The brief history of the Corbett family, descendants of John and Victoria Corbett of England

Our son Bruce and his wife with TV star, movie star and singer John Corbett.  John was born in Wheeling, West Virginia.  John is the son of Sandy and John Corbett, originally from Wheeling.

The name Corbett, and its variations, is from French for "black bird" or "raven." It may have been applied to any number of people in ancient times based on physical characteristics such as black hair or dark complexion. The crests of several Corbett aristocrats have a crow or raven depicted on the shield. The earliest record of a Corbett in Britian is of Corbet le Normand (Corbet the Northman). Since the Normans were descendants of Norsemen, our Corbett family line probably originated in Scandinavia. Corbett is a very common name in England, Ireland and Wales. Our Corbett family of England probably descends from Sir Roger de Corbet, a Norman duke who came to England from Normandy with William the Conqueror and fought at the Battle of Hastings in 1066. His name appears in the Domesday Book, the first land registry set up by William after he became King of England. The registry was established to improve the collection of property taxes. For his services to William, Sir Roger de Corbet was awarded land in what is today Shropshire. It is an interesting fact that our earliest recorded ancestor who lived in the late 18th and early 19th centuries resided in Shropshire. 

Many Corbett families are still found in that area. Roger de Corbet lived in the 11th century, some six hundred years before our earliest documented ancestor John Corbett.  I wonder if our family had stayed put for six centuries while other Corbett families expanded across the globe.  Besides America they are found in Scotland, Ireland, Canada and Australia, but whether or not these families are all descended from the same ancient ancestor is another question.  The most common variations of the name are Corbett and Corbitt with and without the last "t" in the name. Corbett families have been in America from the earliest times of American history. Today they can be found in every state and province in the United States and Canada. In my office at IBM I once worked with Dane Corbett whose ancestors came to Nova Scotia from England. Dane's other ancestry was Canadian native American. The American actor John Corbett, famous as the DJ on the TV series "Northern Exposure", the movie, "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and many other roles is originally from West Virginia.  He is also a friend of my son Bruce.  John Corbett is probably for our time the most famous person with that surname.  John has appeared in numerous movies as a romantic lead. Today he also tours with his country-western band (my son Bruce became friends with John while Bruce was performing and supporting Southern rock bands in the Nashville and Phoenix areas).

I first discovered our particular Corbett family in American records on the Ohio U.S. census returns of 1900. There I found James Corbett and his sons and daughter, John, Arthur and Sarah (Sade pronounced Sadie). The first English record I obtained was the birth certificate of my great grandfather Arthur, which listed the names of his parents, date and place of birth. Recently, English censuses for years beginning in 1851 through 1881 became available on the Internet. These records provided me the names of the parents of James, his wife Anne Beckett and his brother and sisters. Philip Nigel Bailey of Yorkshire, England, has been doing research on his Corbett ancestors for several years and is related to ours. Nigel got me on the right path and furnished me with documents that I would have been unable to find on my own. The Atlantic can be a formidable barrier to a American genealogists. Our earliest documented Corbett ancestor was John Corbett who was born about 1750. His name and that of his wife Victoria are found on the christening records of their eight children all born between 1772 and 1797, all born in Wellington, Shropshire, England. Since John and Victoria are only listed as the parents of their children on their christening records, we can only guess at John and Victoria's time and place of birth. If they were at least in their early twenties I assume that they were born sometime around 1750, perhaps a bit later.  Wellington of Shropshire is located about 27 miles west north west of West Bromwich, where our English-American family later lived and worked.  When I discovered that our early Corbett ancestors resided in or near Wellington I was somewhat amused. My grandmother told me my great grandfather and his family were from "Wells" England.  This is not true and the town or village by that name is far to the southwest in England. I wondered if my grandmother confused Wellington with Wells. We will probably never know where and how my grandmother came up with that name. 

