Wordless Wednesday: An Accidental Work of Art "Time is Big; Life is Fleeting"

Wayne N. Walker (1931-2018) and Paul E. Walker (1929-2019), 1933 in Weir, CO.

Copyright © 2020 by Kevin W. Walker

Colorado Marriage Record Keith G. Walker and Mattie (Needham) McNeill, 11/16/1917

County: Sedgewick
Husband: Walker, Keith G. age 23
Wife: McNeill, Mattie age 32
Place: Julesburg, Colo. Date: Nove 16, 1917
Official Performing Ceremony: G.H. Austin, County Judge, of Julesburg Colo.
Reported by: Fred Filatreau, of Julesburg, Colo.

This marriage was under a cloud.  My grandmother was pregnant by my grandfather and married to another man.  She divorced her first husband, the new couple moved out of state, and here got married by a county judge instead of a minister. To their credit they remained together until death.  As the years rolled by my grandparents were conscious of their age difference and whenever possible wold lie about their ages to decrease the difference; My grandfather would get older by a few years, and my grandmother would get younger by the same. Nothing is easy for the genealogist.


Copyright © 2016 by Kevin W. Walker

Obituary Sunday: Mattie Mae (Needham) McNeill Walker, 1884-1938

RITES HELD FOR MRS. K.G. WALKER AT DIX 

     Funeral services for Mrs. K.G. Walker, 54, of Dix, were held Friday afternoon at 2 o'clock at the Union Presbyterian church at Dix, Reverend John C. Weston, of Kimball, pastor of the Dix church officiated.
     Mrs. Walker died Tuesday at the University Hospital in Omaha following two months' serious illness.  She had been in poor health the past two years according to a Kimball physician under whose care she had been during that time.
     Mattie Mae Walker, daughter of Arthur and Camilla Needham, was born at Arnold, Nebraska, May 5, 1884.
     She was baptized and joined the Methodist church at Arnold at the age of 14.  She was a graduate of the Arnold high school and the Broken Bow Normal school and taught school five years.
     In 1906 she married Clifton McNeil and to this union four children were born who are: Lee, Frances, Dorothy and Arthur.
     She was united in marriage to Keith G. Walker of Arnold at Julesburg, Colorado, in 1917.  After residing at Arnold for about a year, they moved to Dix.  To this union were born seven children; two infant boys preceded her in death.
     The family moved near Weir, Colorado, in 1930 where Mrs. Walker was a member of the Methodist Episcopal churches at Julesburg and Ovid, Colorado.
     Returning to Dix in 1936, Mrs. Walker spent the remaining years of her life there until her recent illness.
     At Dix she was a faithful member of the Presbyterian church and Ladies' Kensington Society.
     Relatives who survive are her husband and nine children: Mrs. W.L. Wistrom, Violet, Betty, Paul, and Wayne, all of Dix.  Frances Walker of Denver, Mrs. Tracy Ringoldsby of Cheyenne, Arthur Walker of North Platte and Ralph of San Diego, California; a brother Leroy Needham of Forest Grove, Oregon; and three grandchildren.
     Reverend Weston's theme at the funeral service was "If it Were Not So I Would Have Told You."

This is my paternal grandmother, dying from cancer when my father was only eight years old.  I do not know yet from which Nebraska newspaper this is taken, the clipping was found in the effects of my aunt Jenifer's ("Frances") estate.

It was from this obituary I discovered the marriage record for my grandparents in Colorado, after assuming it was destroyed in a county courthouse fire in Nebraska.


Copyright © 2016 by Kevin W. Walker