Hugh Watt and Mary Black
Hugh Watt was born in County Down, Ireland in 1723. He married Mary Black. They had at least one child. Their son George Watt was born in 1765 in County Down, Ireland. He married Barbara Menown (1771). During his lifetime, he migrated to Green County, Ohio. George and Barbara had several children: Mary (1797), Barbara (1798), Hugh (1803), George (1807), Elizabeth (1810), Margaret (1812), and Jane (1816).
George Watt and Jane Findley McClelland
The son of George and Barbara, George was born in Belfast, County Down, Ireland. His father was 42 years old at the time of his birth, and his mother was 36. His mother died He relocated to Xenia, Greene, Ohio where he met the daughter of Robert McClelland. His occupation is identified on a census record as being a tailor.
He and Jane Findley McClelland (1816) had thirteen children, twelve of which survived to adulthood: Elizabeth (1839), William (1840), Martha (1842), Nancy (1843), John (1845), Margaret (1847), Mary (1849), Robert (1851), Sarah (1853), Samuel (1855), High (1857), Infant Watt (1859), and Ada (1860). George died when he was 58 years old. |
John Watt and Mary Louisa Woods
Their son, John Watt, was born near Xenia, Green, Ohio in 1845. In 1862, John participated in military service. He served in the Union Army during the Cilvil War. At the age of 17, he had enlisted in Company F the 110th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. he was wounded in the Battle of Winchester, Virginia in 1863. He was discharged in 1865. He married Mary Louisa Woods in 1869 at the age of 23. John and Mary had seven children: Isaac (1873), George (1875), Mary (1878), Margaret (1880), Sarah (1883), Anna (1886), Martha (1890).
George M. Watt and Cora Virginia Hamill
George M. Watt was born in 1875 in Chetopa, Labette, Kansas. In 1900 he married Cora Virginia Hamill in Fredonia, Wilson, Kansas. George and Cora had seven children: Mary (1901), Alice (1903), Nora (1904), John (1906), George (1908), Eula (1914), Seward (1919).
The Watt family traveled when their children were young. Alice may have recorded this story in a self-titled volume "Memories of Our Dear Parents George Menoun Watt and Cora Virginia Hamill Watt": |
In the fall of 1898, the John Ephraim Hamill family arrived at their new home in Wilson County, Kansas from Humansville, Missouri, having traded property with the Ditmer family of Kansas. The Hamill house was one and one half miles from the John Martin Watt house. In due time, George, then twenty-two, met Cora, then sixteen and one half. He escorted her about in his new buggy, with a high stepping team of horses that could win any race with other young hopefuls on the country road. The romance was followed by engagement, then marriage on September 5th 1900. A two room house was built on the corner of the Watt, 1870, Homestead for Mr. and Mrs. George M. Watt.
The first little darling to arrive was
Mary Opal on June 14, 1901 followed by
Alice Ellen on February 1, 1903
Nora Ethel on August 23, 1904
John Wilson on July 25, 1906
making a cozy little houseful!
Seven years of marriage and four adorable children living in the little house one half mile from Grandma Watt and one mile from Grandpa Hamill's. All the aunts and uncles to play and tease and also to help with us. We were well entertained and happy.
Then a traumatic change developed. Our Papa's health was failing. Dr. Jones advised him to go to a drier climate. With hope and courage, Papa and Momma decided to have a sale and go West, destination unknown. A covered wagon was assembled, ready for traveling after the sale.
The last night we spent at Grandpa and Grandma Hamill's. With Doll and Amy, our beautiful bay team of horses, hitched to the covered wagon in the road in front of the house, we said our goodbyes, Grandpa saying, "You're taking our babies away". Papa drove around the corner slowly, with the family following, and we children waved from the back of the wagon at least a half mile down the road.
