Day 21 - Lillie Bower Rhea

Lillie Bower Rhea and William Nelson Snodgrass

It is never good to assume you know something. Lillie's birth and death dates are taken from the census and find a grave. Find a grave only shows years on the site. There is a photo of the headstone but it only shows years. I have a month, day, and year, brought back by my mom when she copied family Bibles. Then I checked for new hints and found a Social Security Death Index with totally different dates. Who's right? I am not using Social Security. It says that Lillie Snodgrass died in August 1976, 24 years after the date on the headstone. The headstone identifies her as Lillie Rhea Snodgrass. Social Security does not show a middle or maiden name and could be someone else. 

So we start. Lillie Bower Rhea was born in November 1884. That's what the 1900 Census shows. She never knew her father who was killed before she was born. 

Lillie married William Nelson Snodgrass in 1914. We don't know how he got to Tennessee because his family is all in Virginia. Lillie, like William and Victor, married late at age 30 and I know she was still living at home.

Even after she married, they lived in the valley until the 1930 census shows them in Virginia, Nelson's family home. I am left to wonder if she stayed in Sneedville until Jane died in 1926, just to be there for her mother.  

In the letters Jane wrote to my grandparents, she mentions Lilly and Nelson. 

 Oct. 10 - 1919

Lillie says come out and help her quilt some evening and she will help next evening. She is quilting 2 and wants to quilt 3 more. 

1/2/1919

Lillies baby Ross, is a fine looking boy. He favors my Wm a good deal. is a large boy of his age. Lillies health some better the past 6 months. 

11/22/1918

Nelson Snodgrass is sending a check for the rents, which is 5 dollars and 44 cts. Him and Lillie still lives where Floyd did live when you was here. 

Lillie and Nelson had three children, a girl and two boys. Ross, who is mentioned in the letter, Esther and Kyle. 

Lillie died in 1952 at the age of 68. Nelson died in 1959 at the age of 90.