Meri's Musings

My Valentine's Day Sepia Saturday post featured a love story about a young woman and her high school sweetie who eloped during college, much to the ire of her parents. Let me introduce her parents: Clara Davidson Biggs and William A. "Willie" Biggs. If you remember, Willie and Clara wanted Leota's marriage annulled. Even tried to get the sheriff to arrest their new son-in-law. Welcome to the family! Willie and Clara were both born in McDonald County, Missouri in the 1880s. Clara was the daughter of Thomas Davidson  and Mary Anne Harrell. Willie was the youngest son of John Biggs and Dicy Reed. John and Dicy were my great-great grandparents on my dad's side and Willie was the brother of my great-grandmother, Mary (Biggs) Arnett. Willie and Clara got married about 1905 when Willie was 22 and Clara was 17. Leota was born in December 1906. Employment prospects in McDonald County were not auspicious and by 1910, this little family was living in Enid, Oklahoma. ...

The photo today is grainy and blurry, the result of scanning and trying to enlarge  a tiny photo taken by my paternal grandfather  Lloyd Arnett when he was a teen. The man with the horse and buggy is John James Madison Biggs. Lloyd's mother was Mary Biggs, daughter of John and his wife Dicy Reed Biggs. John James Madison Biggs was born March 5, 1837 in McCracken County, Kentucky to Elijah Biggs, Jr. and his wife Mary "Polly" Brown, the fourth of eight known children, though there were said to be ten. The family moved to Illinois when John was a boy and his father Elijah died when John was only 12. About a year later, Polly Brown Biggs married Larkin Cantrell. For whatever reason, shortly after her marriage, she farmed out the boys to a local Williamson County family, J.W. McCreery and his wife.  All the Biggs boys were said to have served in the Union army during the Civil War, but I've never found John's records.  John married Dicy Caroline Reed  in...