The eldest son of John and Victoria Corbett, and our ancestor was James (1). He was christened in 1777 at the same time as his sister Elizabeth and were also from Wellington, Shropshire, England. Sometime around the age of 26, James (1) married Phoebe Price on June 5, 1803 in Wellington.  Their marriage is listed in marriage documents collected by missionaries of the Mormon Church. I found their marriage through the LDS associated FamilySearch.org. Those records indicate that Phoebe was born about 1784 and died in 1823. James (1) and Phoebe Corbett's eight children were born between 1804 and 1819. The oldest two children of the eight were born in Wellington and the other six in Staffordshire. Among those born in Staffordshire was our ancestor and their second eldest son James (2) who was born in Bliston, Staffordshire on April 12, 1807.  Nine years younger than James (2) was Obediah Corbett, James (1) and Phoebe's sixth child born in 1816. I originally made the incorrect assumption that Obediah was our ancestor. He is actually the ancestor of Nigel Bailey. I posted my incorrect assumption on Ancestry.com and this fortunate mistake led Nigel to contact me. With his help, I was able to correctly identify our family line. James (2) was born on April 12, 1807 in Bliston, Staffordshire, England. After Phoebe's death James (1) remarried on May 26, 1828, to his second wife Mariah Gwinett. Their marriage took place in St. Martin parish in Tipton, Staffordshire. Mariah was born on August 11, 1806, in Tipton and died on March 30, 1865. After Mariah's death, James (1) married his third wife Lydia Long. Lydia was James' senior by thirteen years. Although she was much older than James she outlived him by fifteen years. James (2) died in West Bromwich, Staffordshire in 1876. Lydia and James (1) had no children, but with Mariah Gwinett, he had seven more children born between 1829 and 1844. No wonder West Bromwich is over flowing with Corbetts. Among those seven additional children was our third James. Our ancestor and the first of our Corbetts to come to America, James (3) was born on May 11, 1844, at Ocher Hill, West Bromwich in the village of Stafford. He married Annie Beckett, daughter of James and Anne Beckett, in St. Martins Parish in Birmingham on June 25, 1866. Their marriage record states that James Beckett was a resident of Digbeth, occupation stock taker (an inventory clerk). James Beckett's father was also named James. It seems our family is especially fond of the name James. The elder James Beckett listed his occupation also as stock taker. This line of work seems to have been passed down from father to son, not that different from many other trades. The marriage record of James (3) Corbett and Anne Beckett is the conclusive evidence that he was the son of James (2).  Although it is James (2) who is our ancestor, not his brother Obediah Corbett as I had assumed we can still claim kinship with him.

James Beckett, on the 1871 census changed his occupation to wagoner, in American terminology, a teamster. Our Beckett ancestor James Beckett Sr. was born about 1825 in Shropshire, England. Wife Anne Beckett senior was born about 1825 in Staffordshire. My great-great grandparents James (3) and Annie Beckett Corbett had three children: great aunt Sarah Maria (nicknamed Sade, pronounced Sady), age four in 1871, born in Staffordshire; great uncle John, age two at the time, also born in Staffordshire; Lydia, daughter age four months, born in Swan Village, West Bromwich and apparent died before the family immigrated to America, and the third was my great grandfather Arthur, born in Swan Village, West Bromwich on September 8, 1874. West Bromwich near Birmingham, was part of the iron and steel center in England. According to the 1871 and 1881 censuses James went to work in that industry as an iron bundler. He also listed this as his occupation on the 1900 census in America when the family lived near Youngstown, Ohio, one of the iron and steel centers in the U.S. By 1881 his wife Annie Beckett Corbett is no longer listed on the English census and James and his children, Sarah (aunt Sade), John and Arthur were living with James' father-in-law James Beckett in 1881, shortly before they left England for America. James Beckett's wife's name as listed on the 1881 English census was Caroline indicating that his first wife Anne, like her daughter had died. My two times great grandfather James (3) Corbett was still working in the iron and steel industry before and after he and his family immigrated to America.

