living with him, together with a Collett grandson. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
John was 30 and a coal loader at a
coal mine, Gracie was 28 and keeping house, Mel was 24 and another coal
loader, as was Harris aged 22, Jean was 20, Neil was 17, Stanley was 15,
Myrtle was 12, Joyce was 10, and Jimmy was eight years old. Bradley’s grandson was six-year-old Bobbie
Collett. Nineteen years later Bradley
Collett died in Lesle County on 26th October 1969, when his age
was recorded in error as 77, after which he was buried at the John Sizemore
Cemetery in Marcum. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R44
|
John Collett |
Born in 1920 at Marcum, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R45
|
Grace Collett |
Born in 1922 at Marcum, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R46
|
Melvin Collett |
Born in 1924 at Marcum, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R47
|
Rose Collett |
Born on 04.04.1926 at Marcum, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R48
|
Harris Collett |
Born in 1928 at Marcum, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R49
|
Jean Collett |
Born on 31.05.1931 at Marcum, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R50
|
Neil Collett |
Born in 1933 at Marcum, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R51
|
Stanley Collett |
Born in 1935 at Hyden, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R52
|
Myrtle Collett |
Born in 1937 at Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R53
|
Joyce Collett |
Born on 09.04.1939 at Marcum, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R54
|
Jimmy Collett |
Born in 1941 at Marcum, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q19 |
Harrison G Collett was
born on 16th
September 1895 at Buck Fork in Leslie County and was the sixth and
last child of John Collett and Nancy Roark.
At the age of 15
years, he was living at Bad Creek, Leslie County in 1910, when Harrison and
his brother Bradley (above) were lodging with the Thompson family,
from where they were working as farm labourers. |
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|
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|
It was on 5th June 1917 at
Clay County that Harrison’s WW1 Draft Registration Card revealed he was 21
and born at Buck Fork on 16th September 1895. At that time he was a self-employed farmer
living at Marcum in Clay County. The
reason for his claim of exemption from military service was because he had a
wife and two children to support.
Harrison then signed the form with the mark of a cross. Three years later the family had increased
to four children when they were living in Big Creek, Clay County. Head of the household Harrison was 24 and a
general farmer with his own account renting the property. His wife Lillie was 29, and their four
children were Cornelia Collett who was nearly six, Cornell Collett who was
four years and ten months, Clarence who was two years and two months, and
Laura Collett who was eleven months old. |
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|
|
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|
During the following decade Harrison
purchased a farm in Clay County where the family was living in 1930. The census return gave a value of $300 for
the new family home where farmer Harrison Collett having his own account was
35 and married when he was 18. Lillie
Collett was 40 and was 23 years old on the day of their wedding. By 1930 the family had grown to eight
children with Cornelia aged 16, Cornell who was 14 and working with his
father on the farm, Clarence was 12, Laura was 10, Hamp was eight, Nancy was
six, Haze (Hayes) was five, and Cassie was three years of age. |
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|
|
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|
It was at Goose Rock on Red Bird
River in Clay County that Harrison and Lillie were reported to be living in
the census of 1940. Harrison was 44
was a farmer on his own farm, Lillie was 49, son Cornell was 23 and a lineman
with the electric company, Laura was 20, Hamp was 18 and a labourer on his father’s
farm, Nancy was 16, Haze was 14, and Cassie was 12. Living with the family that day were two of
their married children; daughter Cornelia Ledford with husband Arthur Ledford
and their three children, and son Clarence Collett and his wife Malva Collett. |
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|
|
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|
The WW2 Draft Registration Card for
Harrison Collett was completed at Laurel County in Kentucky on 27th
April 1942 when he was 46 and residing at Whitley (Street) in London, Laurel
County. The other details confirmed
his date of birth, as above, that he was a self-employed farmer, whose wife
was Lillie Collett. Unlike the earlier
WW1 Draft Card, on this occasion he signed the form in his own hand. |
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|
|
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|
By the time of the census conducted
in 1950 the reduced family was again residing in Laurel County, where
Harrison G Collett was continuing to work as a farmer at the age of 54. His wife, as Lillie N Collett was 59 and a
farm helper. The couple’s two youngest
sons, Hamp and Hayes, had return home after becoming marriage men, with them
both employed by the electric company as electric linemen. Hamp Collett was 28 and a widower, and Hayes
Collett was 24 and separated from his wife. Also living with the family that day was the
couple’s youngest child, married daughter Cassie H Hampton who was 22. With her was her husband Lawrence Hampton
29 and a foreman lineman with the electric company, and their daughter Gloria
J G Hampton who was three, and son Philip C Hampton who was one year
old. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Harrison Collett was 86 when he died
in Laurel County on 10th September 1980 and was buried at Collett
Cemetery in Crab Orchard, Laurel County.
The name and dates on his headstone referred to him as Harrison G
Collett. However, whoever was the
informant of his passing incorrectly gave his date of birth as 16th
October 1894. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R55
|
Cornelia Collett |
Born in 1914 at Marcum, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R56
|
Cornell Collett |
Born in 1916 at Marcum, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R57
|
Clarence Collett |
Born in 1917 at Marcum, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R58
|
Laura Collett |
Born in 1919 at Marcum, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R59
|
Hamp Collett |
Born in 1921 at Marcum, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R60
|
Nancy Collett |
Born in 1924 at Marcum, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R61
|
Haze Collett |
Born in 1925 at Marcum, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R62
|
Cassie Collett |
Born in 1928 at Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q22
|
Arthur Collett was born at Asher, Leslie County in
Kentucky on 10th October 1894, the son of Ingram Collett and his
first wife Serena
Catherine Cope (aka Rena/Renio).
Arthur was eight years old in the census of 1900 when he and his
family were living at Marrowbone in Bad Creek in Leslie County. Shortly after 1906 his mother died and his
father married the much younger Sarah who was only a couple of years older
than Arthur, as confirmed in the Bad Creek census of 1910 when Arthur Collett
was 17, with Sarah being 19. |
|
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|
|
|
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|
It was around 1916 when Arthur Collett married Frances
Morgan, known as Francy, and just after, he served with the US Infantry in
1917 and 1918, when his military records confirmed his date and place of
birth as stated above. It was also during 1917 that
the couple’s first of their seven children was born, as reported in the
Leslie County census of 1920. On that
day the family was living at #15 Bad Creek Road in Bad Creek, when
farmer Arthur Collett was 22 (sic), his wife Frances Collett was 21, their
daughter Bettie Colett was four years and three months, and son Manuel was 13
months old. |
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|
|
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|
It
is also established that their son Troy, the couple’s seventh child, was born
during the same year that Arthur died at Asher. His death certificate confirmed that he
died on 24th July 1926 and that he was the son of Ingram Collett
and Renio Cope. An earlier son of
Arthur and Frances, Troy’s older brother Corbett, also had a son with the
same name. After the death of Arthur
Collett, his widow remarried, and it was Frances and Willie Brock who raised
the Collett children. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The census for Roark, Leslie County,
in 1940 identified six of Arthur’s children, five of whom were living with
their mother Frances Brock aged 42 and their stepfather William Brock who was
44. However, only Arthur’s daughter
Elva was named Collett, her four brothers as Brock. Manuel was 21, Corbett was 19, Elva was 17,
Clarence was 16, and Troy was 14. Frances’ eldest son Fred was married by then
and had two young children who were living with his wife immediately next
door, at visitation #151, the remainder of his family was #150.
At #148 was Arthur’s cousin Theo (Theophallus) Collett (Ref. 43Q31)
and his family. In 1950 William Brock aged 53 and a farmer,
and his wife Frances Brock, who was 52, were living immediately adjacent to
Francy’s son Corbett Collett at Blue Hole Water, Red Bird in Clay County. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R63
|
Fred Collett |
Born in 1917
at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R64
|
Emanuel Collett |
Born in 1918
at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R65
|
Corbett Collett |
Born in 1920
at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R66
|
Elva Collett |
Born in 1922 at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R67
|
Clarence
Collett |
Born in 1924 at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R68
|
Troy Collett |
Born in 1926
at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Wiley James Collett
was born at Leslie County on
2nd April 1896, another son of Ingram and Serena Collett. He weas four years old in the 1900 census
for Marrowbone, Bad Creek in Leslie County.
It was also at Bad Creek that Wiley Collett was again living with his
family in 1910 at the age of 15. Four years later, Wiley Collett
married Emily Asher during the month of March in 1914 when he was almost 18
years of age and she was nearly 17, with Emily having been born on 12th
May 1897. On 5th June 1917
the WW1 Draft Registration Card completed for Wiley Collett at Leslie County
provided the following information.
His date of birth (as above), age 21, married, residing at Asher with
his wife and two children, a farmer working for himself, who was claiming
exemption due to having a wife and family to support. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The
couple gave misleading ages when interviewed for the subsequent censuses, the
first of them in 1920 for Bad Creek when they and their two children were living
at Bad Creek Road, when farmer Wiley Collett (as Willy Callett) was 22
(sic) having his own account for the farm.
Emily was recorded as Ellie Callett who was 21 (sic), when their two
children were Shelby Collett (as Shelley Callett) aged five, and
McKinley Collett who was two years and two months old. That was on 2nd January 1920 and
just over five weeks later Emily gave birth to the couple’s only daughter
Millie, who was followed by the birth of another two sons to complete their
family. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
All
five children were recorded with their parents at Bad Creek Road in Bad Creek,
Leslie County, in 1930 with Wiley, the owner of his own
farm, claiming he was 38 (sic). Emily
was 34 and stated she 19 when she married Wiley, who said he was 21, both
incorrect. Their five children, whose
births had been recorded at Leslie County, were Shelby Collett who was 15,
McKinley Collett who was 13, Millie Collett who was 11, Richard Collett who was
nine, and Charlie Collett who was seven. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
By
1940 daughter Millie was married and had left the family home which, by then,
was at Beech Fork in Leslie County.
The remainder of the family was still together when Wiley Collett (as
Wylie) was 42 (sic) and renting the property where they were residing and
where he was a labourer working on a farm.
Emily Collett was 39, Shelby Collett was 25, McKinley Collett was 23,
Richard Collett was 18, and Charles Collett was 15. All four son were working as labourer in
farming, perhaps even working alongside their father. Shortly after that their two youngest sons
were married but were divorced by 1950, when they were sharing the same
accommodation in Harlan County, Kentucky |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The
WW2 Draft Registration Card, completed at Helton in Leslie County on 27th
April 1942, confirmed Wiley James Collett of Asher was residing at Helton and
that he had been born on 2nd April 1896. At that time in his life, he was 46 and
employed by Bill Caldwell of Louellen, and the relative’s name he gave was
Millie Sandlin of Chavies, Leslie County, his married daughter. The card also stated he was missing a thumb
on his right hand. No record of Wiley
and Emily has been found in the next census for 1950, when they would have
been 54 and 53 respectively. |
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|
|
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|
It
was twenty-eight years later, when Wiley Collett, aged 82, died on 23rd
June 1978 with his passing as recorded at Knox County, Kentucky. However, on being buried at Scalf Howard
Cemetery in Barbourville, Knox County, he was acknowledged as Wiley J
Collett. Five-and-a-half years after
being widowed, Emily Asher Collett, aged 86, died at Bimble in Knox County on
27th December 1983, and was buried with her husband at
Barbourville. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R69
|
Shelby Collett |
Born
in 1915 at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R70
|
McKinley Collett |
Born
in 1918 at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R71
|
Millie Collett |
Born
in 1920 at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R72
|
Richard Collett |
Born
in 1922 at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R73
|
Charlie Collett |
Born
in 1924 at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q26
|
Shelby Collett was born at Bad Creek in Leslie County
on 25th April
1905, the youngest child of Ingram Collett and Serena Catherine Cope, who was four years
old in the Bad Creek census of 1910. It was previously written here
that it was assumed Shelby married Martha around the middle of the 1920s. However, it can now be revealed that they
were both married to other people and were therefore unable to be married
until much later, after all their children had been born, making their
married their second wedding. By 1930 Martha
had given birth to the couple’s first two children when the family was living
at Big Branch Road,
Beech Fork, Marrowbone in Leslie County. Shelby Collett was 24 and a farmer of a general farm,
Martha Collett was 21, their son Dewey Collett (as Huy) was four, and
their daughter Grace Collett (as Gracy) was two years old, every
member of the household having been born in Kentucky. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Three
more children were born into the family during the next decade but,
tragically, the last of them died three years before the Leslie County census
of 1940. According to the census
return that year Shelby and Martha Collett were both 35 and living at Asher
with their four surviving children, having lost son George who was born at Asher on 1st
April 1937, who died on 19th November 1937 from broncho-pneumonia. They were recorded as Dewey Collett who was
15, Grace Collett who was 13, Rufus Collett who was nine, and daughter Sternel
Collett who was seven years old. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
That same year, the WW2 Draft
Registration Card completed at Hyden, Leslie County on 16th
October 1940, provided Shelby’s date of birth and confirmed his wife was
Martha residing at Asher, and that at the age of 35, Shelby was unemployed. By the time of the next census in 1950, the
family’s home was in Louellen, Harlan County, in a dwelling facing Fugitt
Creek, “on the road leading into the new mine”. That day, 7th April 1950, Shelby
Collett was at home to assist the census enumerator to complete the form, and
this is what was recorded, all under the name Callett. Shelby was 48 and a widower, Martha was 49,
Dewey was 23, Rufus was 21, Grace was 19, Sternal was 15, Polly was eight,
and Ruby was six years old. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
A slightly different story was told
to the census enumerator on the following day, on 8th April 1950, by
42-year-old Martha Collett who was the head of the household and a widow,
clearing the way for her to marry the absent Shelby. Living with her were just four of her
children, Rufus who was 20 and a coal loader at the local mine, Sternal who
was 15, Polly who was nine, and Ruby who was five. Daughter Sternal was born at Asher on 4th
July 1934 and died there on 5th May 2005 at the age of 71, and was
buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery in Essie, Leslie County. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Five years later the marriage of
Shelby Collett and Martha Collett was conducted at Essie in Leslie County on
14th June 1955 when they were both described as divorced and
residing at Asher. Shelby was 49 and a
farmer, the son of Ingram Collett and Rena Cope, while Martha’s parents were
Billy Collett and Nancy Brock. Shelby
was 64 when he died on 15th October 1969 and was buried at Bowens
Creek Cemetery in Essie. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R74
|
Dewey Huy Collett |
Born in 1925 at Asher, Leslie
County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R75
|
Grace Collett
– married Troy Brock |
Born in 1928 at Asher Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R76
|
Rufus
Collett |
Born in 1930 at Asher,
Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R77
|
Sternal
Collett |
Born in 1934 at Asher, Leslie
County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R78
|
George
Collett |
Born in 1937 at Asher, Leslie
County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R79
|
Polly Collett |
Born in 1941 at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R80
|
Ruby Collett |
Born in 1945 at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q28 |
Leander Morton Collett was the second child of
John Robinson Collett and Jennett Reed (Jeanette Reed) and was born at
Hyden, Leslie
County, Kentucky, on 5th
May 1892. As Lee Collett he was
eight years of age in the Bad Creek census of 1900, and was a married man with a wife and daughter
by 1920. However, three years earlier
the WW1 Draft Registration Card revealed that he was 25 and born at Asher,
who was living at Spring Creek in Kentucky where he had a dual occupation as
a farmer “for himself” and a teacher. The
reason he claimed exemption from the draft was because he had a wife to
support who had physical disabilities. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
It was in 1915 when Leander Collett
married Delora Langdon who was simply recorded as L M Collett in the two
census returns for 1920 and 1940. His
wife was often referred to as Laura and recorded as Lora. In 1920 Leander was 27 years old and Delora
was 23, whose daughter Martha Collett was twenty-six months old. That year, their next-door neighbour at
Bowens Creek in Bad Creek Precinct was Manford Collett (Ref. 43Q73) and his
family. When their son Clarence was
born at Manchester in 1925, his birth was recorded at Clay County. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
By 1930 the family was living at Artemus
Road in Artemus, Knox County, Kentucky, where Lee M Collett was 34 and a
teacher at a public school, as was his wife Lora who was 30. Lee was 23 when he married Delora, who was
19. Their children were Mattie Collett
who was ten, Roy Collett who was eight, Marie Collett who was six, Clarence
Collett who was four, and Gladys Collett who was twenty months old. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Ten years later, husband and wife
were teachers at a public school at Hyden in Leslie County when they were 47 (L
M Collett), and 43 (Lora Collett) and residing on Rock House
Highway 80. Described as a new worker
was their son Roy Collett who was 19, whose twin sister Marie Collett was 19
and perhaps looking after household duties.
