Daniel William Williams was a man who was lucky--or should it be considered unlucky?--in love. This second great-grandfather of mine was born on 25 May 1851 and lived just two months shy of ninety years. Why was my first inclination to call him lucky in love? It's because between the ages of eighteen and his mid-seventies Daniel was able to woo four women to be his wives (two of them were sisters). No, he wasn't a polygamist. Daniel was just unlucky enough to outlive three of those wives.
His first wife was a few years older than he. In the 1870 Census Daniel, age 19, and his bride Nancy Catharine Bullard, age 22, were living with his parents in White County, Indiana. The young couple had been married two months earlier on 24 May 1870. Just four months after their vows Nancy gave birth to a son they named Sylvester Wesley Williams. No record of Catherine's death or her burial has been found, but she died sometime between Sylvester's birth and 1874 since Daniel remarried that year. Did Catherine die during childbirth, from a disease, or from an accident? Daniel was unlucky to to be widowed at such a young age.
Before long Daniel was lucky to find a new wife. On 13 Dec 1874 he married 19-year old Madora Almina Mikesell, my ancestor. Madora and Daniel quickly expanded their family by adding Eliza May in 1876, Mary Belle in 1877, Owen Quillon (my ancestor) in 1878, Nancy Katherine in 1881, Clyde Monroe in 1885, and Daniel William Williams Jr. in 1886. Including Sylvester Wesley, his son with Catherine, that made seven children.
If most of the 1890 Census records hadn't been destroyed by fire it would have shown that Daniel was unlucky enough to be widowed again the previous year when Madora died on 10 Jan 1889 at the age of thirty-three. On the Find-a-Grave website there is a notation that Madora's grave is shared by an infant named Leonidas who had been born in 1887 and lived for just twenty-one days. In the same cemetery there is a grave for a child named Leroy Williams who lived from 3 Jan 1869 to 13 Aug 1889. He too might be Madora's child because she died just a week after this birth. Daniel was unlucky to have been widowed for a second time.
Being a widower with seven children couldn't have been easy. Two and a half years after Madora's passing, Daniel was lucky to find another wife, someone he had known for many years. He married Viola "Mandy" Mikesell, Madera's younger sister, on 1 Jun 1891. When the two married, Daniel was forty years old and Mandy was half his age at just twenty. Mandy took on the responsibility of raising the seven children from his two previous wives.
Were Mandy and Daniel lucky enough to have children of their own? The 1900 Census is confusing because the enumerator recorded the family members still living at home as Daniel, Mandy, Clyde (14) and Daniel Jr. (13). But it also says that Amanda had given birth to two children who were both living. Did the enumerator just assume that she was the biological mother of Clyde and Daniel Jr.? The 1910 Census didn't show any children still living at home. The issue is further confused in the 1920 Census when Daniel and Amanda have a 29-year old son named Joseph Williams living with them plus 33-year old Daniel William Williams Jr. Both are recorded as step-sons. Daniel Jr. was Amanda's step-son but who was Joseph? Was he a biological son who was missed on the 1900 Census? It's a mystery.
After thirty-five years of marriage Daniel was unlucky to be a widower again when Mandy passed away from kidney disease in 1926. But true to form, Daniel was lucky to find a fourth wife, Georgianna Jordan. He and Georgianna were lucky to be together until 15 Mar 1941 when Daniel died at eighty-nine. Daniel passed away in Illinois but his body was moved to Rensselaer, Indiana to share a headstone with his third wife, Mandy.
So was Daniel a lucky man or an unlucky man? He certainly was unlucky to have experienced so many losses in his long life but was lucky to have found the love of four women and lucky to have become a father to eight children who lived past infancy.
Daniel, Mandy, and 8 children
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