Marriage record for James Corbett and Annie Beckett 25 June 1866. Click on image to zoom in.

Great Uncle John Corbett and his daughter Maime in California in 1928.  He died in San Gabriel, California on October 31, 1950.

Great Aunt Sade (Corbett) Andrews in Venice, California with the lady she shared her home with. I think this picture was sent to my mother (whom I got it from) in the 1940's. Aunt Sade died about 1950 in Santa Monica, California.

My Great Grandfather Arthur Corbett in the early 1940's in Copley, Ohio. Great Grandfather died in Van Buren, Arkansas in 1955.

The English birth certificate for Great Grandfather Arthur Corbett.  Click on image to zoom in.

The death certificate from Ohio for two times great grandfather James Corbett. The cause of death is listed as softening of the brain. This is an archaic medical term that had a couple of different meanings, one being a stroke or brain hemorrhage and the other meaning was senility or dementia.

My grandparents, Arthur and Osa Corbett about 1954 in Van Buren, Arkansas.

A family reunion of Corbetts and Westfalls in Copley, Ohio probably about 1940. Front row L-R: Jimmy Corbett, Aunt Dorothy Corbett, two unknown Westfall daughters, Gerry Corbett, Elinor Corbett (head down), Mildren Westfall (daughter of Loy and Iva Westfall). second row L-R: Grandparents Arthur E. and Osa Westfall Corbett, Ivy Westfall (wife of Loy), great grandmother Luvenia (Trowbridge) Westfall, mother Clara Luvenia Corbett, Lillie Westfall (wife of Ted Westfall), aunt Nina Westfall. Men in third row L-R: Loy Westfall, George Westfall (son of Loy and Ivy), Ted Westfall (man without a hat).

Our immigrant ancestor, James Corbett the 3rd, along with his children, Sade, John and Arthur arrived in America in 1881 and settled in Ohio near Youngstown. My grandmother, Osa Corbett told me that great grandfather Arthur returned to England, but came back to America a few years later. She also stated the Corbetts were from Wells, England, as I mentioned above. The English town of Wells is about seventy miles south of Bristol and southwest of Bath, far from West Bromwich. This is a mistake and she may have confused Wellington for Wells. All the records I have collected affirm that their home was West Bromwich, Stafford, England. Today, there are two Wellingtons in England.  One is a sizable town in the southwest of England and the other a small village near Birmingham.

The US census of Ohio in 1900 has James Corbett, age 56 and widowed, listed in the household of his daughter Sade and son-in-law Thomas Andrews in Ruggles Township, Ashland County, Ohio. It states that he came to the United States in 1881 and had lived in the U.S. for nineteen years. Our direct family knew that aunt Sade married Thomas Andrews in Ohio, but so far I have been unable to find a marriage record for them. The 1900 census has the only John Corbett in Ohio I could find. He is listed as coming to the United States in 1877 and had been living in the U.S. for twenty-three years. This is either a mistake (our John was only only eight years old 1881) or this John cannot be ours. My grandmother said that my great grandfather Arthur Corbett returned to England about 1886 and returned to the United States around 1896. It seems strange to me that a twelve year old child, Arthur's age in 1886, would make a return trip to England on his own. Arthur supposedly returned to America when he was an adult in 1896. Although I do not claim my grandmother's version of events is wrong, I have found no evidence, such as a record of immigration in 1896, to support her claim.

