I just can’t wait. I should try to find out some more information, but I’m too excited. Two of my grandmother’s pictures have interested me for quite some time. One had been identified as Ida Steadman, but that had been crossed out and it was labeled as Lottie Ledford.
The other one was labeled as Lottie Ledford’s baby. I had no idea how they fit into the family.
I finally realized, though that Lottie was a nickname for Charlotte and finally determined that the picture was one of Charlotte May Turner, daughter of Adrian Elbinas Turner and his wife Margaret F Lely. Lottie had married Millard Bynum Ledford in about 1898. Their son Millard B Leford was born in Baggs, Carbon, Wyoming on May 5th, 1899, and that is where they were living in 1900, where the census shows that her mother Margaret now Tree was living nearby.
After that I couldn’t find anything about her, so I was afraid that she and her baby had probably died, as I can’t imagine that Baggs Wyoming was a very easy place to live in, in the early 1900’s.
Then last night, I was looking at her more closely, and eureka!!! I found another family tree that showed that she had remarried to a Samuel Leslie Ward. Using that name I was able to find her in the 1910 and 1920 censuses and her death in 1947 in Longview, Washington. But what had happened to her first husband and baby? She had written a letter to my grandmother on Dec 10, 1902, and it seemed like she was with her husband and baby at that time. I kept searching, and found a record on the LDS site showing that the baby Millard had died on Jan 5, 1902 and had been buried in Clay County, North Carolina. Had her husband taken the baby and left her?
I searched further, and found a listing for the cemetery in Baggs, Carbon, Wyoming. There I found a record for Millard B Ledford, the father. He had died in October 1901 and was buried in the Baggs cemetery.
Had Lottie gone to visit her husband’s family after his death and her son died while they were there? Did she send her son to live with her husband’s family in NC, where he died? I don’t imagine we’ll ever know.
In her letter to my grandmother in 1902, she says that her brothers, Charley and Adrian (Eddy), are living with her and that “my baby and housework keep me busy”. BABY?? Her baby appears to have died, and he isn’t listed in the later censuses when she has remarried. I have a clue, though. Along with her first husband, I found a record for the Baggs Cemetery for an Alex Basco Ledford, 1901 – 1905. I don’t remember any other Ledford’s in that area in the 1900 census, so I believe that Charlotte had another baby around the time her husband died. I would guess that she may have sent her first baby to his father’s family, as she wouldn’t have had the means to support him and she probably had her hands full taking care of the new baby. I think the picture of the baby is probably Millard B Ledford. I doubt that she had the money to have a picture taken of her second baby, unless her brothers had paid for it.