The Covert Burial of William Jesse Wallen

I suppose I can let this little story slip and not get anyone in trouble since the two concerned are now dead. It's probably not all that unusual an act but I'm pretty sure what the siblings, Sula Splitek and Hobart Wallen did was illegal. I just happen to think it was a darn good idea and I admire them for their daring!

William Jesse Wallen circa 1960

Sula and Hobart's brother William Jesse Wallen, my paternal grandfather, died in Tuscon, Arizona in 1976. This is the story concerning his burial that Sula told her nephew Charlie Wallen, taken from Charlies's genealogy notes:

"During a conversation between Sula and my wife and I at her home in Elsinore (California) in 1985, she related the following: She and her brother James Hobart went to Tuscon, Arizona upon being notified of their brother William's death. They claimed the cremated remains of William and took them back to Sula's home in Elsinore. Then came the question - what to do with the remains? Neither one of them had much money, so, according to Sula, one night they took the remains to the Elsinore Cemetery and dug a hole into their brother Charles' grave and put William's remains in it. Knowing Sula, I tend to believe this story. I leave it here for what it's worth.

     Charles H. Wallen"

What I find especially amusing is that Sula and Hobart were both in their 70s when they entered that cemetery after dark to make their covert burial!

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Splitek: Ayres Natural Bridge Park, Wyoming 1954

Frank Fulton and Sula Susan (Wallen) Splitek

My paternal grandaunt Sula (Wallen) Splitek and her husband Frank, were the managers of Ayers Natural Bridge Park near Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1954. Others in the family may have known this, but it was a complete surprise to me when I ran across this little excerpt in a Texas newspaper today.

Dallas Morning News - dated 22 Aug 1954

Ayres Natural Bridge

     Not too many miles from Cheyenne we stopped at Ayres Natural Bridge for a picnic lunch. This was a good introduction to one of the reasons "why" Wyoming is an ideal family vacation state...much of the natural beauty is free to be enjoyed by all. Ayres Park is one of nature's wonders left in its natual state and there is no charge to see it. Mr. and Mrs. Frank Splitek, managers of the park, showed us the register and, again, Texans were out in front by a stretch.

I never met my aunt Sula in person, but she was responsible for the early genealogy done on our family. Sula and Frank married in 1932 in Iowa and Sula would have been about 50 years old in 1954 when they were the managers of Ayres Park.

Vintage postcard of Ayres Natural Bridge

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Sula (Wallen) Splitek - Our Family History Trailblazer

Sula (Wallen) Splitek
1903-1994

Sula was born July 7, 1903 in Wabd, Rockcastle Co., Kentucky. She was the daughter of Oliver Morton and Sarah Frances (Davis) Wallen, the wife of Frank Fulton Splitek, the mother of Blossom Joanne, the twin to Thomas Miller Wallen and sister to three other brothers: my grandfather William and the twins, Homer and Hobart. She was an Educator at Elsinore Navy and Military School in Elsinore, California, a member of the Order of The Eastern Star for 50 years and a member of Faith Baptist Church in Wildomar

Sula was the first that I know of in our family to become interested in genealogy. She was the first to reproduce her father's diary although she took many liberties with it by leaving out parts and making minor changes. She made many copies of her typewritten work and sent them around to various family members and it was my father's copy that sparked my interest in genealogy. My father's first cousin Charles was also inspired by the copy he received from his Aunt Sula and he and I would later team up and become inseparable cohorts in the Wallen family quest for nearly a dozen years.

Sula's family group sheets were, and still are, priceless. She wrote letters and traveled all over the country to get information from family members about their spouses and children, information that paved the way into some of the family that I would never have known existed otherwise.

Sula died October 7, 1994 at the age of 91 and is buried in Elsinor Valley Cemetery in Lake Elsinor, Riverside Co., California alongside her husband Frank who preceded her in death in 1977.

Frank Fulton and Sula Susan (Wallen) Splitek

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Amanuensis Monday: Obituary of Sarah (Davis) Wallen Livesay

SARAH FRANCES (DAVIS) WALLEN LIVESAY

November 25, 1877 - August 23, 1939

Sarah Frances (Davis) Wallen-Livesay
Sarah's daughter Myrtle Livesay Raber, my half grandaunt, sent me this photo of her mother saying: "I believe this must have been taken on her 50th birthday. She had wonderful auburn hair and I remember the dress: it was blue satin."

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

Sarah was my paternal great grandmother. She was the daughter of John Miller Davis and Ursula Ann Martin. The obituary below is transcribed verbatim from a copy of the original obituary which was typed by my grandaunt Sula Wallen Splitek.

Obituary

of Sarah Davis Wallen Livesay

      Mrs. Sarah Livesay died at Cloverdale Indiana August 23, 1939, after a lingering illness.

      Sarah Francis Davis was born at Plato Kentucky on November 25, 1877, and was 61 years, 8 months and 28 days of age when she passed away.

      She was married to Oliver Morton Wallen of Wabd Ky., in May 1900, and he preceded her in death 32 years ago. By this union five children were born.

      In September 1916 She was married to John Lloyd Livesay of Mt. Vernon Kentucky, and by this union two children were born. She is survived by all seven of her children who are

      William Jesse Wallen,     Terre Haute, Indiana.

      Thomas Miller Wallen,     St. Joseph, Missouri.

      Mrs. Frank Splitek,       Huron, South Dakota.

      Charles Homer Wallen,     Chicago, Illinois.

      James Hobart Wallen,      Saybrook, Illinois.

      Ross Dudley Livesay,      Cloverdale, Indiana.

      Myrtle Davis Livesay,     Cloverdale, Indiana.

Also her husband, J.L. Livesay of Cloverdale Ind. one sister, Mrs. Harvey Colyer, Elgin, Kentucky, two half sisters, Mrs. Morris Thompson, Craborchard Ky., and Mrs. Chester Wilson, Stanford Ky., a half brother Hobart Burnette in Kentucky; fourteen grandchildren, and a host of friends and relatives.

      She became a member of the Baptist Church at an early age and was a sincere and devoted christian all her life.

      For the past nine years she and her family have resided on a farm at Cloverdale Ind., But she has also lived in Texas, Illinois, and Kentucky, and was loved and respected by all that knew her.

      There are many pupils in her ten years as a teacher in the rural schools of Kentucky that can testify that she started them out on the Christian road, and she was an influence for good on all that came in contact with her.

      One shining example is Rev. Fred Hicks of Indianapolis, Indiana, who was her pupil in school, and Preached at her funeral. The services were conducted at the Methodist Church and the remains were laid to rest in the Cloverdale cemetery.

      Her five sons were pallbearers.

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