_____________________
|
_Floyd BLAIR ________|
| |
| |_____________________
|
|
|--Michael BLAIR
|
| _Mr. TOMPKINS _______
| |
|_Lucy TOMPKINS ______|
|
|_Lucile MEADOWS _____+
_Hermanus COLE (KOOL) _+
| (1740 - 1813) m 1760
_Samuel COLE ________|
| (1765 - 1843) |
| |_Margaret SWARTWOUT ___+
| (1736 - ....) m 1760
|
|--George COLE
| (1807 - 1858)
| _George WELSH _________+
| | (1757 - 1837)
|_Rachel WELSH _______|
(1783 - ....) |
|_Nancy CANNON _________+
(1763 - 1834)
[498]
Married Gethiah H. Pierson 1832
Married Julia Celina Brown 1
_Alexander Bain MCRAE _+
| (1771 - 1849) m 1814
_Murdoch Hugh MCRAE ______|
| (1826 - 1907) m 1852 |
| |_Effey MCRAE __________+
| (1793 - 1862) m 1814
|
|--Leila Elizabeth MCRAE
| (1869 - 1901)
| _Thomas Lea WILLCOX ___+
| | (1812 - 1897) m 1830
|_Elizabeth Tammy WILLCOX _|
(1835 - 1888) m 1852 |
|_Abigail MCDUFFIE _____
(1816 - ....) m 1830
[267]
Many years ago, the compiler of this genealogy, Laura Knight-Jadczyk,
was told a peculiar story about Schuyler Grant Meadows having a first
wife and family. To my knowledge, no one else in the family had ever
heard the story, but it was noted by my mother, Alice Meadows Knight,
that Great Grandpa was singularly reticent about his past and seemed to
have no connections other than his brothers and sisters. But, the
story was related by the Reverend Doctor Garfield Evans, a retired
Methodist Missionary and Sunday School Teacher at the Methodist Church
in Hudson, Florida.
Very briefly, the tale was that Schuyler Grant Meadows met Mary
Alice Wimbish while working at the Macon Church and they fell in love.
Whether they "acted" on this difficult situation is not known, but what
was told to me was that the first wife committed suicide upon learning
of this loss of her husband's affections. The uncles of Leila
Elizabeth took the child(ren) and informed Schuyler Grant never to try
to contact them in any way, that he had forfeited his rights as a
father by his infidelity.
According to Dr. Evans, threats were made and a scandal ensued
which caused the Methodist Church organization to "discipline" Schuyler
Grant, and he was reduced to farming and teaching for a living, and
that this was the precipitating factor in the family moving from
Georgia to Florida.
Apparently, during this crisis in his life, Dr. Evans continued to
be a friend to Schuyler Grant Meadows, and eventually succeeded in
persuading the Church to reconsider the case, and Schuyler Grant was
appointed to the church in Riverview, Florida.
During the gathering of the records for the family tree, it was
discovered that no marriage record for Grant and Mary Alice Wimbish
could be found. This was strange, considering the fact that both were
church members, and one would think their marriage would have been
recorded in the church of which they were members. But all efforts
produced no documentation.
But, a marriage between Schuyler Grant Meadows and Miss Leila
Elizabeth McRae WAS found. Further, the birth date of this Schuyler
Grant matched the date of our ancestor, and the location was "right"
for it to have been him. No record of a divorce was found, and Leila
Elizabeth McRae Meadows died in 1901, which was AFTER the birth of the
first child of Grant and Mary Alice.
So, it seems that the story may have been true . Whether there was
EVER a legal marriage between Schuyler Grant Meadows and Mary Alice
Wimbish appears doubtful at this point. Perhaps, after living as
"husband and wife," and already having a child, they never did get
legally married, or did so in a place and at a time that would make it
almost impossible to discover the record..
I have searched and searched and can find no marriage for them.
Yet, I found the marriage of Grant to Leila... and know that Wilbur
Wimbish was born in 1900, and Leila did not die until 1901.
Perhaps Leila DID commit suicide. Perhaps not. And Dr. Evans has
passed away and there is no one who can clarify this for us now.