John Watkins WILCE (1841) (General)

by wilcer, Sunday, April 05, 2009, 19:04 (5784 days ago) @ admin

Thanks to you both, David and Joss. I've contacted the registration office in Ross-on-Wye and sent off a letter to Beverly in Arizona. Fingers crossed!

I also asked my grandmother earlier today if she remembered anything about her husband's grandfather, and although she didn't know about his parents, she did tell me a couple of stories about him. John Watkins Wilce was a stonemason in Milwaukee, with his handiwork all over the buildings downtown. One day, he was driving a wagon filled with stones when his horse was struck by lightning and killed. Apparently he was fine, but what are the odds? She also told me-- and I vaguely remembered this, but had forgotten to write it down the first time-- that his wife of many years, with whom he'd moved from Ruardean and who was the father of his four daughters (we're not sure of the number, because I've only been able to pinpoint three names), Elizabeth nee Grubb, died in 1884, and unable to take care of the girls and the house himself and keep working, he hired a housekeeper named Rosetta Marcy/Mary Woodworth, whose family had moved to Milwaukee from Cornwallis, Nova Scotia but whose progenitor, Walter Woodworth (1612-1685), had arrived in Plymouth, Massachusetts from Kent in the early 17th century. Three years later, John and Rosetta were married, and a year or so after that, his first and only son and my great grandfather, John Woodworth Wilce, was born. Or so the story goes.

Bekah