There are other mysteries of our immigrant family that remain to be solved. On James Corbett's death certificate, recorded in Akron, Ohio in January 1921 his wife's name is listed as Mary. It is certain that James' wife was Annie Beckett who died before 1881 in England, the year James brought his family to the U.S. Was James married more than once? Did he remarry after arriving in the U.S.? An unsolved mystery. James' date of death is given as January 12, 1921. Apparently his death was not unexpected because Doctor C. W. Millitis who signed the certificate stated that he attended the deceased from December 20, 1920 until his death. The underlying cause of death is listed as softening of the brain with a secondary cause of cerebral hemorrhage. This could be an indication that had Alzheimer's disease, a condition not generally recognized at the time, or from a stroke. The archaic medical term, "softening of the brain" applies to both dementia and cerebral hemorrhage. My guess is that our two times great grandfather died of a stroke.  James was buried in east Akron with the Sweeny Brothers funeral home handling the arrangements.  There are other details on this document. The informant was Arthur Corbett who, at the time of James' death, lived at 1043 Ackley Street in Akron. James was born on May 11, 1844 and his age at death was 76 years, eight months and one day. The remaining information on the certificate is misleading. It implies that James' father was James (correct) and his mother was Annie Beckett, actually his wife. I know that this is wrong and great grandfather Arthur may have mistakenly thought that the document was asking for his (Arthur's) mother and father. In the lower left corner of the certificate is the line that asks for the informant's name and address. Immediately above it are some boxes that ask for parent's names. That may have been misleading and if so, we can understand a careless mistake at a time of grief.

These are the facts that I know for sure about our Corbett family. Our James Corbett was born on May 11, 1844 in Ocher Hil, District of West Bromwich, village of Stafford. His son Arthur was born on September 18, 1874 at Swan Farm (Village), Stafford County, England, in the district of West Bromwich to James and Annie Beckett Corbett. Today, West Bromwich is located within the environs of Birmingham, the center of the iron and steel industry in England. James' occupation in 1881 was iron bundler. An iron bundler of that time was a young man responsible for stacking and tying long pieces of iron or scraps into bundles to be stored in the company's warehouse to be reprocessed at a later time. In 1900 James is living in the household of son-in-law and daughter, Thomas and Sady Andrews. On the census of the same year for Warren, Trumbull County, Ohio is John Corbett (misspelled as Corbitt), his wife Elizabeth and daughter Mary. The daughter's name as our family used it was Maime, but this was simply nickname. In Akron, Ohio, Arthur Corbett, his wife Clara and son Arthur Jr. are living with Arthur's father-in-law Charles Fridinger. Also in the home are Charles Fridinger's wife Daisy and daughter Ethel, all people my grandparents and mother knew personally. By June 1900, James was living on Cleveland Street in Akron not far from where my grandparents settled after their marriage. James, as well as son John, were iron and steel workers. James lived for a time, near Birmingham, England and worked in iron and steel industry and worked as an iron bundler. In Ohio in 1900 James' occupation is listed as yarn bundler, which I suspect was the result of an English accent and a not too careful census taker. At that time, uncle John was living in Warren near Youngstown, Ohio, which was the principal iron and steel-producing city in Ohio for many years. Great uncle John gave his occupation in 1900 as a [steel] roller. Years later, on October 31, 1950 John Lawrence Corbett made an affidavit in Los Angeles to the birth of his brother Arthur. On this affidavit John states that Arthur was born in Swan Village, Stafford shire, England on September 8, 1875. This information nearly derailed my search for documentation of Arthur's place of birth in England. Swan Village was impossible for me to find on the maps of England I had at the time, but I later found it using Google Earth. The year of Arthur's birth on John's affidavit is wrong. But, without this information I would have had no where to start in my search.  In August of 1998 I paid a genealogy research company a large fee to find Arthur's birth registration in England. They sent me a letter a couple of months later listing two Arthur Corbetts born in the general area of Stafford, England. The index they used had the birth date of one as December 1876 and the other in September 1874. They would send me one or the other if I told them which one I wanted, or they would send both for another forty dollars. At the time forty dollars was no small amount for me.  I crossed my fingers and hoped that the month of birth on the affidavit was correct and hopefully the year this company had was correct. To my great relief the certificate I got back from England listed James and Annie Beckett as the parents and the date, except for the year, matched that on the affidavit from Los Angeles. It is problems like these that make genealogy so rewarding. If you have ever enjoyed playing detective, this is the hobby for you.