The couple’s other children were Clarence Collett who was 12, Gladys
Collett who was 10, L M Collett junior who was nine, and Mahlon Collett who
was five years of age. At the start of
the following year Leander Morton Collett submitted a Social Program
Application in February 1941 which confirmed his date of birth (as above) and
that his parents with John Collett and Jeanette Reed. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
During the next year the WW2 Draft
Registration Card provided the name and date of birth of Leander M Collett
who was 49 and born on 15th May 1892 in Leslie County. His wife was confirmed as Lora L Collett
when they were living at Hyden, where Leander was employed as a teacher by
the Board of Education for Leslie County.
Tragically, it was later that same year when Leander Morton Collett
died at Marcum in Clay County, Kentucky, on 29th November 1942, at
the age of 50, and was buried at Langdon Cemetery in Marcum. Between the spring of 1998 and the end of
2007, L M Collett junior was living at 434 East Oak Street in Louisville,
Jefferson County in Kentucky. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R81
|
Martha Collett |
Born in 1918 at Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R82
|
Roy Burton Collett |
Born in 1921 at Bowens Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R83
|
Marie Collett |
Born in 1922 at Bowens Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R84
|
Clarence Ray Collett |
Born in 1925 at Manchester, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R85
|
Gladys Collett |
Born in 1936 at Hyden, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R86
|
Leander Morton Collett junior |
Born in 1931 at Hyden, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R87
|
James Mahlon Collett |
Born in 1934 at Hyden, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q30 |
Nancy Ann Collett was the fourth child of John Robinson Collett and his
first wife Jennett Reed, who was born at Leslie County on 16th May
1896. She was later Nancy Ann Brock who
died as a widow on 9th November 1962 in Red Bird Hospital at
Beverly in Clay Co, and was buried at Bad Creek Cemetery in Asher on 11th
November 1962, after residing at Hyden in Leslie County. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q31 |
Theophallus Collett, who was known as Theo, was born at Leslie County on 5th May 1898,
another son of John and Jennett Collett who was 12 years old in the Bad Creek
census of 1910. On 12th September
1918 the WW1 Draft Registration Card was completed Hyden in Leslie Collett
for Theo Collett of Asher, Leslie County, when his date of birth was
confirmed as stated above. His
occupation was in farming and his father was confirmed as John R Collett, his
nearest relative. The same form also
recorded that he had broken his right arm below the elbow. Just before 1920 he married Susie Whitehead
and, in the Bad Creek census that year, he and Susie were living right next
door to his uncle Ingram Collett’s farm at #16 Bad Creek Road. Theo Collett was 21 and a farmer living at #17
Bad Creek Road with his wife Susie Collett who was 26, while at #20
Bad Creek Road was Theo’s parents, with three of his siblings. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
During the next decade father and son
moved into adjacent farms, again on Bad Creek Road in Asher, where Theo and
Susie were 32 in 1930. By that time
they had three sons, Frank Collett who was nine, Ray Collett who was seven,
and Charlie Collett who was five.
Theo’s visitation was #88, his father’s was #89, and at #86
was the family of P L Collett and his wife Lottie (Ref. 43P32) his father’s
younger brother. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Two more children were added to the
family during the following years, with all five children listed with the
couple living in Roark, Leslie census in 1940. Theo Collett was 42 and employed as a
labourer with the W P A [Road Program], his wife Susie was 44, and the five
children were Frank aged 21, Ray aged 17, Charlie aged 14, Jeanette Collett
who was seven, and Theo Collett junior who was four years old. That day the family was recorded at #148,
when two of his nearest three neighbours were members of the Collett
family. At #150 was Frances
(Francy) Brock, former widow of Arthur Collett (Ref. 43Q22) who was Theo’s
cousin, and next door to them, and at #151, was the family of Fred
Collett (Ref.43R49), the eldest children of Arthur and Francy Collett, and
therefore Theo’s nephew. Less than two
years after that day, the US Draft Registration Card for WW2 was completed at
Hyden on 16th February 1942 for Theo Collett of Asher, working for
the W P A at Corbin, whose wife was Susie. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
After a further eight years, Theo
Collett was 52 and residing in Leslie County when he was a mill worker with a
lumber manufacturing company. Wife
Susie was 51, and only their two youngest children were still living with
them; Jeanette Collett as Nettie was 16 and Theo Junior was 14. That family group was at visitation #253. While at #254 was the couple’s
married son Ray, whose wife Dorothy had given birth to their first child in
February 1950. Theo Collett died at
Hazard in Perry County, Kentucky, on 20th February 1955 and was
buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery in Essie, Leslie County. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The couple’s eldest child, Frank
Collett was born on 18th May 1920, was 21 and a farmer, the son of
Theo Collett of Asher, when his WW2 Draft Registration Card was completed at
Hyden, Leslie County on 4th July 1941. The only other known fact about him, is
that he died on 2nd April 1978 aged 57 and was buried at Bowens
Creek, Essie, Leslie County. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Theo and Susie’s son Charles, was
born at Asher on 24th August 1926 and died in Clay County on 29th
February 1976, but was buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery, in Essie, where his
name was recorded at Charlie T Collett aged 49. On 9th September 1944 his WW2
Draft Registration Card was completed at Hyden when he was 18 and unemployed
and residing in Essie, the son of Theo Collett of Asher. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
As regards their daughter ‘Jeanette’,
in the Social Program Application dated June 1952, she was described as
Nettie Jean Collett, born on 30th June 1933 at Asher, the daughter
of Theo Collett and Susie Whitehead.
The records also provided the information that she died on 8th
July 1996 as Nettie J Wilson, when she had been residing at Helton in Leslie
County. It was on 13th
December 1955 that she married divorcee Orville Wilson aged 34 and a
coalminer, at Bletsoe in Harlan County, the son of Theo Wilson and Flora
Howard, when she was 22 and her parents were confirmed as Theo Collett and
Susie Whitehead. |
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|
|
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|
It was also the Social Program
records that provided the information regarding the couple’s youngest
child. He was named as Junior John
Collett, born at Asher on 21st August 1935. The first of two applications made on his
behalf, and dated October 1952, also referred to him in the same way, while
the later one, on 23rd November 1984, simply addressed him as
Junior Collett the son of Theo Collett and Susie Whitehead. Finally, at the end of his life, he was
curiously described as John R Collett who died on 30th September
2002, with his burial at Bowens Creek Cemetery, Essie, recorded s John R
Collett “Junior”. |
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|
|
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|
43R88
|
Frank Collett |
Born in 1920 at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R89
|
Ray
Collett |
Born in 1923 at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R90
|
Charlie
Collett |
Born in 1926 at Asher, Leslie
County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R91
|
Nettie Jean
Collett |
Born in 1933 at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R92
|
Junior John Collett (aka Theo Jnr) |
Born in 1935 at Asher Leslie
County |
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|
|
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|
|
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43Q33 |
Sherman M Collett was the seventh child of John Robinson Collett and Jennett
Reed, and was born on 30th
April 1901 at Asher, Bad Creek in Leslie County, where he was living
with his family in 1910 aged nine years. At the age of 17 he served as a private 1st Class 573491
with Company F of 39th Infantry in France in September 1918. It was in his WW2 Draft Registration Card,
completed at Hyden on 16th February 1942, that he was referred to
as Sherman M Collett, the son of John R Collett of Warbranch, Kentucky, who
was born at Asher on 30th April 1901. At that time in his life, he was 41 and
residing in Asher, where he was employed by the Frontier Nursing Service. Eight years later, bachelor Sherman
Collett, aged 49, married his father’s widow Nettie Whitehead, aged 34, on 21st
March 1950 in Harlan County, although both were recorded at living in
Asher. Sherman was a farmer and the
son of John R Collett and Jeanette Reed, when Nettie’s parents were named as
Levi Whitehead and Mahala Brock. |
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|
|
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|
Two months after their wedding day
the pair of them was living at Leslie County with nine children and one
grandson, all with the Collett surname.
The four eldest children, most likely from Nettie’s first marriage
were daughter Haley Collett 19, son Junior Collett 15, Juanita Collett 13,
and Annie Collett who was 11. The next
three were the children of John Robinson Collett and his third wife Nettie
Whitehead, and therefore the half-sisters and brother of Sherman. They were Carolyn (Ethel) Collett aged eight,
John R Collett (junior) aged six, and Bettie F Collett who was born around
the time her father died. The parents
of two youngest children were most likely Sherman M Collett and Nettie
Whitehead, and were Johnny L Collett between one and two years old, and
Evelyn Collett who had been born during January 1950. It is not known which of the older children
was the mother of the just-born unnamed grandson born in May 1950. |
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|
|
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|
Sherman M Collett died at Wallins
Creek in Harlan County on 8th December 1969 at the age of 68 and
was buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery in Essie, Leslie County. His daughter Evelyn was born at Hyden on 30th
January 1950 and as Evelyn Collett Hensley she died in Harlan County on 6th
June 2019 and two days later her obituary was published. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R93
|
Johnny L Collett |
Born on 24.06.1948 at Asher, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R94
|
Evelyn Collett |
Born in 1950 at Hyden, Leslie County |
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|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q43 |
Carolyn Ethel Collett was the last of the fifteen known children of John
Robinson Collett, and the only child by his third wife Nettie Whitehead. She was born at Asher in Leslie County on
31st October 1941 and was 22 when she married (1) Rufus Collett (Ref. 43R76) who was
33, at Jonesville, Lee County in Virginia, on 23rd March 1964. He was the former husband of Martha Blevins,
a divorced lady to whom he was first married in 1953 aged 22 and the third
child of Shelby and Martha Collett of Essie, Leslie County. Carolyn and Rufus (1930-2003) must have been
divorced because, later on in her life, Carolyn married (2) David
R Lewis. And it was as Carolyn Ethel Lewis that she died on 12th
September 2005 at Hyden in Leslie County. |
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|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q46
|
Robert Lee Collett was born at Bad Creek in Leslie
County, Kentucky on 7th
March 1894, the son of Pleasant Lee and Rusho J Collett, who was five
in the census of 1900 when he and his family were living at Bad Creek Precinct
in Lesle County. Like his two younger
brothers (below) and his father, Robert was residing at Upper Red Bird
in Clay County by the time of the census in 1920, by which time he was
married with a son. Robert Collett was
23, his wife Dora Collett was 19, and their son P L Collett who was two years
and two months and named after his grandfather. Staying with the family was servant Mary
Jane Brock who was 18. Robert was the owner of a
general farm, as were his parents next door, and Robert’s brother Ingram next
to them. |
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|
|
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|
Over the following decade Robert and
Dora gave birth to four children, and by 1930 the enlarged family was living
on Red Bird Road in Clay County. That
day Robert Collett ,aged 35, was a general farmer who was 19 when he married
Dora Roberts, aged 28, who was 16 on the day of their wedding. The children recorded with the couple were
P L Collett who was 12, Boyd Collett who was 10, Pearl Collett who was seven,
Matthew Collett who was four, and Margie Collett who was one year old. |
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|
|
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|
During the next ten years Dora
presented Robert with a further four children who were still living with the
couple of the day of the census in 1940.
Head of the household at Red Bird River, Clay County, was Robert L
Collett aged 44 and a mail carrier, his wife Dora was 40, and their children
were Boyd Collett who was 20, Margorie Collett who was 14, Matthew Collett who
was 11, Mabel Collett who was eight, Jewel Collett who was six, Bobbie
Collett who was three, and Daisy Collett who was six months old. Still living with the family was the
couple’s eldest daughter Pearl, who was married by then, and a mother to her
first child. |
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|
|
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|
On that day in 1940, the family was
living at #56 Red Bird River with another Collett family living close
by at #58 Red Bird River, and that was the family of coalminer Joe (Joseph)
Collett (Ref. 43Q84). On the 22nd
April 1942 Robert, as Robert Lee Collett, completed a WW2 Draft Registration
Card at Manchester in Clay County. He
was 48 and self-employed, living at Roark, Clay County, with his date of
birth confirmed as 7th March 1894, when his wife was Mrs Dora
Collett of Roark. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
After a further ten years, the family
was living in the Blue Hole area of Red Bird River where Robert Collett was
54 and a farmer. Dora was 49 and the
four children still living at the family home were Jewell Collett aged 15,
Bobbie aged 13, Ruby was 10, and Roasie Collett was six years old. Just over twenty years later, Robert Lee
Collett died on 16th September 1971 at Clay County when he was 77,
following which he was buried as Estep Cemetery in Leslie County. It is also established that his widow remarried
to become Dora Gray. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R95
|
Pleasant
Lee Collett |
Born in 1917 at Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R96
|
Boyd Collett |
Born in 1920 at Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R97
|
Pearl Mae Collett |
Born in 1923 at Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R98
|
Matthew Collett |
Born in 1926 at Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R99
|
Margorie Collett |
Born in 1929 at Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R100
|
Mabel Collett |
Born in 1932 at Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R101
|
Jewel Collett |
Born in 1934 at Roark, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R102
|
Bobbie Collett |
Born in 1937 at Roark, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R103
|
Daisy Collett |
Born in 1939 at Roark, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q47
|
Ingram Collett was born at Asher, Bad Creek, on 12th April 1897, the son of
Pleasant Lee and Rusho J Collett. He
was three years old in the Bad Creek census in 1900 when he and his family
were residing at Marrowbone. It was just prior to 1920 that
Ingram Collett married Sallie Asher at Webster, Clay County, on 12th
March 1919 when the groom was 23, the son of P L Collett and Lottie Reid, and
the bride was 22 and the daughter of Joe Asher and Dora Lizenroie. They were both residing in Roark where
Ingram was in farming. A year later
the census in 1920 included the childless couple as Ingram Collett who was 22
(sic) and a general farmer, and Sallie Collett who was 19 when they were
living at #5 in Upper Red Bird in Clay County. Next-door, at #6, was Ingram’s parents, and
at #7 was his older brother Robert (above), not far from them
was his younger brother Dewie (below). |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Ingram Collett died in the
Middlesborough Hospital in Bell County on 13th April 1950, the
cause of death being heart failure, at a time in his life when he was living
at Barbourville in Knox County. The
informant of his passing was Stanley Collett who made an error when he gave
his father’s date of birth as 12th April 1899, confirming the
parents of Ingram were P L Collett and Ruth Reid. Three days later he was laid to rest at
Barbourville Cemetery. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R104
|
Nora Mae Collett |
Born in 1921 at Upper Red Bird, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R105
|
Stanley Collett |
Born in 1924 at Upper Red Bird, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R106
|
Asher Collett |
Born in 1926 at Upper Red Bird, Clay County |
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|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q49
|
Dewie Collett was born at Bad Creek in 1900, the son
of Pleasant Lee and Rusho J Collett.
By the time he was 20, Dewey Collett was living at Clay County,
Kentucky in 1920 with his father P L Collett and his mother Lottie Collett. He was still unmarried ten years later in
the Bad Creek census in 1930 when he was listed at the family home as Dewie
Collett aged 30. Shortly after 1930 he
became a married man and his wife presented him with two daughters. However, in the Leslie County census of
1940 Dewie and his two girls were without their mother, when they were living
at the home of their grandfather Pleasant Lee Collett. Dewie Collett was 40, while Dorothy Collett
was five and Leitha Collett was four. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R107
|
Dorothy
Collett |
Born in 1935
at Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R108
|
Leitha
Collett |
Born in 1936
at Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q54 |
Minnie Jane
Collett was born in
Tennessee on 19th
June 1896 and was the first of the three known children of Farmer
Collett and Nancy Redman. After her father died in 1944,
Minnie Kirk was the head of the household at 657 South Limestone in Fayette
County, Kentucky in 1950. By then she
had been married and was a widow at 53, who had no stated occupation but was
obviously taking in lodgers, there being three males staying there on that
occasion. Recorded with her that day
was her widowed mother Nancy Collett who was 75, and her younger brother
Tommy (below). As Minnie Jane
Collett Kirk, she died at Pineville in Bell County on 13th June
1988, just six days before her 92nd birthday, and was buried with
her brothers at Pineville Cemetery. |
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|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q55 |
Edgar Robert
Collett was born on 18th
June 1898 at Middlesboro, Bell County in Kentucky, the second child and
eldest son of Farmer Collett and Nancy Redman. By the time he was two years of age, the
family was living at Sims Fork Straight Creek Precinct. He was 63 when he died in Pineville Hospital, Bell County after an
accident on 31st October 1961, following which he was buried in Pineville
Cemetery on 2nd November 1961.