We visited a few days with Uncle Frank and Aunt May Ellingsworth at their farm near Coney, Kansas. Then we went to Grey County where Uncle Robert and Aunt Letha Hamill, and Uncle Homer and Aunt Leonia Russell lived. The cousins and we children had a great time, while the adults visited. After which we headed west again, a long lonesome road! No cars of course, and seldom a buggy or wagon. We would stop in towns at the public watering troughs for the horses to drink, and to buy some more crackers and cheese and bologna, etc.. We camped at school yards, where water was available, and one night asked if we could camp on the roadside in front of a farm house. They were wonderful people --- after they did their milking that evening they brought us a gallon of milk. Oh, what a treat!
Our covered wagon bed was packed and on top were the bed mattresses --- our family bed at night and play area in the day time, except when we ran and played behind the wagon for exercise. On the outside of the wagon the wash tub, boiler, fry pan, ax, hammer and who knows what else hung. Papa built a fire each evening and morning where Mamma cooked our meals.
It was an interesting trip. Then came the day that we crossed the Kansas line into Colorado. We were traveling on the Sante Fe Trail. The first town in Colorado was Holly, where the two Sheperd families and Nels Lemon's from our part of Kansas lived. Apparently they were glad to see someone from home, as well as Papa and Mamma were glad to see them. The men were working in the Holly Sugar Beet Factory. Papa applied for work and was hired, so that meant we would be there for the winter.
Papa found a spot he could build a square board floor off the ground, and he walled up probably three feet, then covered with a big tent. They brought a cook stove with stovepipe to go through the center. We were cozy and warm. Opal went to school, Papa worked night shift --- wonder how he slept in the daytime with us playing and noisy?
In due time, Papa was persuaded to go out south to consider homesteading. They had just the right location --- since he had a family --- this quarter section was just across the road from the land given for a school. Papa and Mamma decided to Homestead in Prowers County, Colorado, township twenty-six, eighteen miles south of Holly. When the sugar beet season was finished, we moved out there and lived in tent and overjet (the wagon cover), while our half-dugout house was being built. That spring the sod school house was started. We watched the slabs of sod rolled over by plows, then stacked up to make walls. One door across one corner and windows on three sides, dirt floor at first. In the fall was the first term of school with Miss Ethel Crabill as teacher. Scholars came from bordering districts and there was a large enrollment; some not many years younger than the teacher. Each district had three month-terms, as that was all the money that there was to pay a teacher and other expenses. Our school was named "Enterprise". We went to Prarie [sic] Queen two or three terms, Rice School one term, and Webb one term. Another year Opal and Alice went to Holly. while we lived in Holly for the winter and Papa worked at the sugar factory.
On March 9, 1908, George Hamill Watt was born. He was a healthy lively little boy, and was much loved. Our third winter as we were living in Holly during the sugar beet season, Opal came down with Scarlet Fever and the whole family was quarantined. One after another became very ill, Alice and Hamill the last two. He was nearly two years old. Scarlet Fever was too much for the little one; his death was devastating to the family. Still quarantined and recuperating we mourned in silence. Sometime passed before the quarantine was lifted and we could go back to our home on the prarie [sic].
Holly Sugar Beet Factory was moved to Huntington Beach, California. The men were asked to move too, but that sounded so far away, beside to homestead you must live on the land most of the year for seven years.
By then Enterprise District was very well settled and a nice community. Sunday School was held every Sunday afternoon. Occasionally a traveling minister would be with us. There were basket dinners on Thanksgiving at school house, and various other programs with the local talent. Mamma belonged to the Women's Club, which met in the summertime. They would bring their needle work --- tatting, crocheting, patching button holes, and socks to darn. Of course all with children brought them along, walking across the prairie to each other's houses. Oh yes, refreshments too. When we were to go to Mrs. Mavis' our Mamma said, "You furnish the sugar and I will make taffy!" (The Mavis had a small county store.) In due time, our Mamma sent we children out to pick up cowchips for the fire to cook the taffy. Mamma was always ready for some fun. Toward Thanksgiving one year she and Melissa Taylor teased Louisa Moore about a turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. They had raised several turkeys that year and some were roosting on the barn. "Alright, if Cora and Melissa will get one off the barn." Which they did, it was off of the barn on the roost in the chicken house! When she protested they said, "Sure we got it off of the barn, it was in the chicken house." Everybody enjoyed the fun and helped eat it Thanksgiving Day. Louisa Moore was a dear person. She was the children's Sunday school teacher. We loved her. She visited us years later in California and joked about the turkey, lived it over again. She brought me a cob doll that Hazel, her grand-daughter, had played with when she had played with us and our dolls. When we moved back to Kansas, Mamma said, "No, you cannot take them, Kansas has cobs!"