Note on uncle John Corbett:  The 1940 census now available on Ancestry.com lists the household of John Corbett, wife Elizabeth, daughter Mary Waldsmith and son-in-law Chester Waldsmith and John's two grandchildren Robert, age 16, and granddaughter Betty, age 14 both born in California.  This census shows the place of residence for the respondent on April 1, 1935.  The reply for John was Los Angeles, California.  I was completely unaware that the family had returned to Ohio between 1935 and 1940.  In this hobby it is unwise to make assumptions on matters for which you have no documentation.  Yesterday (March 16, 2017) I received a note posted for me on Ancestry.com from the grandson of Maime.  He said that he would send me some photos he had of her and uncle John that I do not.  When I get them, I will include them on the Corbett Photos page.

My Great Grandfather Arthur Corbett married Clara May Fridinger in Akron, Ohio on October 1, 1898. Great Grandmother Clara was born in Massillon, Ohio in August 1881 to Charles and Mary Fridinger. The Fridingers were of German ancestry. Arthur and Clara had four children, my grandfather Arthur Edmon (sic), born April 24, 1899, great uncle Carl Clement, born August 25, 1900, aunt Dorothy Evelyn, born June 16, 1907 and aunt Helen Francis, born August 24, 1917. All of the children were born in Akron, Summit County, Ohio. Arthur E. Corbett, my grandfather, grew up in Summit County, Ohio. When he was twenty years old he married Osa B. Westfall, also of Akron. Since he was not yet 21 and in Ohio you had to reach majority, his mother would not give them permission to marry. Defying his mother, my grandparents went to Cumberland, Maryland and were married. The couple lived for some time in Akron where my grandfather worked as an auto mechanic and Grandma Osa worked in the Goodyear blimp hanger sewing large pieces of canvas that would cover the USS Akron. Their five children were all born in Summit County, Ohio. My mother Clara Luvenia was born on January 8, 1921, aunt Dorothy Eileen was born September 8, 1923, aunt Elinor Lucile, was born on February 13, 1929, uncle James Arthur, was born July 9, 1934 and uncle Gerald Lee Corbett was born on September 30, 1936. The youngest, little Wayne Corbett was born 1939, in Copley, Ohio who died of a childhood illness in Copley, Ohio at the age of two.  My grandparents Arthur and Osa moved to Copley with my older aunts and uncles, not long before Wayne was born. Arthur built their small brick house on the Medina-Summit County Line Road himself. During the time they lived there, both Arthur's father, great grandfather Arthur Corbett and Osa's mother, my great grandmother Luvenia (Trowbridge) Westfall lived with them at one time or another.

Hatch Road in Sharon Township, Medina County intersects with the Medina and Summit County Line Road almost in front of the home of my Corbett grandparents. Down Hatch road about half a mile lived the family of Reason Deforest Wall, my paternal grandparents. Almost neighbors, this is how the Corbett and Wall families came together. My mother Clara Luvenia Corbett and father Vivian Arlie Wall were married at the Corbett home on June 14, 1941. I was born on May 6, 1942 in Wadsworth, Ohio and my brother Arthur Arlie Wall was born there on October 12, 1943. After my father was drafted and shipped to North Africa in 1944, my mother, grandparents Arthur and Osa, along with all of their family moved from Ohio to a small farm in the Ozark mountains near Ozone, Arkansas. My very first memories (I was two) are of my grandmother cooking breakfast in the log house and of my impish uncle Gerry, then seven or eight, enticing me to be an accomplice in a prank pushing dust bunnies and marbles through a knothole in the upstairs wooden plank floor.  These fell on Grandma Corbett's Sunday School class in the room below. The class was very amused by our prank, but Grandma was not. If a punishment ensured, I don't remember it, but I'm reasonably sure that uncle Gerry was discouraged from pulling this prank ever again. A short time after moving to Arkansas, Grandma became the postmaster of our small rural community in the Ozarks and its religious leader, partly because she had the only piano around and could play it, and partly because our farm house was the largest in the neighborhood.