Once again, he was confirmed as the son of Farmer Collett and Nancy
Redmond, when the cause of death was the result of acute bromide poisoning. He had never married and lived his whole
life in Bell County, when he worked as a barber. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The WW1 Draft Registration Card for
Edgar R Collett which was completed on 12th September 1918 and
stated he was 20 years of age and living at Pineville, his date of birth
being 18th June 1898, and his father being F Collett. The later Draft Card for WW2 confirmed the
same date of birth for Robert Edgar Collett and was completed at Pineville on
16th February 1942, by which time he was not working and was
residing in Dorton Branch, near Pineville, Bell County. It was also at Dorton Branch that members
of his extended Collett family were living in 1930 and 1940. |
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|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q56 |
Thomas Lee Collett, who was known as Tommy Collett, was born at Straight Creek in
Bell County on 29th
April 1904, the last child of Farmer Collett and Nancy Redman. He was still living with his parents in
1920 and still at Straight Creek, when Tommie was 15 and coal miner, as was
his father. His WW2 Draft Registration Card completed on 16th
February 1942 at Pineville provided his full name as Tommy Lee Collett, his
age as 37, his date of birth as above, and his address as 214 Second Street
in Pineville, from where he was employed as a purchasing agent for the Bell
Company. The name and address of
someone who would know his whereabout was Millard Johnson of 710 Tennessee
Avenue, Pineville. |
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|
|
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|
During the next eight years Tommy was
married and divorced, as confirmed in the census of 1950, when he was living
with his widowed mother Nancy, at the home of his sister Minnie Kirk nee
Collett (above). That was at
657 South Limestone, Fayette County in Kentucky where Tommy Collett was 45
and a barber at a nearby barber shop, as was his older brother Edgar (above). Thomas Lee Collett “Tommy” died on 26th
January 1978 and was buried at Pineville Cemetery. |
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|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q57 |
Edward Collett
was born at Bell County on 13th June 1904 and was the first-born
child of Thomas Joel Collett and Maggie Redman, sometimes written/recorded as
Redmond. Edward was 32 and a clerk
when he married Edna Jump aged 25 at Newport in Campbell County, Kentucky on
8th August 1936. He was the
son of Thomas and Maggie Collett, and she was the daughter of Louis and Julia
Jump. Shortly after the wedding, the
couple moved to Cincinnati, Hamilton County in Ohio where Edna had been born
and, where she gave birth to three children.
On the day of the census in 1940 the family was residing at 1711 Elm
Street in Cincinnati where Edward was 35 and a machinist with his own business,
Edna was 29, Edward junior was three, and Shirley Ann was one year old. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
By 1950 the couple was still living
in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, with their three Ohio born children. Edward senior was 45 and employed as a
(security) guard at a milling machine factory, when Edna was 39 and also born
in Ohio. The children were Edward
Collett junior who was 13, Shirley Ann Collett who was 11, and Donald Collett
who was eight years old. Later on,
Edward was 78 years old and living in Montgomery, Hamilton County, Ohio, when
he died on 10th February 1983 and was buried at Vine Street Hill
Cemetery. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Edward Collett Junior, aka Edward
Joseph Collett, was born on 5th February 1937 in Cincinnati and
died on 26th July 2005 in hospital in Ohio, when his home address
was 611 Sanoma Valley Court, Crestview Hills, Cincinnati. He was 68 and a widower, and was buried
Erlanger in Kenton County, Kentucky, with his obituary published by the
Kentucky Post at Covington. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Daughter Shirley Ann Collett was born
on 12th February 1939 in Cincinnati and, in the summer of 1964,
she was Shirley Ann Arcolino.
Twenty-four years later, as simply Shirley Ann Collett aged 49, she
suffered a premature death on 27th April 1988, requiring an
autopsy, and was buried at Vine Street Hill Cemetery in Cincinnati. Prior to the sad event, she was divorced
and worked as a radiologic technician in a hospital. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Youngest son Donald James Collett was
born at Cincinnati on 9th September 1941 and died there on 25th
April 1988, two days before his sister Shirley. He was 46 and a driver of heavy trucks,
residing at North College Hill in Cincinnati. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R109
|
Edward Joseph Collett junior |
Born in 1937 at Cincinnati, Hamilton, Ohio |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R110
|
Shirley Ann Collett |
Born in 1939 at Cincinnati, Hamilton, Ohio |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R111
|
Donald James Collett |
Born in 1941 at Cincinnati, Hamilton, Ohio |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q58 |
Fannie Collett
was born at Middlesboro in Bell County on 26th February 1906, the
eldest daughter ad second child of Thomas and Maggie Collett. By the time she was 14, Fannie and her
family were living at Straight Creek in Belly County. Sometime after that day in 1920 and, on being
married for the first time, she became Fannie Johnson. Much later, on 2nd September
1949, Fannie Johnson married (2) John F Brooks at Wayne County in Indiana,
and it was their application to be married that revealed Fannie’s date and
place of birth, a housekeeper residing in Cincinnati, Ohio. John was also living in Cincinnati, where
he was working as a car cleaner. Their
marriage recorded confirmed that Fannie had been married once and was
divorced in November 1945. Her parents
were also confirmed as Tom Collett of Knox County, Tennessee (deceased), and
Maggie Redmond of Knox County, Tennessee. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q59 |
Robert Collett
was born at Middlesboro in Bell County on 9th June 1908, another
son of Tom and Maggie Collett. It was
on 1st March 1930 when Robert, the son of Tom, married Dorothy
Wilson the daughter of Claude and Mary Wilson at Pineville in Bell
County. They were both single, with Robert
aged 22 and working in the mining industry, who was born at Dorton Branch
near Pineville, and Dorothy aged 16 and born at Cary in Bell County, to the
north of Pineville. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Just over one month later the young
couple was living immediately adjacent to Robert’s family at Dorton Branch,
when he was 21 and a miner, and his bride was 16. By 1935 Robert and Dorothy were living at
Coxton in Harlan County, with Dorothy having given birth to their first two
children, with two more born before the end of that decade. The 1940 census for Coxton listed the
family at New Camp, Brookside, when Robert was recorded as Bob Collett aged
31 and a miner at the coal mine. Dorothy
was 26, and their four sons were Bobby Collett junior who was seven, Billy
Collett who was five, Lindsay Collett who was three, and Phillip Collett who
was one year old. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
It was at Harlan, on 16th
October 1940 that Robert (as Bob) completed the WW2 Draft Registration Card,
which included the following details. He
was 32, place and date of birth (as above), living at Brookside and employed
by the Harlan Collieries Company at Brookside. The person named as someone who would
always know his address was Maggie Collett, his mother, residing in
Pineville, Bell County. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
One more son was added to their
family, who was recorded with them in 1950, although by then son Billy was
absent. Bob was still a miner at the
age of 41, Dorothy was 36, Bobby junior was 17, Linza (previously Lindsay)
was 13, Phillip was 11, and Claude Wayne was six years old. By the end of 1989, Robert was still
residing in Brookside, and six years later the death of Bob Collett was
recorded at Harlan County on 21st July 1996 when he was 88. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The marriage of Bob Collett junior
and June Louise McKamey took place at Jonesville, Lee County in Virginia on 6th
June 1955, when he was 22 and his parents were Bob Collett and Dorothy Wilson,
and she was 19 whose parents were Robert McKamey and Grace Childs. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The second son of Bob and Dorothy
Collett, Bill Edward Collett was born on 4th October 1934 at
Brookside where he was still living with his family in March 1951 when an
application was made to the Social Program, which later confirmed the died
that he died was 12th August 2002, the son of Bob Collett and
Dorothy Wilson. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The marriage of Linza Ray Collett and
Robbie Ellis took place at Jonesville, Lee County in Virginia on 4th
February 1956. The wedding record
stated the groom was 19, a factory worker of Brookside, and the son of Bob
Collett and Dorothy Wilson, with the bride being 18 and the daughter of
Charlie Ellis and Nettie Miracle, also of Brookside. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R112
|
Bob Collett junior |
Born in 1933 at Coxton, Harlan County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R113
|
Bill Edward Collett |
Born in 1934 at Coxton, Harlan County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R114
|
Linza Ray Collett |
Born in 1937 at Coxton, Harlan County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R115
|
Phillip Collett |
Born in 1939 at Coxton, Harlan County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R116
|
Claude Wayne Collett |
Born in 1944 at Coxton, Harlan County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q61 |
Clarence Collett
was born at Pineville in Bell County on 7th April 1913 and, by the
time he was 17 in 1930, he and his large family were living in Dorton Branch
where Clarence was working as a miner.
Seven years after that day the marriage of Clarence Collett aged 23
and Bessie Depew aged 16, took place at Harlan in Harlan County on 26th
February 1937. Once again, the groom’s
parents were recorded as Tom and Maggie Collett, with the bride’s parents
named as Thomas and Martie Depew. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The WW2 Draft Registration Card for
Clarence Collett was completed at Harlan on 16th October 1940,
when his home address was 1821 Liberty Street, Cincinnati, Ohio. That day he was 27 and employed by the Nocum
Creek Coal Company at Evarts in Harlan County. His date of birth was confirmed as stated
above, while the person named as someone who would always know his address
was his wife Mrs Bessie Depew Collett of Brookside, Harlan County. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Ten years later, Clarence and Bessie
were listed with their family in the 1950 census for Cincinnati, Hamilton
County, Ohio, at 18 West Liberty Street, the home of his widowed mother
Maggie Collett aged 64, who still had living with her three of Clarence’s
younger unmarried brother, Albert, William, and Ernest who was divorced. Clarence was 37 and a cut-saw operator at a
local wood sawmill, Bessie was 27, when the couple’s three eldest children
had been born in Kentucky before the family moved to Ohio, where their two
youngest had been born. They were daughters
Eunice A Collett aged eleven, Magil F Collett aged ten, and Loretta F Collett
who was nine, and sons Thomas J Collett who was six, and Darrell Collett who
was one year old. It is highly likely
that Thomas was named in honour of his grandfather Thomas Joel Collett. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
At the time of his death, at the age
of 70, Clarence Collett was residing at Boone, Kentucky, when he passed away
on 30th April 1983, after which he was buried at Floral Hills Memorial
Gardens in Taylor Mill, Kenton County, Kentucky. His wife Bessie had been born on 9th
October 1921 and was 88 years of age when she died on 5th April
2020 at Edgewood, Douglas County, Nevada.
Curiously, publication of her obituary was delayed until 6th
August 2020 and released in Covington, Kenton County, Kentucky. |
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|
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|
The details therein were as
follows: Bessie Depew Collett, 88,
died Monday, April 5, at Hospice of St. Elizabeth Healthcare, Edgewood. She was a homemaker and member of Boone County
Senior Center. Her husband, Clarence Collett; daughter Loretta Hutchinson;
and son Thomas Collett, died previously.
Survivors include her daughters, Eunice Fletcher of Owensboro, Magiel
Heinrich of Independence, Sharon Smith of Cincinnati, Linda Woods of Latonia,
and Sandy King of Cleves, Ohio; son, Darrell Collett of Independence;
brothers, Thomas Depew Jr. of Camden, Ohio and Henry Depew of Fairfield,
Ohio; 16 grandchildren; 34 great-grandchildren and 14
great-great-grandchildren. |
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43R117
|
Eunice A Collett – Eunice Fletcher |
Born in 1939 at Coxton, Harlan County |
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|
43R118
|
Magiel F Collett – Magiel Heinrich |
Born in 1940 at Coxton, Harlan County |
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43R119
|
Loretta F Collett – Loretta Hutchinson |
Born in 1942 at Coxton, Harlan County |
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|
43R120
|
Thomas Joel Collett |
Born in 1944 at Cincinnati, Ohio |
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|
43R121
|
Darrell Collett |
Born in 1949 at Cincinnati, Ohio |
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|
43R122
|
Linda Collett – Linda Woods |
Born after 1950 at Cincinnati, Ohio |
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|
43R123
|
Sandy Collett - Sandy King |
Born after 1950 at Cincinnati, Ohio |
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43Q62 |
Nancy Marie
Collett was born at Pineville in Bell County on 12th
October 1915 who, as Nannie Collett was nearly five years old in the Straight
Creek census of 1920 and was 14 in the Dorton Branch census in 1930. It was later that she married Charles F
Walsh and, upon her death at Park Ridge, Maine Township, Cook County in Illinois
on 31st July 1978, Marie Collett Walsh, the daughter of Thomas
Collett and Maggie Redmond was confirmed as the former wife of Charles F
Walsh. After her body was transported
back to Ohio, it was laid to rest on 4th August 1978 in Vine
Street Hill Cemetery in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio. |
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43Q63 |
Albert Collett
was born on 26th February 1918 at Pineville in Bell County and was
three years of age in the Straight Creek census of 1920 and was 12 years old
in the Dorton Branch, Four Mile and Lone Jack, census in 1930. Just as with his older brothers, the WW2
Draft Registration Card for Clarence was completed at Harlan on 16th
October 1940. This confirmed his date
and place of birth, as above, and that he was residing at 1711 Elm Street in
Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, care off Edward Collett, when his mother
was Maggie Collett on Pineville, and when he was an employee of the Harlan
Collieries Company of Brookside Kentucky, as was his brother Bob Collett (above)
whose Draft Card was also completed at Harlan that same day. |
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|
After his father Thomas Joel Collett
died in 1947, Albert continued to live with his widowed mother Maggie Redman
Collett at 18 West Liberty Street in Cincinnati, when he was 32 a repairer of
furniture for a furniture company in 1950.
He never married and thirty-six years later, at the age of 68, he died
on 11th January 1986 in Harlan County, but was buried in
Cincinnati, Ohio, at the Vine Street Hill Cemetery with his oldest brother
Edward (1983) and his older sister Marie Collett Walsh (1978). |
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|
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43Q64 |
William Paul
Collett was born on 11th February 1920 or
1921 at Pineville in Bell County, and was another son of Thomas and Maggie
Collett. When he was 17, he or parents
on his behalf, made an application for Paul Collett to the Social Program in
October 1937. He may never have
married as indicated when he enlisted in the US Army at Cincinnati on 7th
August 1942 and, three years after the death of his father, when he was still
living in the family home at 18 West Liberty Street in Cincinnati in
1950. In the first of those records,
he was William P Collett a 21-year-old semi-skilled mechanic and repairman,
and in the second he was William P Collett aged 30 who was working as a
clean-up man at a café, where his brother Ernest (below) was a
bartender. |
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|
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|
Around 1990 he moved from Cincinnati,
Ohio, back to Kentucky. William P
Collett died on 14th August 1994, just prior to which he had been
living at 735 Johnson Road in London, Laurel County, which was possibly where
he passed away at the age of 74. It
was at that time his date of birth was recorded as 11th February
1921, whereas it was his birth and the Social Program documents that gave it
to be one year early. |
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|
|
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43Q65 |
Ernest Collett
was born at Pineville in Bell County on 7th March 1923, the ninth
child of Thomas and Maggie Collett. In
1940 he was 17 and a new worker on a farm, when he was still living with his
family at His life is still a mystery, since it is established that he was
married and divorced prior to 1950. In
the census that year, Ernest was divorced after his failed marriage, when he
was once again back home with his widowed mother at 18 West Liberty Street,
Cincinnati in Hamilton County, Ohio.
That day he was 27 and working in a local café as a bartender, where
his brother William (above) was the clean-up man. After that, all we know is that he was 83
when he died on 21st September 2006, which may have happened at
2267 Pompano Avenue, Reading in Hamilton County. However, the death certificate named his
mother as Margaret Brown, the same name used at the birth of Ernest’s sister
Maurine Coll (below). |
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|
|
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|
|
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43Q66 |
Maurine G Collett
was born on 8th July 1924 at Pineville, Bell County, another
daughter of Tom and Maggie Collett.