Our deep well had the best water anyone ever drank and there was plenty of wind to turn the windmill. Kept the watering trough full and Mamma had a nice garden each summer that she irrigated. Of course, all household needs of water had to be carried in and out again after used.
A Mrs. Jones came bravely to homestead the quarter section east of ours. She had a small house built and sometime later decided that lonely life was not for her, so gave up. Papa went to Lamar and made arrangements to quickclaim the land. That worked out well for the Watt Homestead made one half section which doubled the acreage. he moved her house close to the dugout, making more house room.
(fig. 7) Harvest Time.
Harvest time at the farm in Colorado in the 1930s. Ivan once said that he can remember going to Colorado to work on the homestead when he was a teenager. He said that one time he was planting the corners on one field late one night. When he had finished, he decided to drive the tractor around the field to get back to the house. Suddenly, he saw a light coming toward him. Well, he was near a fence line, so he figured that someone was lost. When he got closer to the light he realized that it was his uncle's brother, who had been listening to him plowing the field and thought that he was lost.
Papa always had some row crop, maize, broom corn, etc.. Had feed and some to sell. Each summer he took the team and wagon to the Kansas Oklahoma line and followed northward as the wheat harvest progressed. He hauled wheat from thrashing machine to market. He made some trips to the cedars to cut fence posts and took to Lamar to sell. One trip he and Ora Crabill went and we had a blizzard. Our dugout was snowed in and we were worried about them. Was a happy day when we saw that wagon coming home. They had a good camp set up before the storm and did not suffer; also had a good sale of posts.
When he was gone to wheat harvest one summer, Mamma was up early and saw a coyote headed to our chicken house, so she got Papa's shot gun and proceeded to shoot the coyote. She scared him and he took off in the other direction. The gun kicked back and Mamma had a very sore and black shoulder. We were so sorry for her.
We children had a happy childhood. Every box, sack, string or whatnot that came to the house we made something with. We had cob dolls and paper dolls, balls made of socks and twine to play Ante-over. Played hide and seek, blackman's bluff, steps, pussy wants a corner, and house. We also had fun with tumbling tumble weeds.
The Enterprise Community was settled about the same years, meaning that most homesteads, (7 years), were finished about the same time. Seemed strange that family after family moved back where they came from. Oh what a chance in the community. Mr. Bouey asked Papa to go in his stick car as they were going to Topeka, Kansas. He then went to visit the relatives, the first and only visit.
Behold, when he came home with the announcement, "I've rented a farm and we are going back to Kansas." Mamma was unhappy! He said, "I thought you wanted to go back to where the wind didn't blow." She said, "I wanted to go on a visit not to live!" Things were tense for a while, but soon we were preparing to move in February 1914. Papa engaged a Santa Fe railroad car to take furniture and stock in which he would ride to care for livestock. Mamma and children stayed over night with the Houlton's, and we were to be in Holly for the early train next morning. They took us in their Stodard Dayton auto, after several tea kettles of hot water to warm it up that cold morning. We made it in time for the train. Rest, Kansas destination where Uncle Homer Russell met us. Then the Freight train brought Papa and our belongings, and we were soon settled on the rented Spring farm. We attended Thornburg school and made new friends whom we enjoyed through the summer and fall.
September the eleventh, nineteen-fourteen our darling sister Eula Gertrude arrived. She was the nicest baby in all of Kansas!
Near Christmas we moved to the Follett farm. Alice, Ethel and Wilson attended Bunker Hill School. Opal lived with Grandma Watt, and went to the Earlteton School.
