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| Julia Anna Peters, James W. Wallace |
Birth date: September 9, 1872
Marriages:
- April 30, 1895 to William Shell. Anna was 22 and William was 27. They had one child, Lena Mabel Shell
- August 20, 1899 to James W. Wallace. Anna was 26 and James was 32. They had two children, Adrian Floyd and Cecil Denver.
Julia Anna has been a really interesting person to research. It seems like she went by her first name Julia when she was young (see the 1880 Census), but by her first marriage, she was called by her middle name Anna or Annie (see the subsequent censuses).
As you can see from the 1880 census, Julia is the second youngest child in her family. Her father had passed away just a year before the census was taken, so Julia's mother Sarah was listed as the head of household. Julia's older brothers helped to support the family (if you look at the 1880 census in Family Search, you can see Julia's older brother George W and his family listed right before Julia's family unit), but you wonder how Julia's life and perspective were different without her father around for much of her life.
Did you know that the 1890 U.S. Census was burned? Evidently there was an fire in the basement where it was kept, and all fragments except a few maps were destroyed as a result. This fire is what prompted the United States to establish the National Archives. So we don't have any of the 1890 Census records. It would be nice to know more about Julia's family at this point, but I guess we'll just have to live with the gap.
In 1895, Annie married William Shell (I found their marriage license/certificate!). About a year later, their daughter Mabel was born. Around 1898, William passed away. What a tragedy! I'm sure that Annie was distraught! On top of having a young child and not knowing how she was going to survive financially, her husband and companion was no longer there for her.
Annie married again, about a year and a half after William's passing. She married James Wallace, also a young widower. His first wife had passed away three years earlier, just a few months after he and she married. James and Annie married just in time to have their first year of marriage preserved by the 1900 US Census. Mabel is 4 at this point, and James and Annie had been married for about a year. They were renting a house that didn't have a farm, but most of the people living near them lived on farms.
At the 1910 Census, James and Annie seem to have a really good life going for them. They own their own farm free of mortgage! Their children are growing and going to school--at this point, they have two boys (Adrian, 9, and Cecil, 1.5 years - here's his birth record from 1908) in addition to Annie's daughter Mabel. James seems to have steady work at the sawmill, which brings in a more reliable income than the farm would.
Not much seems to have changed by the 1920 Census except that Mabel has moved on, probably to marry and start her own family. I couldn't find a marriage record for her, so I'm not sure who she married or if she did marry. Annie's son Adrian got married two years after the census was taken, so Annie and James were left with only their youngest child at home, making Cecil essentially an only child for his teenage years.
Sometime before 1930, Annie and James sold their farm and moved into town. James started up a grocery store, and Annie worked there as a clerk. Unfortunately, it seems like that business didn't work out for them, because in 1940 James was working at the saw mill again.
Annie was 83 when she passed away.
1880 Census
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MZ1D-6Y5
Marriage to William Shell:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XD59-LCQ
Birth of Cecil Denver Wallace, Sr. (1908):
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X67W-S5S
Marriage of son, Adrian Peters (1922):
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/XZ1N-7LL
1900 Census:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MMCC-1R8
1910 Census:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MLNF-1ST
1920 Census:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/MDBS-5VX
1930 Census:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/X4S4-YXF
1940 Census:
https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/KWD1-6W5
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