Rather curiously, at her birth her mother was referred to as Margaret
Brown, the same name use upon the death of her brother Ernest (above). Upon being married to Carl A Nikirk at
Newport, Campbell County in Kentucky, on 14th December 1946,
Maurine Collett was described as 21 and born at Pineville, the daughter of
Thomas and Margaret Collett. Carl was 25
and the son of R S and Nellie Nikirk. |
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|
By the day of the census in 1950 they
had two children, with a third child to be born six months later that same
year. Their home was on Cumberland
Avenue in Middlesboro, Bell County, where Carl from Virginia was 27, Maurine
was 24, daughter Patricia Nikirk was two, and son Michael Nikirk
was one year old. Their third child
was Deidra G Nikirk who was born at Middlesboro on 4th
October 1950. |
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|
|
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43Q67 |
Mable J Collett
was born on 3rd September 1927 at Bell County another child of Tom
and Maggie Collett. Her name was more often
spelt as Mable, but it was as Mabel Collett that she was two years of age in
the census of 1930 for Dorton Branch in Four Miles and Lone Jack, just south
of Pineville where her older siblings were born. In 1940 she was Mable aged
12, the last occasion when she was with her family at Dorton Branch, and was
not living with her parents at 18 West Liberty Street in Cincinnati, Ohio,
when he father died in 1947, nor later at the same address where her widowed
mother was still living in 1950.
|
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|
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|
On that day in 1950 Mable J Collett
was 22 and living in a dormitory at the Pacific Bible College at Portland in
Oregon, where she had an income from undertaking housework for a private family. No obvious record for her has been found
after that time. |
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|
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|
|
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43Q68 |
Betty Jane Collett
was the last child of Thomas Joel Collett and Maggie Redman and was born on 18th
November 1929 at Pineville in Bell County.
As Betty Jane she was four months of age in the Dorton Branch census
of 1930 and was 10 years old in the Dorton Branch census of 1940. Eight years later, on 4th June
1948 at Marshall, Indiana, Betty Jane Collett married Ballard G Parsons. He was born at Elkhorn, Kentucky on 3rd
February 1928, the son of James F Parson and Fannie Chappel, who was residing
at Plymouth in Indiana, as was his bride, whose parents were confirmed as
Thomas Collett and Margaret Redmond. |
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|
|
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|
Ballard Greer Parsons was living at
Whitestown, Boone County in Indiana when he died on 5th August
2015 at the age of 87, when he was buried at the Lincoln Memory Gardens in
Whitestown. |
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|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q69
|
George
William Collett was born in Kentucky on 17th
September 1873, the first child of John W Collett and his older wife Rebecca
Jane Whitehead. It was at Leslie
County that he was living with his family in 1880 when George
W Collett was six years of age. In
1893 George married Elizabeth Chappel of Bad Creek in Leslie County where
the couple was living at Marrowbone when the census was conducted in
1900. George was 26 and a farmer who
had been married to Elizabeth for seven years. His wife, Lizzie Beth Collett was 24 and
had given birth to four children, all still living. They were Emily Collett who was six, Bertha
Collett who was four, Shelby Collett who was three, and Wilson Collett who
was four months old. It was also at Bad
Creek that George’s parents were still living in 1900, together with his
youngest brother Elias Collett. |
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|
|
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|
Four more children were added to the
family during the next decade but sadly by the time of the Bad Creek census
in 1910 two of the couple’s eight children had died. The surname was recorded as Collette, with
farmer George being 36 and married to Elizabeth for sixteen years. She was 33, while their surviving six
children were listed as Emily who was 15, Bertha who was 13, son Shelby who
was 11, Sarah Jane who was six, Birchell who was four and Reuben who was
thirteen months old. |
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|
|
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|
The US Army draft record completed on
12th September 1918 described him in the following way. George Collett, serial number 296, had blue
eyes, dark hair, was tall and of medium build. He was 44 years old and a resident of Roark
in Leslie County where he was farming.
His nearest living relative was Elizabeth Collett of Roark, who was
most likely his wife, while the name of his employer was George Collett,
perhaps indicating he was self-employed.
The form was signed by the registrar McKinley Asher. |
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|
After a further ten years George and
his reduced family was still residing in Bad Creek at Bowens Creek Road,
although their ages were at variants to the ages stated ten years earlier in
1920. George Collett was 60 and still
managing the farm, his wife Betsey Collett was 56, unmarried son Shelby
Collett was 34, Reuben Collett was 23, Charlie Collett was 18 and Mary was
15. The two younger sons were both
labourers and unemployed Shelby was suffering with bad health. Once again, the census return confirmed
that George had been first married at the age of twenty-one, while in the
case of his wife it was seventeen. |
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|
|
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|
During the following years George was
widowed by the death of Elizabeth, after which he married Martha. According to the Bad Creek census in 1940,
farmer George was 66 and still living on #116 Bowens Creek Road,
Martha was 65, Shelby Collett was 42, and Mary Collett was 25. Living next door was George’s married son
Reuben Collett who had living with him his wife Mary and their first four
children. Another family living on
Bowens Creek Road at #112 was that of Wiley Collett (Ref. 43Q15) and his wife Chloe, and their eight
children, and at #110 was their eldest son Woodard Collett (Ref.
43R38). |
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|
|
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|
George
William Collett died on 27th March 1948 at Essie in Leslie County,
Kentucky, and was buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery. |
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|
|
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|
43R124
|
Emily Collett |
Born in 1894
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R125
|
Bertha
Collett |
Born in 1896
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R126
|
Shelby
Collett – died in 1969 |
Born in 1897
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
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|
43R127
|
Wilson
Collett – infant death |
Born in 1900
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R128
|
a Collett
child – infant death |
Born in 1902
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R129
|
Sarah Jane Collett |
Born in 1904
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R130
|
Birchell Collett |
Born in 1906
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R131
|
Reuben Collett |
Born in 1909
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
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|
43R132
|
Charley
Collett |
Born in 1914
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R133
|
Mary Collett |
Born in 1916
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
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|
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|
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43Q70
|
Joseph Collett was born at Kentucky in 1876 and was
four years old in the Leslie County in 1880.
He was around eighteen years old when he married Dorcas (aka
Dorkus) with whom he had one child, who sadly did not survive. That situation was confirmed in the Bad
Creek census of 1910 when two of the four known sons of John Collett and
Rebecca Jane Whitehead were living and farming on land immediately adjacent
to their parents. They were Elias (below)
right next door to his parents, with brother Joseph next door to him. Joseph Collett was 34, a general farmer
having his own account who had been married for 16 years, during which time
his wife Dorkus Collett aged 38, was confirmed as having given birth to just
one child, no longer alive. |
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|
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|
In 1926 Arthur Collett (Ref. 43Q22)
died leaving his wife with six young children, one of the youngest of which
was two-year-old Clarence Collett (Ref. 43R67), who was taken in by Joseph
and Dorkus. That situation was
confirmed in the Bad Creek census of 1930 when Joe Collett was 54 and a
general farmer, Dorkus Collett was 58, and Clarence Collett was six years of
age, living at 63 Middle Four Road. Clarence was described as a third cousin. |
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|
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43Q72
|
Elias Collett ($) was born in Kentucky, at Leslie County
on 2nd January 1880, the fourth and last son of John W Collett and
Rebecca Jane Whitehead. He was just
five months old in the June census of Leslie County that year after which no
record of him has been found until, 1910 when he was still living in Leslie
County, at Bad Creek, and married for ten years. The census that year revealed that Elias
was married to Carla Howard who already had a daughter from a previous
marriage. Elias Collett was 30 and a general farmer with his
own account, his wife Carla Collett was 34 and had given birth to a
total of four children, one of whom had already died. Elias’ stepdaughter was Martha Ann Collett
aged 15, and the couple’s two children were named as Elmer Collett who was
four, and John Collett junior who was two years of age. Living on either side of the family were
two other parts Elias’ Collett family, but whose surname was recorded as
Collette. They were his parents John
and Jane Collette, and his older brother Joseph Collette (above) with
his wife Dorkus Collette, both
general farmers having their own account. |
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|
According
to the next census in 1920 the family was living on Bowens Creek Road in Bad
Creek Precinct, Leslie County, where Elias aged 39 was general farmer and a
renter on the property. Carla Collett
was 43 and her daughter Martha Ann had left the home by then. Her place in the house had been filled by a
third child for Elias and Carla. Elmer
Collett was 14 and helping his father on their farm, as was John Collett who
was 12, while the newest addition to the family was daughter Della Collett
who was nine years of age. Still
living and working their farm next door was Elias’ parents John W Collett
aged 66 and Jane Collett who was 76.
Further along Bowens Creek Road were two more Collett families, living
adjacent to one another. They were the
family of Manford Collett (below), and Leander Morton Collett (Ref. 43Q29). |
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|
|
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|
In
the 1930 census for Bowens Creek Road in Bad Creek, three members of this
family were recorded in three adjacent farms.
Carla Collett (as Carty) was 55 who was married to the absent Elias
when she was 25, a farmer, who had widower John W Collett (Ref. 43P45) aged
74 living with her who was described as brother, when he was her
father-in-law. Carla was residing at #74
Bowens Creek Road that year, when at #73 was son Elmer with his
family, and at #75 was son John C Collett with his wife and their
first child. By the day of the next
census in 1940, the couple’s son John L Collett was a married man living in
the adjacent property on Bowens Creek Road, when Elias Collett was 60 and a
farmer, and curiously his wife of the correct age was named as Elizabeth
Collett aged 64. |
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|
|
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|
The
US Army draft record completed on 27th April 1942 described him in
the following way. Elias Collett of
Essie Town in Leslie County was 5 feet 6 inches tall, weighing 180 pounds,
with black eyes, a fair complexion and grey hair. He had been born in Leslie County and was
62 and farming at home. His
next-of-kin was named as Carly Collett, also residing at Essie, his
wife. The draft form for the Medical
Board at Hyden was signed by registrar John L Collett. The earlier draft record for 1917-1918
confirmed his date of birth and also stated he was born at Roark. The death of Carly Howard, nee Collett, on
1st December 1947 happened at Essie in Leslie County. The death certificate confirmed she was the
daughter of Johnie W Howard and Linda Pennington, and the wife of 68-year-old
Elias Collett. She was 71 years old
and had been born at Leslie on 24th August 1876. Sometimes, she was recorded at Carty. |
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|
|
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|
Not long after being widowed, Elias Collett died
at home in Essie, Leslie County on 13th February 1948 at the age
of 68 and was buried at Bowens Creek Cemetery, the son of John W Collett and
(Rebecca) Jane Whitehead, while the informant of his passing was recorded by
his son John L Collett. Could he be
the same John L Collett, the Medical Board registrar in 1942. Recorded in official US Social Documents
dated May 1937, his date of birth was confirmed as given above, with his
birthplace recorded as Stinnett in Leslie County, a son of John W Collett and
Rebecca Jane Whitehead. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R134
|
Elmer
Collett |
Born in 1905
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R135
|
John L
Collett ($) |
Born in 1907
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R136
|
Della
Collett |
Born in 1911
at Bad Creek, Leslie Cty |
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|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q73
|
Manford
Collett was born at Leslie County in Kentucky
on 12th December 1877 and was two years old in the Leslie County
census of 1880 when he was living there with his parents William Collett and
Alice Elizabeth Caldwell and his younger baby sister Lucy. In 1892, with Alice still his wife, his
father took a second much young wife.
Six years later, in 1898, Manford Collett married Nancy (Nanie)
Sizemore as confirmed by the Leslie County census in 1910 which stated the
couple had been married for twelve years.
On that census day he, his wife, and their children, were residing at
Bad Creek Precinct next-door
to James Collette senior – see Part 43 Other Colletts of Kentucky. Manford Collett was 38 and a farmer, his
wife Nannie Collett was 28, Judie Collett was 11, Ruth Collett was eight,
James F Collett was six, and Lucy was three years of age. Staying with the family was Manford’s
younger brother Samuel Collett
who was 15 and a labourer on the farm.
Curiously he was not living with Manford’s family in 1900 when Samuel
would have been five years old. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Further children were added to
Manford’s family between 1910 and 1920 which was living at Bowens Creek Road
in Bad Creek Precinct, Leslie County, on the census day in 1920. Manford Collett was 42 and a general farmer
with his own account, Nancy Collett was 38, James F Collett was 15 and a farm
labourer, as was Lucy Collett who was 12.
The couple’s younger children were daughter Cornella Collett who was
nine, William Collett who was eight, son Billie Collett who was three and a
half, and son Berry Collett who was sixteen months old. Living next door that year was Leander Morton Collett (Ref. 43Q29) (as
L M Collett) with his wife and their daughter. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
On the day the census was conducted at
Bad Creek in 1930, farmer Manford Collett was 53 and residing on Jacks Creek Road with his family. Nanie Collett was 48, son Billie Collett
was 14, son Berry Collett was 11, Mary Collett was nine and Ruth Collett was
six years of age. The census form also
stated that Manford was nineteen years old when he married, while Nancy was
15. The adjacent home that year was
occupied by farmer Charlie Collett
and his young family, and their details are provided in the new Part 43 – Other
Colletts of Kentucky. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
According
to the census in 1940 all their children had left the family home which, that
year, was at Little Creek in Clay County.
Manford Collett was 62 and Nanie Collett was 57 and the farm where
they were living was rented by them, not owned by them. Two years later, on 27th April
1942, a US Army draft registration form was completed for Manford which
included the following details. He was
5 feet 7 inches tall, weighed 140 pounds, with brown eyes, black hair, and a
dark complexion. He was 64 years of age
and his place of residence was Roark in Leslie County where Nanie was still
living with him. It seems he lived his
whole life in Leslie County, since it was there that his death was recorded
just over twenty years later, on 23rd February 1963 at the age of
85. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
There
is a very sad story involving Manford’s youngest son Berry Collett. Just prior to being twenty years of age he
married Opha Cox, but tragically, only two months and three weeks after his
twenty-first birthday he died at Red Bird Hospital in Beverly, Bell County on 12th
November 1939. The death certificate
confirmed his date of birth as 21st August 1918, the name of his
spouse, together with the names of his parents, Manford Collett and Nannie
Sizemore. At that time in their young
life, Berry and Opha were living in Roark, Leslie County, where Berry was a
farmer, and farm owner. The informant
of his death was his father Manford Collett. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The cause of death was a “gunshot
wound – homicidal”, and a contributory fact, but not related to the principal
cause, was acute alcoholism. The
certificate included a brief report of the incident, as follows; “Date of
injury 11th November 1939 at home in Roark, during a drunken
brawl, when he received a bullet through the chest, and another through the
abdomen”. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
His older brother Willie Collett was
born on 10th January 1916 and he died on 24th November
1985 at Jackson County, Kentucky, when he was 69. His younger sister Mary was born at Asher on
3rd April 1921 and died at Bond, Jackson County in Kentucky on 11th
February 1981 as Mary Emily Collett Roark, when she was buried at Fee
Cemetery in New Zion, Jackson County. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The eldest child of Manford Collett
and Nannie Sizemore, has been more difficult to trace, mainly because her
name was interpreted as Judie/Judy Collett, for whom not entry has been
found. Now it is known she was actually
Sudie/Suda Collett who was born in Leslie County on 10th March
1899. Upon her passing on 18th
January 1987, she was buried in the Fee Cemetery in Zion, Jackson County,
with her sister Mary, when she was recorded as Suda Collett Fee. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R137
|
Sudie
Collett |
Born in 1899
at Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R138
|
Ruth Collett |
Born in 1902
at Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R139
|
James Farmer Collett |
Born in 1904
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R140
|
Lucy Collett |
Born in 1907
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R141
|
Cornella
Collett |
Born in 1911
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R142
|
Willie
Collett |
Born in 1916 at Roark,
Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R143
|
Billie
Collett |
Born in 1917
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R144
|
Berry Collett |
Born in 1918 at Roark,
Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R145
|
Mary Collett |
Born in 1921
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R146
|
Ruth Collett |
Born in 1924
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
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|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q74 |
Lucy Farmer Collett was born at Leslie County on 7th
February 1880, although an alternative source suggests she was born just
south-west of Leslie County at adjoining Bell County. She was the second child of William and
Alice Collett, and was four months old in the in the Leslie County in June
1880, raising yet another county where she may have been born. So far, the census for 1900 has not been
located, by which time Lucy had a husband and had already given birth to the
couple’s first two children. |
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|
|
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|
Lucy
F Collett was fifteen years of age when she married Farmer Roark with whom
she had five children, all living, in the census of 1910. That day, in addition to the seven members
of the Roark family, staying with them was Lucy’s younger brother Willie
Collett who was 18. Head of the
household Farmer Roark was 34 and a general farmer, Lucy was 30, Hobart
Roark was 12, Charley L Roark was 10, Martha E Roark was
seven, Fannie was four, and Mallie Roark had only been born and
was under one month old. At that time
in his life Farmer’s brother-in-law Willie was probably helping his on the
farm. Three more children were added
to the family during the next decade at Lesley County, and they were Luella
Roark born on 23rd October 1913, Annie L Roark born on
6th October 1916, and Davis Roark who was born on 14th
June 1920. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
In
March 1939, Social Program Application correspondence referred to her as Lucy
Collett Roark born on 7th February 1800, also known as Lucy Farmer
Roark, the daughter of Billie Collett and Alice E Caldwell. Three years later the marriage of widow
Lucy Collett Roark, aged 62 and living at Brookside in Leslie County, and
widower (2) Lawrence L Blankenship, aged 65 and a farmer and a stonemason,
took place at Harlan County in Kentucky on 23rd May 1942, when her
parents were confirmed as Billy Collett, deceased, and Alice Caldwell, while
the groom’s parents were Thomas Blankenship, deceased, and Lucetta Mace. They were only married for just less than
seven years, when Lucy Farmer Collett died at Nicholas County in West Virginia
on 2nd May 1949 aged 69. |
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|
|
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q75 |
James
Farmer Asher Collett was born at Roark in Leslie County on
19th May 1882 another son of William and Alice Collett. As simply Farmer Collett he was 18 years
old in the census of 1900 when he was a farm labourer, mostly working on his
father’s farm. During 1903 Farmer
married Rosa Lee and by 1910, when the couple was living at Bloomington
Precinct No.5 in Magoffin County, Kentucky, they already had three
children. Head of the household F C,
was 25 and a general farmer, Rosa Lee was 23, Maggie Collett was five, Alice
Collett was three, and Herman Collett was one year old. The census return confirmed the couple had
been married for seven years, during which time Rosa Lee had given birth to
three children. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
During 1916 Rosa Lee gave birth to a
still-born son described at Jefferson County as Freeling Stillbirth
Collett. The US Draft Registration
document in 1918 confirmed Farmer’s date of birth as detailed above, when he
was 36 and residing at Redway, Magoffin County, with the second page stating
that he had a broken collar bone. By
1920 the family was still living at Bloomington Precinct No.5 in Magoffin
County. Again, as just Farmer Collett,
he was 37 and a general farmer. His
wife Rosa Lee was 33, daughters Maggie and Alice were 15 and 13, and sons
Herman, Bee, and Allen, were ten, six, and twenty-five months. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
It was at visitation #167 Long
Branch in Salyersville, within the Magisterial District No. 1 of Magoffin
County, that the couple was recorded in 1940.