The renter on Watt farm was leaving and Grandma wanted Papa to move and farm, which we did. Sort of back where we started from, (the Watt Homestead), though in the big house. Then Three Mounds School was our school. Opal, Alice and Ethel finished country school in 1919. Opal then went to Business College in Chanute; Ethel and Alice to Chanute High School.
Our baby brother, Seward Dale, had arrived on July 18th. The first weekend when we came home, he cried and was afraid of us. Or do you suppose he was teasing us?1
This is a continuation of our family history after Sister Alice left off.
As I remember, our parents were hard workers and raised their six children the best they knew how -- and if I do say so, I think they did a mighty good job. Opal attended a business college. The rest of us had high school. Alice and Ethel were teachers in grade school.
We lived on the Watt homestead in Wilson county -- 160 acres. They raised wheat, oats, corn, milk cows, pigs, chickens, and garden. The cows were milked by hand. The milk was separated and the cream sold. The separated milk was fed to the pigs, and of course we had milk and cream to us as it was needed. Also, the chickens laid eggs which we used and sold the surplus. That was our main income to buy other necessities. We had our own meat and vegetables; had to buy flour, sugar, coffee, etc. Mother used to say "If I ever get where I can, I'm gonna buy a whole stalk of bananas and sit down and eat the whole thing."
They gave a third of the grain as rent. Dad framed with horses until later years when he and some of mother's brothers bought a tractor in partnership and shared it with each other, also sharing in the work.
In the late 1920s a Great Depression hit. Banks closed and if you had any money on deposit you lost it -- a great shock. Needless to say the Watts were hit hard.
In 1930 the folks decided to go back to the homestead in Colorado. So they had a sale. They kept a team of horses, a jersey cow, some furniture, a wagon, a car, and odds and ends. Dad engaged a railroad car again and it was loaded in Earlton, Kansas. One end was for livestock and the other end for the furniture and so forth. Dad went on the train to care for things to Coolidge, Kansas, where it was unloaded. Ethel and Wilson had bought a Durant car. Ethel stayed in Kansas as she had a school to teach that year. The car was driven by Wilson Seward Dale and Mother rode with him. Uncle Jim and Aunt Nettie Hamill, Bernita Cleaver, and Eula followed. Somewhat different than a covered wagon. We all got to Coolidge about the same time. We camped there overnight then some of the Crabill boys came with a truck and hauled some of the things. Then Wilson, Bernita, and Eula took the team hitched to the wagon leading the cow and headed to the homestead. It all had to be built up again, buildings put up, well drilled, and real pioneering for over a year. Most of the old settlers had left before as the folks had.
The dust storms started and things got worse and worse. So in 1934 they pulled stakes and went to Washington to help in the apple harvest. When it was over, we went to California to visit Alice and Frank. Then dad and Wilson got work on the Irvine Ranch. Dad was very happy to have a steady income, it wasn't much but better than he had been accustomed to. Then he did some janitor work later.
Wilson wasn't happy in California so came back to the homestead and spent the rest of his life there. He was the only one who did not marry.
They spent the rest of their lives in sunny California.2
Their grandson, Ivan, recalled his trips to the farm:
I remember when we worked the first year on the ranch in Colorado her mother was there all summer. The Watt family owned the ranch in Colorado they homesteaded it. And Grandma Watt was helping do the cooking. And we lived in the dugout.
We were teenagers by the time we met her [Cora] so I don’t think she ever read anything to me. I remember she’d make comments about how straight we’d sit at the table, but we’d been threatened to sit straight. Then on my way through California to overseas assignments I’d stop there and visit, and I visited with her a couple of times. She was a nice lady. She just was grandmotherly.
I was not very close with most of my cousins and aunts and uncles. We went to Pennsylvania when I was eighteen months old. Then I was between eight to ninth grade when I first went to the ranch to work for the summer, and the next summer Vernon and I went out. When we finished that year we went to Texas. Because Dad had moved earlier and mom moved when we were out working in Colorado.
