(Click on the images to enlarge.)
I traced Grandma Curry's family all the way back to 1593 in St. Lawrence Jewry, London England and the baptism of her 10th Great-Grandfather, Thomas Goodfellow. His father, as listed on the copy of his baptismal record below, was Jon Goodfellow. I have to assume that because I was able to go back so far that this family had some profession, although I did not find anything else about them until I stumbled upon some cemetery records from Surrey County North Carolina.
James Butcher, Grandma Curry's Great-Grandfather, was born in Tingewick Buckinghamshire England in 1757. He married Sarah Sally Prichett and at some point sets sail for America. They lived in Surrey County North Carolina. There is an abandoned private cemetery in Rockford North Carolina that is said to be the James Butcher Family Cemetery. Click this link to read about the cemetery. Buried there are the father, James Sr, his wife Sally, their daughter Margaret, their son James Jr, his wife Elizabeth Freeman, their son Chadwell and his wife Frances. That would be a neat place to visit.
I found in the 1900 Census a listing for a farmer in Walnut Grove Missouri by the name of Thomas Jefferson Butcher Jr. He was head of household and a 43 year old widower. His wife, Josephine Ann Evans, passed away in 1895, just two years after Grandma Curry was born. He had a total of 6 children in the house...all in school. Their names were Fred 17, Claude 14, Nellie 12, Julia 10, Malinda 9 and Lela 6. He had a niece named Shaull Fannie who was 19 years old living with him at this time. One neat thing to note here...you will see an entry in that same page of the census that lists Stephen Evans, who is Josephine's father. At this time he is a 64 year old widower with 4 young children at home and his mother Melinda 83 also lives with them. Stephen is also a farmer. This same year Thomas Jr married Lydia Hengon.
The 1910 census again shows Thomas Jefferson Butcher married to second wife Liddie Butcher living with Lizzie (Lela) 19, Marie 6 and Wilbur 2. In the 1920 census, Wilbur 63 and Lydia live with their two young children Marie 16 and Wilbur 12.
In that same 1920 census we see RJ Curry and (Lela) Lizzie after they homesteaded in Colorado with 2 kids...Myrtle R. (7) and Grace V. (4.5). Was Aunt Ruth's name MYRTLE!?
Grandma and Grandpa Curry married on April 24, 1911 in Polk County and had 5 daughters. The marriage license states that he was over 21 and she was over 18... but she was born in 1893, which made her 17, just shy of her 18th birthday, when they married.