At that time in their life, J F Collett was 58 and still farming, when
Rosalie was 54. Living with them that
day, were four of their children, plus a grandchild. Eldest child Maggie Brock was 35 and a
widow from Knox County in Kentucky, and with her was her one-year-old
daughter Jean Fay Brock. Completing
the household were sons Allen Collett aged 22, and Millard Collett who was 15,
and daughter Ella Collett who was 12 years old. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Also
living at Long Branch in 1940 were three other Collett families at #168,
#169, and #170. The
first of them at #168 was Willie Collett and his family whose details
can be found in the new
Part 43 – Other Colletts of Kentucky.
Next door to them at #169 was James’ eldest son Herman Collett
with his family, while at #170 was the family of farmer Willie M
Collett (Ref. 43Q81). |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Two years later the US Draft for the
Second World War dated 27th April 1942 included James Farmer
Collett aged 59 and born at Roark on the date above, who was residing at
Gifford in Magoffin County, whose wife was Rosa Lee Collett. Twenty-two years later, James Farmer Asher
Collett died while residing in Morgan County, Kentucky on 20th
March 1964, after which he was buried at Ollie May Cemetery, Salyersville in
Magoffin County. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R147
|
Maggie
Collett |
Born in 1904
at Bloomington, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R148
|
Alice Collett |
Born in 1907
at Bloomington, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R149
|
Herman
Collett |
Born in 1910
at Bloomington, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R150
|
Bee
Collett |
Born in 1914
at Bloomington, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R151
|
Allen
Collett |
Born in 1918
at Bloomington, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R152
|
Millard
Collett |
Born in 1925
at Gifford, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R153
|
Ella Collett |
Born in 1928
at Gifford, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q76
|
JOHN COLLETT was born at Clay County in Kentucky
during May 1884, another son of William Collett and Alice Elizabeth Caldwell,
who may have been born at Otter Creek.
John was eight years of age when his father took a second younger
wife, and it was with his father and his stepmother Catharine that
sixteen-year-old John was one of seven children living with them at Otter
Creek in 1900. A further seven
siblings/half siblings were recorded with John’s mother Alice at nearby Bad
Creek. It was four years after that
when John married Dora Smith on 20th March 1904 at Otter Creek in
Clay County, Kentucky when John was 21 and Dora was only 14. According to census in 1910 the family of
John Collett, aged 30, was still residing at Otter Creek in Clay County,
where his wife Dora Collett was 25, and their daughters were named as Elsie
(Elzie) Collett who was four and Bertha Collett who was two years old. It is established that at least three
further children were born into the family during the next decade, as
confirmed by the next census in 1920.
On that occasion the family was living at Manchester in Clay County
when John Collett was 39, Dora Collett was 32, and their children were Elsie
(Elzie) Collett who was 16, Bertha Collett who was 12, Elbert Collett who was
nine, Cordelia Collett who was seven, and Burchell Collett who was four years
of age. Every member of the household
had been born in Kentucky. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Just
two more children were added to the family, one just before and one just
after 1830. By the time of the census
that year the family was still living in Clay County, but in District 8, when
it comprised John Collett who was said he was 53 instead of 49, Dora Collett
who said she was 40 instead of 42, Elbert Collett who was 21, Cordelia
Collett who was 18, Burchell Collett who was 14 and most recent arrival Norma
Collett who was just two years old. It
was within the Magisterial District 2 in Bell County, Kentucky, that the
family was living in 1940. Head of the
household John Collett was 68 (who surely should have been nearer 58), his
wife Dora Collett was 51 (which more or less corresponds with her age in
the two previous census returns).
Still with the couple were their two youngest daughters Norma Collett
who was 12, and Opal Collett who was eight.
Completing the household was their married son Burchell Collett and
his wife Della and their two children. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R154
|
Elsie Collett |
Born in 1905
at Otter Creek, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R155
|
Bertha
Collett |
Born in 1908
at Otter Creek, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R156
|
Elbert
Collett |
Born in 1911
at Otter Creek, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R157
|
Cordelia
Collett |
Born in 1913
at Clay County, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R158
|
BURCHELL COLLETT |
Born in 1915
at Clay County, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R159
|
Norma Collett |
Born in 1918
at Clay County, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R160
|
Opal Collett |
Born in 1922
at Clay County, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q77 |
Nathaniel Collett was born at Clay County in March 1886 and in 1900 and
1910 he was still living with his family at Otter Creek at the age of 14 and
23 when he was recorded as Nathan, a son of William and Alice Collett on
whose farm he was working. By that
time in his life, he had been married for two years, his wife being Mary
Collett who was 18 years old. It was
two years earlier that the wedding of Nathan Collett and Mary Slusher was
conducted on 13th August 1908.
In 1920 the family of Nathan and Mary were recorded at Banner Fork
Precinct No. 6 in Harlan County, by which time Mary had given birth to three
children. Nathan was 34 and a
coalminer with the Banner Fork Coal Company, when his was Mary was 31. Martha J Collett was nine, Mack Collett was
five, and Axie Collett was four years and one month old. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
It
was in the coal mining community at Frozen, within Magisterial District 2 of
Harlan County, just east of Banner Fork, that the family was residing in
1930. Coal-loader Nathan Collett, aged
45, was still in rented accommodation and was 19 years old when he married
Mary who was 13 (sic). Mary Collett
was 34 (sic) eleven years younger than her husband, where she was only three
years younger ten years earlier, and five years younger in 1910. None of their children was working, and
they were Mack Collett who was 17, Axie Collett who was 13, and Ethel Collett
who was six years old. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Their
daughter Axie Collett was 18 when she married James Thomas who was 25 at
Arjay in Bell County on 26th March 1934. It was there also, just over one month
later, that their son Mack Collett was 21 when he married May Taylor aged 19,
on 2nd June 1934. In the
end, Axie Thomas, daughter of Nathan Collett and Mary Slusher, died at
Pineville Community Hospital in Bell County on 8th July 1961 and
was buried at Arjay. Earlier, the
death of Nathan Collett happened on 7th August 1945 at the age of
62, placing his year of birth around 1883 and not 1886, as reported above. Furthermore, whilst his father was
confirmed as William Collett, his mother was recorded as Caroline
Howard. He was confirmed as born at
Clay County as was an employee of a coalmining company, when the informant of
his passing was his son Mack Collett. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R161
|
Martha J
Collett |
Born in 1911
at Otter Creek, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R162
|
Mack Collett |
Born in 1914
at Otter Creek, Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R163
|
Axie Collett |
Born in 1916
at Harlan County, Kentucky |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R164
|
Ethel Collett |
Born in 1924
at Harlan County, Kentucky |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
Gilbert Collett
was born during May in 1888 at Clay County, another son of William and Alice
Collett. He was living with his family
in 1900 and six years after was married to (1) Delia Patterson on 12th
May 1906 as recorded at Bell County, Kentucky. It seems likely that Delia died during, or
just after, giving birth to daughter Pearly, her name a memorial to her
mother having gone through the “pearly gates”
Three years later the marriage of Gilbert Collett aged 25 (sic) and
(2) Ellen Collett aged 23 (sic) was conducted at the home of William Collett
in Clay County on 17th May 1911, where William Collett was one of
the witnesses. The licence for them to
be marriage was approved on 13th May 1911 at Manchester in Clay
County. On that day, Gilbert was not
an honest man, when the stated this would be his first marriage, as did his
much younger bride who was barely 18 years of age and certainly not 23, being
27 in 1920 – below. |
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|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
By 1920 the family was residing at Banner Fork in Harlan County, where Gilbert was 33 and
in rented accommodation while employed as a coalminer with the Banner Fork
Coal Company. His wife Ellen was
27, and their three children were Pearly Collett who was 12, Grace Collett
who was nine, and son Billie Collett who was seven years of age. Gilbert Collett died on 19th May
1925, with his death recorded at Harlan County, following which he was buried
at Highsplint Cemetery, not far from Closplint where his son Billie was
killed in a mining accident in 1950. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R165
|
Pearly
Collett |
Born in 1908
at Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
The
following are the children of Gilbert Collett by his second wife Ellen
Collett: |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R166
|
Grace
Collett |
Born in 1911
at Clay County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R167
|
Billie
Collett |
Born in 1913
at Harlan County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q81 |
Betsey J Collett
was most likely born at Otter Creek in Clay County, Kentucky in February
1890, a daughter of William Collett by the first of his two Mormon wives
Alice. While still married to Alice,
his father married Catharine Rader in 1892, and it was with them that Betsey
was ten years of age in 1900 at Otter Creek, when Betsey’s mother was living
at Bad Creek with a second set of seven children on William Collett. Fourteen years later Betsey J Collett
married Andrew Quillen on 5th May 1914, a double wedding with sister
Mollie Collett (below) and Joe Coleman, when parents William and
Catharine Collett were described as the father and mother of the girls who
“are willing with no objections”.
While Molly certainly was the daughter and second child of Catharine’s,
Betsey was born three years earlier. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q83 |
Willie M Collett
was born on 14th August 1892 at Roark in Clay County just after
his father William Collett married his second concurrent wife, the much
younger Catharine Rader. He was living
with his family in 1900, but ten years later it was as brother-in-law aged
18, that Willie Collett was staying with his married sister’s husband Farmer
Roark at Bad Creek within the Magisterial District No. 5 of Leslie
County. Farmer (his christian name)
was 34, Lucy F Roark was 30, and their five children. Boarding with the family next door was
James Collett who was 24 but with no occupation. Less than four years after that census day,
Willie Collett married Sina Caudill on 5th February 1914 at the
home of Abel Caudill in Magoffin County, when the groom’s parents were
confirmed as Billie Collett and Alice E Collett, while the bride’s parents
were named as Abel and Elizabeth Caudill. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
The
US Draft Registration for the First World War included Willie Collett born on
the date provided above, who was 24 and living at Salyersville in Magoffin
County, where he was a self-employed farmer.
The form also confirmed he was a married man with one child, and
claimed he had weak lungs for exemption purposes. According to the next census in 1920 for
Gifford in Magoffin Willie was 25 and the owner of his own general farm. His wife Sina was 18, and their two
daughters were Lena who was five, and Myrtle who was two years of age. Boarding with the family, and the owner of
his own farm was John M May who was 66, perhaps advising the much younger
farm on best practice. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Willie
Collett aged 36, was still the owner of the farm in Gifford in 1930 purchased
for $1200, the census form confirming he was married to Sina when he was 23,
when she was 16, now 32 and recorded as Sudie (sic). Their eldest daughter Lena, had either
suffered and infant death or was just absent on that day, with Myrtle being
their eldest child at the age of 11 years.
The other four children were Junie aged eight, son Onley who was five,
Carrie who was three, and Ella who was three months old. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
More
children were added to the family during the 1930s, which was residing at #170
Long Branch in Salyersville in 1940, where Willie M Collett was 46 a
farmer. His wife Sina Collett 43, and
their children that day were Myrtle Collett who was 21 and a seamstress with
the N Y A sewing project, and Oland Collett who was 16 (Onley in 1930)
and a farmer. The couple’s five other
children were Claire Collett who was 14 (Carrie in 1930), Elsie
Collett who was eight, Nolia Collett who was six, Virginia Collett who was
four, and Barbara Collett who was two years of age. Living at #169 Long Branch was the
family of Herman Collett (Ref. 43R149), his wife Maggie, and their children,
then at – still to be identified, and at #167 was the family of Willie’s
older brother James Farmer (Asher) Collett (Ref. 43Q75). Finally, at #168 Long Branch was
Willie Collett with his family, whose details are revealed in the new Part 43 – Other Colletts of
Kentucky. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Willie
M Collett who was born at Roark on 14th August 1892 was 57 when he
died at Gifford in Magoffin County on 29th April 1950. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R168
|
Lena Collett |
Born in 1915
at Salyersville, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R169
|
Myrtle
Collett |
Born in 1917
at Gifford, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R170
|
Junie Collett |
Born in 1922
at Gifford, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R171
|
Ollen
Collett |
Born in 1924
at Gifford, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R172
|
Clara
Collett |
Born in 1925
at Gifford, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R173
|
Ella Collett |
Born in 1930
at Gifford, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R174
|
Elsie Mae Collett |
Born in 1932
at Gifford, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R175
|
Nolia Collett |
Born in 1934
at Gifford, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R176
|
Virginia
Collett |
Born in 1936
at Gifford, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R177
|
Barbara
Collett |
Born in 1938
at Gifford, Magoffin County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q84 |
Molly Collett
was probably born at Otter Creek in October 1893, the second child of William
and Catharine following the birth of a son soon after they were married in
1892. From William’s two concurrent
marriages his two wives, Alice and Catherine, a total of twenty children were
born into their family. In the Otter
Creek census of 1900, Molly was one of seven children living there with her
father and her mother and six other children, when her stepmother Alice was
living nearby at Bad Creek with another seven children of the family. On 5th May 1914 Mollie Collett
married Joe Coleman, the same day he half-sister Betsey (above) was
married with the approval of their parents. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
43Q85 |
Samuel Collett
was born at Clay County, Kentucky, on 12th December 1895 and was
the son of William Collett and his wife Alice E Collett who, for some reason,
was not living with his family at Otter Creek in 1900. Instead, Samuel first appeared in the
Leslie County census of 1910, when he was fifteen years old and living with
his eldest married brother Manford and his family. That day Samuel was working as a labourer
on his brother’s farm, when it is still not known where he was in 1900 aged
five years. After 1910 Samuel Collett
featured in all the following census returns, as detailed below. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
On
5th June 1917, Samuel Collett aged 22 years and born at Roark
completed a World War One Draft Registration Card. By that day his occupation was that of a
farmer, when he was a married man, who claimed exemption from the draft on
grounds of needing to support his wife.
He was described as being of medium height and slender build, with
light brown eyes and hair. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
According
to the census return in 1930, the family was residing in a rented property at
#76 Bowens Creek Road in Bad Creek, Leslie County. Sam Collett, a farmer, was 35 and had
married when he was seventeen years of age.