Sometime in the spring of 1945 my grandparents' house and barns were severely damaged by a tornado.  It was Mother nature's welcome to Tornado Alley.  I was far too young to remember, but the story I got from my mother follows (strange that I can remember pushing marbles down a hole but not a terrifying tornado).  My grandfather had returned to Ohio to take care of some unfinished business, leaving us alone in Arkansas.  Soon after he left, my grandmother learned of the potential for a tornado in our area. The weather that day was typical for tornadoes and grandmother was very worried. A neighbor man volunteered to stay overnight to reassure us all. But, Grandma told him that she thought we would be fine. I think she declined his offer out of courtesy because she passed the evening pacing the floor and watching out the windows.  My little brother and I were put to bed in the upstairs loft and soon the rest of the family followed. That night the lightening was fierce, as it often is when a tornado is near. Grandma heard the roar of the oncoming twister and immediately aroused the family. My mother grabbed me and my brother from our cribs on the second floor and dashed down the stairs.  Uncle Jimmy was about to come down those stairs when the windows blew out.  The wind caught him and he sailed down the stairs without touching any, to be caught by Grandma at the bottom.  There was a storm cellar near the front of the house, but surrounding the yard and between the cellar and house was a fence intended to keep the free roaming cows out of the yard. Our family made a wild charge for the safety of the storm shelter, with uncle Jim jumping the fence with ease. We reached the relative safety of cellar as the funnel bore down on us.  Our storm cellar was topped with large railroad ties and as the tornado passed by, these beams began to shake and come loose from their moorings.  Luckily, they kept their positions and we emerged safely after the storm. The twister badly damaged one of the two barns and sent the other to places unknown.  Our house was also badly damaged and the swirling wind moved the entire house off its foundation making it mostly unlivable. Mom soon after left Arkansas and returned to Ohio with my brother and me.  My grandparents moved out of the Ozarks to a place near Van Buren, which is located on the Arkansas River just north of Fort Smith.  At some point my grandfather went to work for the Dixie Cup plant in Fort Smith. In my later memories of him, they are always with grandpa in his Dixie Cup work coveralls. My grandfather developed diabetes sometime in his forties, which was very debilitating in his later years.

After returning to Ohio my mother and father had a falling out over his dalliance with an Army nurse in the hospital in Italy where he was assigned. The nurse had written Mom asking her to divorce Dad because she believed she was pregnant.  My mother was never one to lay down and take it. She was now determined to find work so she could support us as a single mom. She made a very bad decision to go to Florida to look for work with a man and woman she knew from high school. She left me and my brother with my dad's parents intending to come back for us once she found work. She could not have picked a worse time to go to Florida, where a lot of WWII Navy ships were made or refitted. These plants were shutting down mostly because in 1945 the war in Europe was winding down. Unable to find work and out of money to come back home, the man my mother and the other woman were with tried to hold up a gas station. My mother said she had no idea what the guy intended, but when he came out of the building the trio speed away with my mother driving.  They did not get far before they were stopped by local law enforcement.  As a result my mother learned how the inside of a Florida state prison was decorated. My dad came home from the war in November 1945 while Mom was incarcerated. In March 1946 Dad was killed when a locomotive switch engine plowed into his car at night at an unmarked crossing. As a result my bother and I spent the years growing to teenagers in the custody of an aunt in a small rural village of Sharon Center, Medina County, Ohio. I was not to see my Corbett relatives again for fourteen years. When I was seventeen I choose to go back to Arkansas to finish my last year in high school.  It was then I became reacquainted with my grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. My great grandfather Arthur Sr. had died in 1955, four years before my return and I never had the chance to know him.  I was also able to spend charished time with my little brother, Loy Michael White, born in Van Buren on January 31, 1954.