It was so flat you could see Oklahoma and Kansas if you got up on the windmill. You could see Holly, but you couldn’t discern what it was because the Arkansas river was between you and Holly. There were willow trees along the river and in the summer time they all had leaves on them and you couldn’t see holly. Actually if you knew what you was looking for you might see a church steeple or some power lines but you could’t see the town. But I told your grandmother about that, and the first time we went up for the family reunion in 1966 we got to the ranch and the first thing she did was climb the windmill and look around. 3
Mary Opal Watt and Charles Vernon White
Opal, the daughter of George and Cora was a Harvey Girl. Fred Harvey was disappointed when he made an unexpected visit to a rail restaurant that he owned in New Mexico and found that the waiters brawled and could not provide service to customers.4 As a Harvey girl, an employee of Fred Harvey, Opal was required to wear a black uniform. She provided service to the railroad passengers at different restaurants. These hard working Harvey girls helped revolutionize the way that food was delivered to the train passengers.
Opal would marry Charles Vernon White and have two children with him: Vernon Lyle and Ivan Dale (note: their information is listed on the White family page).
Ivan recalled this about his mother:
Opal would marry Charles Vernon White and have two children with him: Vernon Lyle and Ivan Dale (note: their information is listed on the White family page).
Ivan recalled this about his mother:
She was a good cook, and she trusted us because when we lived in Pennsylvania under school age for me, we’d go up and play in the woods and there were no fences and you could walk for two or three miles just playing out in the woods, ands eh never worried about where we were or she’d tell us whenever we was going to play “super time is at six” so you kept watching the sun and you was pretty much back home by six. [She was] five foot two, eyes of blue...size three shoes - I think - or three and a half. You know the shoes that they put out for display? That’s the size they wore, so when they were having a sale and they had those samples, she'd get them for half price.5
Alice Watt
Alice Watt, born February 1, 1903, was the second daughter of George and Cora Watt. Alice’s life was fairly nomadic. Born in Kansas, she and the other Watt children moved to Colorado. Alice married Frank Bell (1901-1946). They had two children Frank (1935-2009) and Evan (1937-). Alice died in February 1984 in California.
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Nora Ethel Watt
Born August 13, 1904 in Kansas, Nora Ethel Watt was the third daughter of George and Cora Watt. She married Paul Crabill (1907-1980). They had two children: Winona (1938-) and Alan (1941-1989).
Nephew Ivan White recalled going to Colorado during the summers and working with his uncle Paul on the farm. |
John Wilson Watt
John Wilson Watt was born on July 25, 1906 in Kansas to George and Cora Watt. Wilson never married. He died on April 3, 1971 in Colorado. Wilson was driving. A 1961 Ford Pickup and hit the rear end of a tractor being drive on the highway by Jimmy Holmes, who at the time was a ten year old child. Wilson did not recover from his injuries. Written in one obituary:
John Wilson watt was born to George And Cora Watt, July 25, 1906, the Watt family came to Colorado by covered wagon and homesteader 1/4 section where Wilson has resided, since. In 1914, the family moved back to Wilson County, Kansas and returned to Colorado in 1930. Due to the dust storms, the family left and moved to the state of Washington and later on to the state of California, where Mr. and Mrs. Watt lived the rest of their lives. In 1936, Wilson returned to the homestead, and has faithfully farmed it ever sense. He loved his prairie home and the way of life on the farm. Wilson Watt served one [unknown word] in the Army and received a medical discharge in 1943. Though Wilson lived alone, he loved people. His life was truly an example of Proverbs 18:24 where Solomon declares: “A man that hath friends must show himself friendly: and there is a friend that sticketh closer than a brother.” 6 |
George Hamill Watt
George Hamill Watt was born on March 7, 1908. He died in February 1910 from Scarlet Fever. The Watt siblings continued to talk about and mourn George for years to come; their descendants still know his name.
Eula Gertrude Watt
Eula was born on September 11, 1914 in Kansas. She married Orville “Jack” Umbarger (1911-2011). They had five children: Bonnie Colleen (1937-), Merwyn Gale (1941- 1941), Lynn David (1943-), Anita Sue (1944-), and Janis Maxine (1948-). She died June 27, 2006 in Thayer, Kansas.