His wife Minnie was 31 and was 14 when she married Sam. They and their five daughters had all been
born in Kentucky, and they were Pollie who was 12, Edna who was nine, Ernesta
who was six, Judie who was almost five, and Orna who was one month old. Around the middle of the next decade the
family moved to Warbranch, West of Middle Fork, in Leslie County, where their
home was in 1935, and again in 1940. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Samuel
Collett was a farmer aged 46, Minnie Collett was 44 (sic), son Ernest Collett
was 16 and a ‘new worker’. Judie Collett was 14, Orna Collett was 11, when
the latest arrivals were Leonard Collett who was eight, Walter Collett who
was five, and Farmer Collett who was two years old. One more child was added to the family and
towards the end of the 1940s, the couple’s eldest son Ernest became a married
man, after which he and his wife moved into the property next door to Sam and
Minnie, which was how they were recorded in the census of 1950, by which time
Minnie’s widowed mother was living with the family. Eight years earlier, Warbranch, Leslie
County, was the family address included on the 1942 Military Draft Registration
Card for Sam Collett aged 47, whose date of birth was as indicated above, and
whose next-of-kin was his wife Minta Collett. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Sam
Collett was 56, when his wife was recorded as Minta Collett 55 (sic) and just
their three youngest children were still living with them. They were Leonard aged 18, Walter aged 14,
Farmer who was 11, and daughter Lizzie Collett was seven years of age. The two older sons were already employed on
their father’s farmer as farm helpers.
Completing the family that day was Sam’s mother-in-law Martha Breck
aged 84. Sam’s older son and
daughter-in-law next door were recorded as Ernest Collett who was 26 and a
mill worker in lumber manufacturing and his wife Edna M Collett who was
19. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
Twenty-one
years later, as Sam Collett, he died on 1st September 1971 when he
was at Essie living in Leslie County, and was buried at Bowens Creek
Cemetery. On that occasion, his death
record stated he had been born on 11th December 1894. |
||||||||||||||||||||
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||
|
43R178
|
Pollie
Collett |
Born in 1918
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R179
|
Edna Collett |
Born in 1921
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R180
|
Ernesta/Ernest
Collett |
Born in 1924
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R181
|
Judie Collett |
Born in 1925
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
||||||||||||||||||
|
43R182
|
Orna Collett |
Born in 1930
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
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43R183
|
Leonard
Collett |
Born in 1932
at Bad Creek, Leslie County |
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43R184
|
Walter
Collett |
Born in 1935
at Roark, Leslie County |
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43R185
|
Farmer
Collett |
Born in 1938
at Roark, Leslie County |
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43Q86 |
Joseph Collett,
who was known as Joe, was born at Clay County on 29th May 1896 and
was another child of William and Catherine Collett. At the age of four Joseph and
his family were living at Otter Creek in Clay County where he may have been
born and ten years later it was Joe Collett who was 13 years of age in the
Big Creek census of 1910 when living there with his family. Seven years later, on 13th July
1917, Joseph Collett married Ellen Nolan with their wedding recorded at Clay
County. By 1920 he was living on the road up Lick Fork of
Red Bird at Upper Red Bird in Clay County on 23rd February, when he was
described as the son-in-law of Preston Nolan, a general farmer, whose
daughter was Ella Collett, and whose granddaughter was Della (as Ella)
Collett. Joseph, another general
farmer, and Ella, were both 20 years of age, while their daughter was
thirteen months old. That day Joseph was living at #21 not far from
another Collett family at #16, that of farmer Silas Collett (Ref.
43Q9) and wife Mahaley. |
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It
was at #197 Willard Road, Hazard in Perry County that the family was
living in 1930, when the census that day described them as follows. Joe Collett was 42 and working as a labourer
on a farm, Ella was 29 and was 18 years old when she married 31-year-old
Joseph. Their children that day were
Mae Collett (as Moe) who was 11, June Collett who was nine, Mabel
Collett who was six, and Joe Collett junior who was three years and two
months old. |
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In
1940, when the family was living at #58 Red Bird River in Clay County,
another Collett family was living close by at #56 Red Bird River and
that was Robert (Lee) Collett (Ref. 43Q46), Joe’s cousin two-steps removed. That census day Joe Collett was 46 and a
miner at a coalmine, his wife Ellen who was 40, and with them their four
children and a grandson. Mae Collett
was 22, June Collett was 19, Maggie Collett (previously Mabel) was 16
– when the three sisters were farm workers, Agnes Collett was four years old,
and grandson J R Collett was three years old and the son of daughter Mae
Collett. |
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The WW2 Draft Registration Card of 27th
April 1942 confirmed he was self-employed and living at Asher Fork in Clay
County, when Joe Collett was 46 and his place of birth was Leslie
County. The name of his relative, for
notification purposes was Mrs Ellen Collett.
Eight years
later, the family was residing at Flat Creek Waters in Red Bird River where
Joe Collett was 54, a farmer and owner, Ellen was 50, June was 30, Agnes was
14, and sons J R Collett who was 13, and J C Collett who was 11 years of age. After a further two years Joe Collett was
56 when he died at Asher Fork in Clay County on 28th September
1952 and was buried at Bear Creek Cemetery. |
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In
1950, living not far from Joe and his family, at Blue Hole in Red Bird River,
was Ford Collett (Ref. 43S10), his wife and daughter, and his sister Helen (Ref.
43S11). One area of dispute with Joe
and Ella’s family arose at the second wedding of their daughter Mae Collett,
when it was recorded that she was born at Roark in Kentucky, which is in
Leslie County. |
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43R186
|
Della Collett (Ella) |
Born in 1918 at Upper Red Bird, Clay County |
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43R187
|
Mae
Collett |
Born
in 1920 at Upper Red Bird, Clay County |
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43R188
|
June
Collett |
Born
in 1922 at Upper Red Bird, Clay County |
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43R189
|
Maple Lee Collett |
Born in 1924 at Upper Red Bird, Clay County |
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43R190
|
Agnes
Collett |
Born
in 1935 at Red Bird River, Clay County |
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43R191
|
J R Collett |
Born in 1936 at Red Bird River, Clay County |
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43R192
|
Joe Curtis Collett |
Born in 1939 at Gardner, Red Bird River |
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43Q89 |
George Dewey Collett, who was known as Dewey, was born on 11th
September 1899 at Otter
Creek, Clay County, and was a son of William by one of his two wives
Alice – who died in 1901, or the much younger Catharine. As Dewey, he was 21 when he married Bertie
Bolling at Esserville, Wise County in Virginia on 17th January
1920. Bertie, possibly Roberta, was 17
years of age and born in Virginia, the daughter of Mollie Bolling. Curiously, Dewey’s parents were named as
Billy Collett and Allie Fair Collett? |
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Their
daughter Ruth was born in 1925 and they were confirmed as her parents when
she married Edward Brock at Big Glades in Wise County on 15th
August 1942. Edward was 21 and the son
of Jesse Brock and Martha Shook.
Dewey’s son, and namesake, was born at Esserville, Wise County on 12th
September 1931 who, in November 1950, applied to the Social Program when he
was residing at Salyersville, Magoffin Count, Kentucky. It was much later when Dewey Earlen Collett
died on 23rd April 2000. |
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Tragically,
the couple had another daughter who was born at Robinson in Wise County on 2nd
February 1935, who died that same day.
Their last child was another son, who was born on 3rd
August 1946, and he married Mary Frances Warren, aged 18, at Clintwood,
Dickson County on 6th September 1968, with the bride’s parents
named as John Warren and Louise Blanche.
George Dewey Collett was at Salyersville in Magoffin County when he
died on 5th December 1967 at the age of 68. |
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43R193
|
Ruth Collett |
Born in 1925
at Wise County, Virginia |
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43R194
|
Dewey Earlen
Collett |
Born in 1931
at Esserville, Wise County |
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43R195
|
Lezia Collett |
Born in 1935
at Robinson, Wise County |
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43R196
|
Ronnie Paul
Collett |
Born in 1946
at Robinson, Wise County |
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43Q96 |
Margaret Frances
Collett, who was
known as Peggy, was born in Mexico in 1908 shortly after her parents were
married. The US Census of 1920 listed
Margaret as 12 and placed her and her family living at Alpine in Brewster
County in Texas. Five years later in
1925 Peggy was living with her family at 104 Haynes Avenue in San Antonio
when her father received the news that he and his brothers and sister were
heirs to a fortune of $200,000 left to them by a distant relative in
England. Following an interview with
the San Antonio Light, the newspaper ran the headline “Miss Peggy Collett
Elects to Get Education with Share of Fortune.” At that Peggy and her three siblings were
all students attending a local public school and Peggy expressed a desire to
enter a career in journalism.
Tragically she died only eight years later at San Antonio in Texas in
1933 when she was only in her mid-twenties, so never did realise her life’s
ambition. |
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43Q97 |
William Bruns Collett
was born at Crystal
City in Maverick County in Texas on 9th November 1912. His second christian name was apparently
the name of the medical attendant who assisted at his birth. According to the census of 1920, William
was seven years old and was living with his family at Alpine in Brewster
County in Texas. William was married
twice in his life, the first time to (1) Anna Ruth Strong with whom he had a
daughter. William later married (2)
Jimmie Evelyn Petersen just prior to the Second World War with whom he had a
further five children. The first of
them was born at Mississippi, while the next four were all born in
Texas. William Bruns Collett was only
fifty-four years of age when he died at Lubbock County in Texas on 13th
October 1966. His wife Jimmie, who was
born in Brazoria County on 8th December 1921, died eighteen years
after William, when she passed away on 24th July 1984 at Lubbock. |
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43R197
|
Elizabeth Ann Collett |
Born in 1935
at San Antonio in Texas |
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43R198
|
William James Collett |
Born in 1941
in Mississippi |
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43R199
|
Beverly Sue Collett |
Born in 1943
at San Antonio in Texas |
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43R200
|
James Robert Collett |
Born in 1947
at McAllen in Texas |
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43R201
|
Sandra Lea Collett |
Born in 1948
at Hidalgo in Texas |
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43R202
|
Sylvia Jean Collett |
Born in 1957
at Bellaire in Texas |
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43Q98 |
Martha Elizabeth Collett
was born at Alpine in
Texas on 26th January 1915 and was four years and eleven months
old at the time of the US Census of 1920.
At that time her parents, William F Collett and Maje Collett, were
living at Alpine in Brewster County in Texas.
Also listed were Martha’s two siblings Margaret 13, and William
7. Some years later Martha married
Clyde Edgar and the marriage resulted in the birth of one child for the couple,
Mary Patricia Edgar born at San Antonio in 1937. Martha was made a widow in 1976 when Clyde
died at San Antonio. Martha lived in
the original family home of her father William Francis Collett at San Antonio
and, at the age of 93 has three grandchildren. |
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Her daughter
Mary Patricia Edgar married Richard G Weil in San Antonio from whom she is
now divorced, but not before the couple were blessed with three children,
Marsha K Weil, Richard G Weil, and Melinda E Weil. By the time she was 95, and due to her
physical limitations, Martha Elizabeth Edgar nee Collett was a resident at
Morningside Manor. However, in January
2011 she was taken from there to Nix Hospital in San Antonio where she died
on 30th January 2011, just four days after her 96th
birthday. Following her passing,
Martha was buried at San
Fernando III Cemetery in San Antonio on Wednesday
3rd February 2011. The
obituary that was displayed at the Mission South Funeral Home read as
follows: |
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“Martha E. Edgar born on January 26, 1915 went to be with the Lord on
January 30, 2011 at the age of 96. She died peacefully, of natural causes,
surrounded by loving family. She is
preceded in death by her beloved husband Clyde Edgar, parents William and
Maje Collett, and siblings Peggy Collett, Bill Collett, and Mary Turner. Survivors include her loving and dedicated
only child Patricia Edgar Weil, grandchildren Marsha K. Williams (Steve),
Richard G. Weil (Elizabeth), Melinda E. Taylor, six great grandchildren Matt,
Ryan, Cole, Skye, Zeke, and Townsend, numerous nieces, nephews, and other
loving family members and friends.
Mrs. Edgar was born in Alpine, Texas.
She was the niece of E. E. Townsend, Father of Big Bend National
Park. She was a homemaker and a
caregiver of loved ones throughout her amazing life. She gave of her time and effort unconditionally
to those around her. She was a
lifetime member of McKinley Avenue United Methodist Church, where she had
many dear friends. She is also
survived by her loyal canine companion, Sugar.” |
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Martha
Elizabeth Collett was the sister of William Bruns Collett (above),
whose daughter Sue Flanagan provided the details of her aunt’s passing. It was also
Sue who kindly sent in the photograph on the right, showing Sue with her Aunt
Martha which was taken during her 95th birthday celebrations at
Morningside Manor on 26th January 2010. |
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43Q99 |
Mary Belle Collett was born at San Antonio in Texas in
1921. She married John Mack Turner and
they had two sons before John’s accidental death in 1955 at Hannibal in
Missouri. Mary Belle lived for almost
another forty years after her husband died, until her death around 1994. Both of her sons were married and
each presented Mary Belle with a grandchild.
John Mack Turner was born in 1953 and his son is Troy
Turner. Mark Townsend Turner
was born in 1954 and died at San Antonio in 2007 and his daughter was Katrina
Turner. |
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43Q101 |
Mary Elizabeth Collett was born at Atchison on 30th
July 1888. She initially attended a
public grade school in Atchison but went to high school at a private College
Preparatory School also in Atchison.
She entered Wellesley College in 1906 and graduated with an AB degree
in 1910 and she received her Master’s Degree from the University of
Pennsylvania to which she returned in 1917 for her PhD. |
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After securing
a Fellowship in Biology at Clark University she took up a teaching post in
the School of Medicine at the University of Buffalo. In 1922/23 she was awarded a Fellowship by
the American Scandinavian Foundation for which she attended the Karolinska
Institute in Stockholm. On her
returned to America, she spent one year teaching at Tulane University in New
Orleans before completing thirty years teaching at Western Reserve University
in Cleveland, Ohio in 1954. Doctor
Mary Elizabeth Collett, a college professor, died on 28th June
1969 at Wellesley in Massachusetts and was buried with other members of her
family at Mount Vernon Cemetery in Atchison. |
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43Q102 |
William Barrow Collett (the second) was born in Atchison, Kansas on 2nd September
1895. When he was seventeen, he
attended Culver Military Academy in Indiana.
He later trained as an American Cadet with the Royal Flying Corps of
Canada and became a Second Lieutenant at Fort Worth in Texas on 14th
February 1918. During
the following week, he sailed to France with 139th Aero Squadron
where he learned to fly rotary engine Nieuports at Issoudon. The
trained had not been completed when volunteers were asked to form 12th
Aero Squadron, the second American squadron which was equipped with A5 Avion
Renaults. Four months later Lt.
Collett was relieved to the command of the Ferry Pilot Landing Field at
Gamaches on the Somme near Dieppe and Abbeville. |
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Following
the Armistice, William was made officer-in-charge of field inspection, First
Aviation Acceptance Park at Orly near Paris.
Here he was offered the command of the Aeroplane Courier Service
between Germany and the Peace Conference, but he declined as he wished to
return to America. After the war he
returned to Nortonville, Kansas in the early spring of 1919 where he renewed
his work at the First National Bank where he had been employed in 1916. It was later that same year that he married
Vera Frances Groff on 3rd September 1919 at Nortonville. Vera was born on 13th July
1890. It was during William’s time at
the bank in 1916 that he had first met Vera.