In 1960 I enrolled in a business school in Oklahoma City and in 1961 I joined the Air Force.  In 1963 I married Carolyn Sue Whitsett of Fort Smith and we have been together now for 53 years. My grandfather, Arthur E. Corbett died from complication of his diabetes in a Fort Smith hospital on September 21, 1969. His sister, my great aunt Helen died in Van Buren on October 21, 1989. She and her second husband, Dee Howard are buried in the Gill Cemetery in Van Buren.  My mother Clara L. (Corbett) Donath died in an automobile accident in Wagon Wheel, Arizona on November 26, 1990. She requested that her remains be cremated and spread in the Pacific Ocean. My brothers and I honored her wishes and carried them out from a pier in San Diego, California.  My aunt Dorothy E. (Corbett) Stockton died on March 19, 2010 of multiple illnesses in a Fort Smith nursing home. Her husband Cletus Olen Stockton died on March 16, 2004 in Fort Smith. Uncle Jimmy Corbett died in the home of his youngest child and son Damon Corbett on October 7, 2010 in Memphis, Tennessee.  My aunt Elinor (Corbett) Stockton still lives in Van Buren after the death of her husband, uncle Lee Roy Stockton who died on January 18, 2003 in a Fort Smith hospital. She is now the oldest living relative of my aunts and uncles.  Uncle Gerry Corbett lives alone in Oklahoma having suffered the loss of his only son Arthur from cancer and his wife Norma, but is surrounded by his living children and grandchildren and still possesses his contagious sense of humor.

I've pieced together as much of the Corbett family history as I can from English censuses, christening records and birth records. For our American family I used information given to me by my grandmother, Osa (Westfall) Corbett; a letter from aunt Sade Corbett Andrews of Venice, California addressed to my mother dated November 1947; census records; and death certificates of James and Arthur Corbett. I collected additional information from a family reunion at my mother's home in Roland, Oklahoma in 1984. Most of that information is on this site on the Corbett Family Tree page. I leave it to you to add the names and dates of Corbett descendants who have arrived on this earth after I compiled that information. I've also included on this site a family album of pictures that I possess and I hope you enjoy them.

Letter of Sade Andrews to Clara Wall

This letter was mailed from 718 Marco Place, Venice, California on November 28, 1947 to my mother, Clara Corbett Wall. Sade, as she spelled it, used no punctuation in her letter. I've added it to make it a little easier to read.

Dearest Clara

Received your welcome and lovely letter a few days ago. Was so glad to hear from you. Hope these few lines will find you well. It was so nice to have your dear ear little boys with you maybe sometime you will have for always. Well, yesterday was Thanksgiving day. I was all alone. Do wish I could be near some of my own folks. Uncle John was here for eight days. The other lady [her room mate] went to Seattle and she got back last Friday. It was hard for me to cook for two but managed. Was so glad to have him [John] here and he enjoyed it too. He went [home] last Thursday. It rained here last night but the sun is shining today. Clara dear, you letters are beautiful you write me and thank you. Do you think your mama will come to Calif when the event takes place [cousin Linda Stockton's birth] or will Elinor go home? Do hope they will like it and stay in Calif. Do wish she would write me. Only wish I could have them for a nice dinner. It is so hard for me to go out and get the things I want but I could [take them] out to dinner right around the corner and would be glad to. Now Clara dear look to God always for strength. He is able to help you if you only trust in Him and be sure I am always praying for you. Do wish I could send you a few dollars but every thing is so high. Am so sorry for your mother and dad. Wish they had not moved to Ark. But they know their own business best. Hope you can read this scribbling. My hand is not steady any more. I will say goodbye and God bless you and keep trusting. With lots of love and kisses your old aunt Sade. P.S. write soon.

Ronald N. Wall

Modified: 10 July 2020