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Seward Dale Watt
Figures
Fig. 1 - "George Watt" - contributed by Heather Wylie, taken from family pamphlet on the Watt family
Fig. 2 - "Mary L. Woods Watt and a Watt Baby" - contributed by Heather Wylie
Fig. 3 - "Watt Family Picture" - contributed by Heather Wylie
Fig. 4 - "George Watt" - contributed by Heather Wylie
Fig. 5 - "Kansas Homestead" - contributed by Heather Wylie
Fig. 6 - "Colorado Homestead" - contributed by Heather Wylie
Fig. 7 - "Harvest Time" - contributed by Heather Wylie
Fig. 8 - "Watt Men" - contributed by Heather Wylie; From left to right: Wilson Watt, George Watt, and Seward Watt.
Fig. 9 - "Watt Family" - contributed by Heather Wylie; Back Row: Alice, Nora, Opal, and John Wilson Front Row: Cora, Seward, Eula, and George
Fig. 10 - "Opal Watt White" - contributed by Heather Wylie; Picture taken in Clovis, New Mexico.
Fig. 11 - “Alice, Frank, and Frank Jr.” - contributed by Umbarger Family, Watt Reunion 2019
Fig. 12 - “ Nora and Paul” - contributed by Umbarger Family, Watt Reunion 2019
Fig. 13 - “Wilson, Cora, and George” - contributed by Umbarger Family, Watt Reunion 2019
Fig. 14 - “Eula and Alice” - contributed by Umbarger Family, Watt Reunion 2019
Fig. 15 - “Seward Watt” - contributed by Umbarger Family, Watt Reunion 2019
Fig. 2 - "Mary L. Woods Watt and a Watt Baby" - contributed by Heather Wylie
Fig. 3 - "Watt Family Picture" - contributed by Heather Wylie
Fig. 4 - "George Watt" - contributed by Heather Wylie
Fig. 5 - "Kansas Homestead" - contributed by Heather Wylie
Fig. 6 - "Colorado Homestead" - contributed by Heather Wylie
Fig. 7 - "Harvest Time" - contributed by Heather Wylie
Fig. 8 - "Watt Men" - contributed by Heather Wylie; From left to right: Wilson Watt, George Watt, and Seward Watt.
Fig. 9 - "Watt Family" - contributed by Heather Wylie; Back Row: Alice, Nora, Opal, and John Wilson Front Row: Cora, Seward, Eula, and George
Fig. 10 - "Opal Watt White" - contributed by Heather Wylie; Picture taken in Clovis, New Mexico.
Fig. 11 - “Alice, Frank, and Frank Jr.” - contributed by Umbarger Family, Watt Reunion 2019
Fig. 12 - “ Nora and Paul” - contributed by Umbarger Family, Watt Reunion 2019
Fig. 13 - “Wilson, Cora, and George” - contributed by Umbarger Family, Watt Reunion 2019
Fig. 14 - “Eula and Alice” - contributed by Umbarger Family, Watt Reunion 2019
Fig. 15 - “Seward Watt” - contributed by Umbarger Family, Watt Reunion 2019
Sources
1. Watt, Alice. "Memories of Our Dear Parents George Menoun Watt and Cora Virginia Hamill Watt" Written Interview. Date Unknown.
2. "Memories of Our Dear Parents George Menoun Watt and Cora Virginia Hamill Watt" Written Interview. Date Unknown.
3. White, Ivan.Personal Interview. 3 October 2011.
4. Peterson, Nancy B. Harvey Girls: Changing The West. Grit, September 12, 1993.
5. White, Ivan. Personal Interview 3 October 2011.
6. “John Wilson Watt” from unknown newspaper, 1971.
2. "Memories of Our Dear Parents George Menoun Watt and Cora Virginia Hamill Watt" Written Interview. Date Unknown.
3. White, Ivan.Personal Interview. 3 October 2011.
4. Peterson, Nancy B. Harvey Girls: Changing The West. Grit, September 12, 1993.
5. White, Ivan. Personal Interview 3 October 2011.
6. “John Wilson Watt” from unknown newspaper, 1971.