The five years following their wedding saw the
couple blessed with three children, all of whom were born in Atchison. |
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It was at that
same time in their life when William swapped banking for insurance. That happened between 1921 and 1925 when
William Barrow Jr worked alongside his father William Barrow senior in the
field of life insurance. At the end of
that time William Jr and his wife and family moved to 7310 Wyoming Street in
Kansas City, Kansas and the following year the family moved again, this time
to Detroit, Michigan. |
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Less than four
months after the attack on Pearl Harbour, William returned to active duty as a Captain
in the Air Corps on 3rd April 1942 and was assigned to Dow Field,
Bangor, Maine as Post Intelligence Officer and Public Relations Officer. He was second in command at Dow Field which
was the principal embarkation point for all B-17 Flying Fortresses going to
Europe. In October 1942 he was
promoted to Major and was sent to England and returned three year later in
1945. He was discharged as Lt. Col.
Collett at the end of that year. |
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William Barrow
Collett died from a heart attack at Evanston, Illinois on 17th May
1956 and was buried at Arlington National Cemetery – Section 3 Grave
2206A. Vera survived her husband by
nearly thirty years when she died on 22nd October 1985 at
Wisconsin Rapids, Wisconsin. She was
buried with William at Arlington. |
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43R203
|
William Barrow Collett III |
Born in 1921
at Atchison, Kansas |
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43R204
|
Groff Collett |
Born in 1923
at Atchison, Kansas |
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43R205
|
Catherine Ann Collett |
Born in 1924
at Atchison, Kansas |
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43Q103 |
William Mark Collett was the only son and eldest child of William Henry
Collett and Emily King. He was born in
the British Oak Inn at 36 Byrkley Street in Burton-on-Trent, where his father
was the landlord, on 4th August 1900, where he was also baptised
on 3rd September 1900. On
the day of the census the following year, William M Collett was seven months
old. His father died in 1910 and in
the following year the three members of his family were living at 35 Derby
Street in Burton-on-Trent, when William Mark Collett was ten years of age,
his widowed mother Emily was 34, and his sister was Eveline was five. Just like his father, William also suffered
a premature death, with the death of William Mark Collett was recorded at
Burton register office (Ref. 6b 364) during the month of June 1927, at the
age of only 27. |
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43Q104 |
Eveline Martha Margaret Collett was born in 1905 at 36 Byrkley Street
in Burton-on-Trent, The British Oak Inn managed by her father William Henry
Collett and Emily King. Her birth was
recorded at Burton register office (Ref. 6b 117) during the last three months
of the year. During the next nine
years her father appears to have given up being the landlord of The British
Oak and in 1910 the family of four was residing at 35 Derby Street in Burton
where he died, when Eveline was only four years old. And it was at that same address that she
was living with her widowed and older brother William (above) in 1911
at the age of five years. The later marriage of Eveline Martha Margaret
Collett and Reginald H Payne was recorded at Burton-on-Trent register office
(Ref. 6b 24) during the third quarter of 1927. |
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43Q105 |
Elma Doris Collett
was born at 52 Stoney Stanton Road in Coventry on 22nd June 1903,
the only child of Frederick Charles Collett and Ellen Kirk, whose birth was
recorded at Coventry register office (Ref. 6d 573) during the third quarter
of 1903 and was seven years of age in the Coventry census of 1911. She was baptised at St Mark’s Church in
Coventry on 22nd July 1903.
It was there also that the marriage of Elma Doris Collett aged 19, and
Joseph W Rowe was recorded (Ref. 6d 1569) during the third quarter of 1922. Their marriage produced just one child,
their son Ronald R Rowe whose birth was recorded at Coventry (Ref. 6d
1260) during the first three months of 1923, a honeymoon baby, whose mother’s
maiden-name was confirmed as Collett.
Elma was 85 when the death of Elma Doris Rowe was recorded at
Warwickshire register office (Vol. 33 244) in 1989. |
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43Q108 |
Robert John W Collett was born at Burton-on-Trent on 22nd
July 1908 where his birth was recorded (Ref. 6b 443) during the third quarter
of the year. He was 61 when he died in
1970, his death recorded at Lichfield register office (Ref. 9b 759) during
the second quarter of that year. |
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43Q111 |
John Edwin William
Collett was born at
Burton-on-Trent during 1904, where his birth was recorded (Ref. 6b 456)
during the third quarter of the year, the second child of John Barrow Collett
and Clara Agnes Jones. His mother
died, either during the birth or shortly after, and was six years old at the
time of the Burton census of 1911 when he and his older sister Ivy were being
raised by their paternal grandparents William and Emma Collett at The Albion
Hotel in Burton-on-Trent. It was under
his full name of John Edwin William Collett that on 20th August
1932 when he married Edith Aileen Harvey at Winshill in Derbyshire. John, who was 28 years of age and confirmed
as the son of John Barrow Collett, and Edith had only one child, their
daughter Aileen. John and Edith were
residing at of 57 Reservoir Road in Burton-on-Trent when John Edwin William
Collett died there on 7th September 1951 at the age of 47. His death was recorded at Burton-on-Trent
register office (Ref. 9b 23), following which his Will was proved in London
on 12th November 1951, and named the executors of his estate of Ł2,422 9 Shillings and 5 Pence as his widow
Edith Aileen Collett and her brother Leonard Arthur Harvey, a civil servant. |
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43R206
|
Aileen Collett |
Born in 1935
at Burton-on-Trent |
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43Q112 |
Leonard Wilfred Collett was born at Coventry in 1909 the youngest known son of
John Barrow Collett and the eldest of the two children from his second
marriage to Lucy
Elizabeth Perrins. They were married
at Coventry at the end of the previous year when Lucy was already with-child. No record of his birth has been found at
Coventry, so it seems highly likely that the couple left the city shortly
after he was born, perhaps from the embarrassment of the event so soon after
they wedding day. What is known is
that he was born in Coventry on 9th March 1909, but with his birth
later recorded at Kings Norton register office (Ref. 6c 451) during the
second quarter of that year. While it is possible that he
first became a married man prior to the Second World War, a much later record
confirms that Leonard W Collett married Gwendoline Wallbank early in 1961, as
recorded at Sutton Coldfield register office (Ref. 9c 2425) during the first
three months of that year Twenty-one years later he died at the age of
74, with the death of Leonard Wilfred Collett recorded at Staffordshire
register office in 1983. |
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43Q114 |
Irene May Collett was born in Birmingham in 1915, where her birth was
recorded (Ref. 6d 372) during the first three months of that year, and when
her mother’s maiden-name was recorded at Tolliday instead of Tolladay, the
daughter of John Barrow Collett. It
was during the summer of 1940 that Irene M Collett married Edgar Peacock,
with whom she had two sons. Their
wedding was recorded at Birmingham register office (Ref. 6d 1603) during the
third quarter of 1940. The birth of
the first of their two sons was also recorded at Birmingham register, as
follows: Robert J Peacock during the third quarter of 1949 (Ref. 9c
522) who, with Sandra Smith (born in 1955), had four children Kelly (now
Kelly Plant), Joanne, Lee, and Gina.
Three years after Robert was born, the birth of John K Peacock
was recorded at Meriden register office (Ref. 9c 1170) at the start of
1953. His is married to Sue and they
have three children Ben, Richard, and Marie Anne. |
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43Q115 |
Elizabeth
Ruth Collett was born
at Alum Rock/Alum Rock Road in Glebe Farm, east of Birmingham, during 1897,
from where her family moved to Sheldon, north of Solihull, where her next
sister was born. She was the eldest
child of James Henry Collett and Clara Luckman and, as Ruth E Collett, she
was three years old and living with her family at Lyndon End, off the
Coventry Road, in Bickenhill, north-east of Solihull in 1901. Shortly after the census day that year the
family settled in the Shirley area of Solihull where Ruth Collett was 13
years old in April 1911. It was towards the end of 1927 that the
marriage of Elizabeth R Collett and Albert V Cetti was recorded at Solihull
register office (Ref. 6d 1726), although no record of any children has been
found. Ten years later, at the time of
the death of her mother in 1936, Elizabeth Ruth Cetti, her husband Albert
Victor Cetti a stockbroker’s clerk, and her younger brother Norman (below),
were named as executors of her father’s personal effects valued at just over
Ł1,143. |
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43Q116 |
Georgina Mary Collett was born at Sheldon, Birmingham in 1899, with her birth
recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 627) during the last three
months of that year. She was one year
old in the census of 1901, by which time she and her family were living at
Lyndon End, Coventry Road, Bickenhill, near Solihull, having been born in
Birmingham. Ten years later, the
Solihull census in 1911 incorrectly stated that Georgina May Collett aged 11
and attending school, had been born at Lyndon End in Bickenhill, an obvious
mix-up with her younger sister (below). |
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43Q117 |
Dorothy Mabel Collett was born at Lyndon End, Coventry Road in Bickenhill,
north-east of Solihull, during March 1901 and had only just been born on the
day of that year’s census. Her birth
was later recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 623) during the
second quarter of the year. It was at
Lyndon End that she and her two older sisters Ruth and Georgina (above)
were living with their parents James and Clara Collett that census day. By 1911, 10-year-old Dorothy Mabel was
attending school in Solihull, where she was living with her family, when her
place of birth was confirmed as Lyndon End, Bickenhill. She never married and suffered a premature
death of the age of 34, when her passing as Dorothy M Collett was recorded at
Warwickshire register office (Ref. 6d 491) during 1935. |
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43Q118 |
Gladys Clara Collett was born at Solihull on 15th August 1902,
another daughter of James and Clara Collett.
Her birth was recorded there during the second quarter of the year
(Ref. 6d 660). After living in nearby
Shirley, and them Small Heath, the family returned to Solihull where they
were recorded in the 1911 Census, when Gladys Clara was eight years of age,
and at school. Just over fifteen years
after that census day, the marriage of Gladys Clara Collett and Charles Dear
was recorded at the Warwickshire Meriden register office (Ref. 6d 1420)
during the third quarter of 1926. The
later death of Gladys Clara Dear was recorded at Warwickshire register office
(Vol. 32 1643) in 1982, at the age of 79. |
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The first of
the couple’s three children was born a year later, when the birth of Dorothy
Dear was recorded at Huntingdon register office (Ref. 3b 326) during the
summer of 1927. The family of three
then returned to the West Midland, where the births of the next two children
were recorded; Olive Dear at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 1125)
during the first three months of 1932, and Charles D Dear at
Birmingham register (Ref. 6d 489) in the first quarter of 1939. In all three cases, the mother’s maiden-name
was confirmed as Collett. |
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43Q119 |
Norman Noel Collett was born at Shirley in Solihull on 11th December 1903,
with his birth recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 682) during the
first three months of 1904. At the
time of the census of 1911 Norman was seven years old and at school when he
was living with his family in Solihull.
He was later employed as a wood and metal pattern-maker in the process
of model-making for metal castings.
During the summer of 1932, the marriage of Norman Noel Collett and Lilian
B Evans was recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 137). Lilian was born on 24th November
1910, with whom Norman had three sons.
Norman was still a pattern maker in 1936 when he was named as one of
the three executors of his father estate.
In 2009 contact was made with Norman’s son David Luckman Collett (Ref.
43R207) who does not wish to provide any details relating to his family
or those of his two brothers, the names of whom have been removed. Norman Noel Collett died on 12th
June 1996, with his death recorded at the Solihull North register office. |
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43Q120 |
Phyllis May Collett was born at Small Heath, Birmingham on 3rd
August 1906 and was the sixth and last child born to James Henry Collett and
Clara Luckman. Her birth was recorded
at Aston register office (Ref. 6d 292) during the first quarter of the year. By the time of the census in 1911, Phyllis
May was their only child not attending school, when she was five years of
age, and confirmed as having been born at Small Heath, in Birmingham. She never married and was still living
within the Birmingham area when she died during November 1989. The death of Phyllis May Collett was
recorded at Birmingham register office (Vol. 32 727) when she was 83. |
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43Q121 |
Cyril Frederick Collett was born at Sparkhill in Solihull on
30th April 1894 following the marriage of his parents Frederick
John Collett and Ada Marian Lea on 20th January 1894. However, it was during the third quarter of
1894 that the birth was recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 521),
perhaps nearer nine months after the couple was married. Sadly, during the summer of 1900 Cyril’s
mother filed for divorce on the grounds of his father’s adultery and cruelty,
which was granted by the High Court in London during the summer of the
following year. At the time of the
earlier census in 1901 Cyril F Collett was six years old when he was living
with his mother and two younger sisters (below) at the Solihull High
Street home of his maternal grandmother Mary Ann Lea. Having already lost his two younger
brothers to infant death, both of Cyril’s sisters died within the next twelve
months. |
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Thanks to
Stewart Simpson in September 2024, where we did not previously know where
Cyril was in 1911, he has now provided the information that he was serving as a Boy 1st Class in the
Royal Navy aboard the armed cruiser HMS Berwick of the 4th Cruiser Squadron
which was at anchor off Gibraltar. He
does not seem to have been in the navy for very long, having only enlisted in
1910 and being discharged in 1911. |
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After that he
joined the British Army and was a private, Service No. 13375, with the 2nd
Battalion of Worcestershire Regiment, when he was residing at Palmers Green
in London at the start of the First World War. Tragically, he was one of the early
casualties of war when he was killed in action on the Flanders Fields during
the First Battle of Ypres on 31st October 1914. His military record confirms that he was
born in Birmingham, that he enlisted at Oxford, whose name appears on the
Menin Gate Memorial in Ypres. His
death, at the age of twenty, meant that not one of the five children of Frederick
John Collett survived to carry on the family line. |
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By
way of explanation, Stewart revealed that he is not a family member, but an
amateur military historian with a particular interest in some of the early
battles of the Great War, one of which is the action at Gheluvelt on the 31st
October 1914. It was here, on that
day, that Cyril was killed in action during the famous charge of the
Worcestershire Regiment at Gheluvelt Chateau that was instrumental in
throwing the Germans back and, in all probability, prevented the Germans from
taking Ypres and the Channel ports and perhaps even winning the war. |
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43Q122 |
Phyllis
Mary Georgina Collett was
born at Stechford near Yardley, to the east of Birmingham, either towards the
end of 1896 or early in 1897, when her birth was recorded at Solihull (Ref.
6d 202) during the first three months of 1897. By the time of the census in March 1901,
her mother had separated from her father, pending their decree absolute, which
was granted three months later. On the
day of the census Phyllis M G Collett was four years of age and living with
her mother and two surviving siblings in the High Street of Solihull, the
home of her grandmother. It was nearly
nine months later that the death of Phyllis Mary G Collett was recorded at
Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 73) during the final month of 1901, when
she was five years old. It was also at
Solihull, where Phyllis Mary Georgina Collett was buried on 26th
December 1901. |
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43Q123 |
Howard Collett
was born at Solihull in 1898 and was the third child of Frederick and Ada
Collett, whose birth was recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 634)
during the second quarter of the year.
It was also during that same three-month period that the death of baby
Howard Collett was recorded at Solihull (Ref. 6d 316). |
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43Q124 |
Gordon Victor Collett was born at Solihull in 1899, another son of Frederick
and Ada Collett. His birth was
recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 635) during the third quarter
of the year. Having already suffered
the loss of his older brother in the previous year, the family may have
temporarily moved to Birmingham just after Gordon was born, because it was at
Birmingham register office that the death of infant Gordon Victor Collett was
recorded (Ref. 6d 316) during the summer of that same year. |
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43Q125 |
Margery Martin Collett was born on 8th November
1900, with her birth recorded at Solihull register office (Ref. 6d 297)
during either the last three months of the year. She was the fifth and last child of
Frederick John Collett and Ada Marian Lea, who was baptised at Solihull on 3rd
December 1900. Four months before she
was born her mother filed for divorce from her father for reasons of his
adultery and his cruelty. Having
separated from her father, Margery was only five months old on the day of the
census in 1901, she and her mother and her two older surviving siblings were
living with Margery’s grandmother, Mary A Lee aged 64, on the High Street in
Solihull. Sadly, she died one year
later, when the death of Margery Martin Collett was recorded at Solihull
register office (Ref. 6d 270) during the second quarter of 1902, following
which she was laid to rest in Solihull on 16th April 1902, aged
seventeen months. |
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43Q126 |
Mary Jane Collett was born at Ancoats in Manchester in
1883, the eldest child of Peter Collett, formerly known as Peter Shawcross,
and his wife Jane. In the 1891 Census
she was living with her parents in Ancoats where she was eight years of
age. Ten years later, at the age of
17, she was working as a cardboard box maker while living with her mother and
brothers and sister in |
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43Q127 |
Peter Collett was born at Ancoats in Manchester in
1886 and was living there with his family in 1891 and again in 1901 when he
was four years old and 14 years of age respectively. On leaving school he took up work as a
machine moulder, this being a similar occupation to that of his father who
was a machine grinder. Out
the outbreak of the First World War, Peter enlisted with the King’s Liverpool
Regiment and became Private Collett 20137.
Tragically, he was killed in action with D Company of the 12th
Battalion on 25th September 1915 aged 28 and the sad news was
reported to his mother Jane Cadman, formerly Collett, at her home at 62
Junction Street in Ancoats. He was
buried at |
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43Q128 |
Herbert Collett was born at Ancoats in Manchester on
14th November 1888, following which his birth was recorded at
Manchester register office (Ref. 8d 220) during the last three months of that
year. It was at Ancoats that he was
living with his family in 1891, when he was two, and ten years later when he
was 12 years old. His father died
during the first decade of the new century and his mother was subsequently
married for a second time. By the time
of the census in April 1911 Herbert Collett, aged 22 and from Manchester, was
living and working at Hawarden in Flintshire to the west of Chester. He was still residing in the Manchester
area where the death of Herbert Collett was recorded during December 1976 at
the age of 88 years. |
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43Q131
|
Mary Elizabeth Collett was born at Salford in Lancashire on
29th March 1891, the first child born to Alfred Thomas Collett and
his wife Elizabeth Ann Barlow. She was
born at 2 Heaps Court in Salford where her parents were living one week
later, as recorded in the census of 1891.
