Alice Lillian (Jackson) Sherer married Louallen Russell Holt on 23 August 1913. Each had lost their spouse. Alice was 47 and LR 54. LR’s wife had given birth to several children and died at 41 years of age.
Alice had a daughter, my grandmother, and a late-in-life son, James, who never knew his own father who had died in 1907 of tuberculosis.
LR was a member of a prominent family that had lived in Nodaway County Missouri for many generations. He had a prosperous farm machinery sales business in Maryville. I don’t know how he and Alice met.
LR and Alice raised my father after his mother died in 1919. My dad was 8 years old when she died. LR and Alice left their lovely home in Maryville, LR’s family and friends, and his successful business and moved to Mercedes, Texas to care for my father, They stayed there during his elementary school years. Why they didn’t return to Maryville, and how they supported themselves in Texas, remains a mystery. My father always spoke fondly of his “grandfather” and he adored his grandmother.
LR’s home is on Mulberry St. in Maryville. It sits on a hill and must have had a splendid view of the valley and farm lands below long before much of the land was built up and the highway came through town. Being at the house this afternoon was such a bitter sweet moment–I imagined this family going about the business of life: seeing friends and family, doing the laundry, putting up fruit and vegetables, discussing who was in the store and what they bought. Then news of the death in Texas, picking up and leaving. I wish I knew more about them. I don’t have one single picture of any of them!
SYNTHESIS 