August 27

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO...

Agnes Earle Carter Baker 1913-2002

Agnes Carter was the daughter of John Martin Carter and Amy Tamsett. 

John Martin Carter was a brother of Adaline Carter Arnold. Adaline Carter Arnold was the mother of Annie Arnold Hicks. (So... Agnes was a 1st cousin of my great-grandmother, Annie Hicks.)

Agnes married Elmer Sidney Baker

and they had three children: Melvin Eugene, Harold Wayne, and Roy Glen.

Melvin Eugene died at age 23. (I don't know the cause of death.) The only photo I have of him is from his gravestone.

I was surprised to find that I actually have more pictures of Agnes than I thought -- she isn't mentioned a lot in the family history (no interesting anecdotes, as with some of the other Carters and Arnolds). But she is in several group photos.

Wilma Arnold and Agnes Carter

I did find out one interesting tidbit about one of her sons -- the one who died at age 23. He was married to Elizabeth Johnson (Garrett). 

She was only 19 years old when he died. But his grave has a double headstone with her name on it

Not surprisingly, she married again, so her last name at death was Garrett. She is buried in the same cemetery (Pine Grove) but with a gravestone of her own. 

Neither her gravestone nor her obituary states who her 2nd husband was. There are two Garrett brothers from that community (Ed and Everett) who were married to two Arnold sisters (Verlie and Mildred). Elizabeth had a sister (Violet) who married another Garrett brother (O'Dell). There are two more Garrett brothers from that same family. I wondered if Elizabeth might have married one of them, so I did some research. Both William Garrett and Elizabeth's obituaries mention a son named Elvis -- and neither of them mentions their spouse, which is unusual -- so I assume Elizabeth married (and divorced?) William Garrett. That makes four out of five Garrett brothers who married our Arnold/Carter relatives. 

The last Garrett brother's (Charlie) obituary also does not say who his wife was. I guess that's just a 'thing' with those Garretts. I did some more digging and found out his first wife's name was Una Faye Rains, and his 2nd wife's name was Stella Ruth Ruyle. (Her last name at death was Gay. She had a child with Charlie Garrett that died at age 2 months. All her other children have the last name Gay, and her obituary also doesn't name her spouses.) As far as I know, neither Una Fay nor Stella Ruth is related to us.

 

Well, this is the kind of stuff I do for fun.