Her absence from the family home on that day may indicate that she was
in hospital with some complication following the birth, while it was three
weeks after that census day when Mary Elizabeth Collett was baptised at St
Philip’s Church in Salford on 26th April 1891. However, it was later that same year that
the death of Mary Elizabeth Collett, who was under one year of age, was
recorded at Salford (Ref. 8d 56) during the last quarter of 1891. |
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43Q132
|
Elizabeth Ann Collett was born at 4 Cobbett Street in
Salford on 19th January 1895, the second child of Alfred and
Elizabeth Collett. Elizabeth was six
years old in the census of 1901 when she and her family were residing at 15
Market Street in Salford. It was as
Elizabeth Ann that she was recorded in the Salford census of 1911 when she
was 16. It was also at 41 Brewery
Street in Salford that she was still living with her widowed mother in 1923
and from where she married John Kershaw at St Phillip’s Church, Salford, on
22nd December 1923. That
was also the same time and place that her sister Alice (below) married
Ernest Bebbington. John Kershaw was
also born in Salford during 1897, the son of James Owen Kershaw. Tragically, they were only married for
around eleven years when John died at Salford during 1934. |
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During
those eleven years together, Elizabeth presented John with three
children. Doreen Kershaw was
born in 1925, Joan Kershaw was born in 1927 and Edna Kershaw
was born in 1930. At the time of the
Second World War Elizabeth and her three daughters were living at a dwelling
in Shepherd Street in Salford which was hit by an incendiary bomb around 1941,
following which the family then moved to Tennyson Street in Salford. Elizabeth Ann Kershaw nee Collett had been a
widow for forty-five years when she died at Salford on 3rd August
1979. |
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43Q133
|
Emily Collett was born at 15 Market Street in
Salford 1897 and was baptised at St Philip’s Church in Salford on 27th
June 1897. She was four years of age
in 1901 and was 14 in 1911 when she and her family were still living at 15
Market Street in Salford. She later
married Edward Turner at St Phillip’s Church in Salford on 20th
September 1919, with whom she had two children. On their wedding day, Edward’s and Emily’s
fathers were not in attendance, as the certificate described them as Alfred
Thomas Collett deceased, a brass polisher, George Turner deceased, a cabinet
maker. |
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Also
on that day, Emily was 22 and a ticketer residing at 41 Brewery Street in
Salford, and Edward was 24 and a maker-up living at 10 Bath Street in
Salford. The second witness on their
wedding day was Elizabeth Collett, Emily’s mother. Edward Turner was born in Manchester during
1895 and he died in 1943. Emily Turner
nee Collett was living in Manchester when she died on 22nd April
1975. |
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43Q134
|
Alice Collett was born at 15 Market Street in
Salford on 7th August 1899 and was baptised at St Philip’s Church
in Salford on 30th August 1899.
She was just one year old in the census of 1901 and was 11 years of
age in 1911 when she was still living at 15 Market Street with her
family. On 22nd December
1923 at St Philip’s Church in Salford, in a joint wedding ceremony with her
eldest surviving sister Elizabeth (above), Alice married Ernest
Bebbington. He was born at Salford on
7th September 1899 and together they had two sons Ernest and Eric
before his untimely death in Salford on 25th January 1935. Alice Bebbington nee Collett was still
residing in Salford when she passed away on 16th May 1973. |
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43Q135
|
Sarah Ellen Collett was born at 2 River Place in Salford
during the last three months of 1902, with her birth recorded there (Ref. 8d
147). It was on 3rd
December 1902 that she was baptised at St Philip’s Church in Salford. Tragically, it was two years later, during
the last quarter of 1904, that the death of Sarah Ellen Collett was recorded
at Salford (Ref. 8d 119), the second of the eight children of Alfred Thomas
Collett and Elizabeth Ann Barlow. |
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43Q136
|
James Collett was born at 3 Arlington Court in
Salford on 2nd March 1905 and was listed as being six years of age
in the Salford census of 1911 when he and his family were residing at 15
Market Street in Salford. It was
during the second quarter of 1932, at Christ Church in Salford, when he
married Emily Moss who was born at Salford on 10th June 1908. Their wedding was recorded at Salford
register office (Ref. 8d 24). James
and Emily had one child and appear to have lived all their life in Salford,
where their daughter was born, where her birth was recorded (Ref. 8d 105)
early in 1943 when her mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Moss, and where
James Collett died on 6th September 1976. He was followed exactly twelve years later
by his wife Emily Collett nee Moss, who passed away on 6th
September 1988. |
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43R208
|
Brenda
Collett |
Born in 1943
at Salford |
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43Q137
|
Elsie Collett was born at 38 Rigby Street in Salford
in 1907, her birth recorded there (Ref. 8d 329) during the last quarter of
that year. She was three years old in
the April census of 1911, when she was the youngest child then living at 15
Market Street in Salford, the home of Alfred Thomas Collett and Elizabeth Ann
Lowe, her younger brother (below) born less than two years after. When Elsie was thirty-five years of age,
she gave birth to a base-born son in 1942, the birth of Norman Collett
recorded at Manchester register office (Ref. 8d 11) during the fourth quarter
of the year. Norman is understood to
have been adopted by an Italian family when he was around seven months old,
following the premature death of his mother.
Tragically, Elsie Collett died on 4th August 1943 while
living in Chorlton-cum-Hardy, where she was buried at the Southern
Cemetery. The death of Elsie Collett,
aged 35, was recorded at Manchester register office (Ref. 8d 41) during the
third quarter of the year. |
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43R209
|
Norman
Collett |
Born in 1942
at Manchester |
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43Q138
|
Alfred Collett was born on 30th January
1913 at 5 Corporation Street in Salford, Lancashire, his birth recorded at
Salford register office (Ref. 8d 26) during the first quarter of the year,
when his mother’s maiden-name was confirmed as Barlow. He was the youngest child of Alfred Thomas
Collett and his wife Elizabeth Ann Barlow.
He later married Elizabeth Ford and their only child was born just
over nine months after they were married, their wedding recorded at Salford
register office (Ref. 8d 122) during the second quarter of 1935. It was also while Alfred and Elizabeth were
still residing in Salford that he died in 1980, although his death was
recorded at Bury register office (Ref. 38 116) during the first three
months6of that year, following which he was buried at the Agecroft Cemetery
& Crematorium in Salford in 1st February 1980, at the age of
67. His son Allan is married but he is
the last of this family line, having no children. All the latest information was kindly
provided by John Holland in spring of 2014, whose links to the Collett family
are through his mother and his grandmother. |
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43R210
|
Allan Collett |
Born in 1935
at Salford, Lancashire |
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43R1
|
Oliver
Otto Collett junior was born in 1920 at |
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43S1
|
Barry
Oliver Collett |
Born in 1944
at Jefferson County, Iowa |
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43R2 |
Wilkerson
Collett, who was
known Wilk or Wilkie, was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird in Clay County on
12th April 1898 and was the first-born child of Preston Collett
and Sarah Asher. He was recorded as
William aged two years in 1900, and was Wilkie Collett in 1910 when was 13
years of age and with his family at Upper Red Bird. Although the record of his wedding has not
been found, it was the census in 1930 that provided the ages that they were
married, when Wilkerson Collett was 20 and his bride Phrona (aka
Frona/Franie) Asher was 17, which places the event around 1918/1919. That situation was confirmed in the Upper Red Bird census for 1920,
when Wilkie Collett, aged 21, was a general farmer with his own account and
renting a property on the road up to Blue Hole Creek, Farm #4 with his
wife Phronie Collett who was 18. As
the eldest child in the family, that day Wilkie and Phronie were living
immediately next to his father’s family at Farm #3. |
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Ten
years later, the census return for District 8 of Clay County in 1930
identified Wilki Collett residing at #245 Blue Hole Creek Road, where
his married brother Willie (below) was living at #242 next door
to their parents at #241. Wilki
was 32 and a general farmer, Phronia as 28, Mollie was eight, Warden was
five, Arlin was 2, and Clarence was one.
Living with them was Wilkie’s mother-in-law, 60-year-old Josie
Fenimore (?). |
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In
1940 for the census at District 4 in Clay County Wilk Collett was 43 and a
timber cutter who was living on Blue Hole Creek Road in the same house as in
1935. His wife Franie was 38, Walden
was 15, Arlen was 13, Clarence was 11, Lousie was eight, Felcie was six, and
Paul was three years old. Missing that
day was the couple’s eldest child Mollie, whose wedding had already taken
place thirty months earlier. Two years
later, the US Draft Registration for the Second World War for 16th
February 1942 included Wilk Collett of Ashers Fork who had been born at Clay
County on the date above, whose next-of-kin was Franie Collett, his wife, at
a time in his life when he was employed by the Bledsoe & Ruth Lumber
Company in Manchester. |
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According
to the next census in 1950, Wilk Collett was 58 and an employer whose firm
was the Black Rolling Private Company, where his two eldest children living
at home that day were employed without pay.
In addition to them, Wilk’s younger brother James had his own timber
cutting business, which may have been a joint venture with Wilk’s eldest
married son Walden. On that day four
members of the Collett family were residing at Blue Hole Water, Red Bird;
Wilk at #77, son Walden at #78, brother James (below) at
#79, and brother Willie (below) at #80. It was a similar story in 1930 and 1940,
when Blue
Hole Creek Road was the home of three related Collett families in the former,
and a different three Collett families in the latter. In 1930 the three were living in adjacent
properties, and they were Wilkerson (Wilk) and his two younger brothers
Willie, and James (Jim) (below), and in 1940 it was Wilk at #245, while at #241 was his father
Preston, and at #242 his brother Willie. Wilkerson
Collett, again as Wilk, was 78 when he died on 5th August 1976 at
Ashers Fork in Clay County and was buried in Collett Cemetery in Bell County,
Kentucky. The couple’s eldest child, Mollie Collett,
was 18 when she married Lawrence Jackson who was 21, their wedding registered
at Clay County on 27th November 1937, when her parents were
confirmed as Wilk Collett and Frona Asher.
Lawrence was the son of George Jackson and Mollie Mills. |
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43S2
|
Mollie Collett |
Born in 1922
at Ashers Fork, Clay County |
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43S3
|
Walden
Collett |
Born in 1925
at Ashers Fork, Clay County |
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43S4
|
Arlen Collett |
Born in 1927
at Clay County, Kentucky |
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43S5
|
Clarence Collett |
Born in 1929
at Clay County, Kentucky |
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43S6
|
Lois Collett |
Born in 1932
at Clay County, Kentucky |
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43S7
|
Felcie Collett |
Born in 1935
at Clay County, Kentucky |
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43S8
|
Paul Collett |
Born in 1937
at Clay County, Kentucky |
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43S9
|
Dora Collett |
Born in 1940
at Clay County, Kentucky |
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43R3 |
William
Collett, who was
known as Willie, was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird in Clay County on 15th
April 1901, the second child of Preston and Sarah Collett. It was on 30th November 1924, at
Erose in Knox County, when 22-year-old Willie Collett, the son of Preston and
Sarah Collett, married Lindima (aka Loedema) Ferrell, the daughter of
W M Ferrell and Ellen Ferrell who was 18.
William was the
first of four Collett siblings to marry into the Farrell/Ferrell family, the
other three being sisters Norma and Malvie, and brother Jim (below). |
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Five
years after their wedding day, the census in 1930 recorded the couple and
their two children at #242 Blue Hole Creek Road in Red Bird River as
Willie Collett who 26 and a general farmer, Loedema (as Louvenia)
Collett who was 24, Ford Collett who was five, and Helen who was two years of
age. Living right next door in 1930,
at #241, was Willie’s father, mother, and four of their younger
children, and further along the road at #245, was Willie’s older
brother Wilki Collett (above), his wife, their four children, and his
mother-in-law. |
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Ten
years after that day, it was the same four members of the family who were
again residing at Blue Hole in Clay County in 1940, by which time William
Collett was 35 and a farmer, Loedema Collett was 30 and their two children
were Ford who was 14, and Helen who was 12.
On either side of the family in 1940 were brothers Wilk (above)
and Jim (below). It was
sometime later, during the 1940s, that the couple adopted two young children
to complete their family, perhaps after their own children had left home. |
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In the 1950
census for Blue Hole
Water, Red Bird River, Willie Collett was 48 and a farmer when his wife
was Sallie Collett who was 39, when their married son Ford was living nearby. On that day, the two adopted children were described
as the stepchildren of Willie Collett.
They were Jack Collett aged 11, and Christine Collett who was 10,
whose original surname of Eldayea had been scored through. Again,
as Willie Collett, he died in Bell County on 8th July 1974 at the
age of 73, and was buried at the Smith Family Cemetery in Ashers Fork, Clay
County. Loedema
Ferrell Collett, who was born in 1908 at Leslie County, Kentucky, died in
1947 at Blue Hole in Clay County. |
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43S10
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Ford
Collett |
Born in 1926 at Red Bird River,
Kentucky |
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43S11
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Helen
Collett |
Born in 1929 at Red Bird River,
Kentucky |
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43S12
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Jack Collett – adopted |
Born in 1938
at Kentucky |
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43S13
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Christine Collett - adopted |
Born in 1940
at Kentucky |
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43R4 |
Tolman Collett
was born at Big Creek, Upper Red Bird, between 1901 and 1903 but, at the time
of his death on 4th April 1956 in Harlan Hospital, he was
described as the son of Sarah Asher Collett, whose date of birth was 5th
March 1901. That must have been an
error, since his brother William (above) was born on 15th April
1901. Furthermore, in the Upper Red
Bird census returns in 1910 and 1920, he was named in error as Thomas Collett
aged seven and 16 years, when living there with his parents Preston Collett
and Sarah Collett nee Asher.
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Tolman Collett, a miner,
married Gladys Gatliff at Highsplint, Harlan County on 9th March
1926 when he was recorded as 22 with Gladys being only 17 and the child of
Jesse and Myrtle Gatliff. The marriage
register confirmed he was the son of Preston and Sarah Collett, when one of
the witnesses was his older married brother Willie Collett. By 1930 the couple was living at Highsplint
where 23-year-old Tolman was a track layer with the local coal mining
company, and Gladys was 17 who had already given birth to their first two
children, James D Collett aged three, and Ancil M Collett who was one year
old. The same census record also
stated that Tolman was 18 on their wedding day, and Gladys was 13. |
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Ten years later the
census in 1940 recorded the couple with six children living and working at
Kettle Island Camp in Bell County, where Tolman Collett was 35 and a miner
with the coal mining company. Gladys
was 27, son Jack was 13, Moses was 11, Kathleen was eight, Roy was three, and
Jimmie was one year old. Four more children were added to their
family during the following decade, with one of them failing to survive
beyond three days. He was Oscar
Collett, born at Highsplint, Harlan County on 17th December 1947,
who died on 20th December from congenital heart disease. His death certificate named his parents as
Tolman Collett and Gladys Gatliff, with Tolman being the informant of his
tragic end of life. |
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The Highsplint census in 1950 listed the family as
follows. Tolman was 48 and employed as
a trackman in the business of coal mining, his wife Gladys was 37, when their
six children were Kathleen 18, Roy L Collett 13, Jimmie 11, Richard G Collett
who was eight, David W Collett ho was six, and Thomas E Collett who was four
years of age. |
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Six years
after that day, and upon his passing in April 1956, his death certificate
revealed that he was a former trackman with a coal mining company living at
Highsplint, who was then buried at Ridgeway-Creech Cemetery in Ridgeway,
Harlan County. |
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43S14
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James Douglas Collett |
Born in 1927 at Highsplint, Harlan County |
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43S15
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Ancil Moses Collett |
Born in 1928 at Highsplint, Harlan County |
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43S16
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Kathleen Collett |
Born in 1932 at Kettle Island, Bell County |
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43S17
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Roy L Collett |
Born on 09.07.1936 at Kettle Island |
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43S18
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Jimmy R Collett |
Born in 1938 at Kettle Island, Bell County |
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43S19
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Richard Gerald Collett |
Born in 1941 at Highsplint, Harlan County |
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43S20
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David W Collett |
Born on 23.04.1943 at Kettle Island |
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43S21
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Thomas E Collett |
Born in 1945 at Kettle Island, Bell County |
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43S22
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Oscar Glen Collett |
Born in 1947 at Highsplint, Harlan County |
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