Sunday's Obituary: Cordie (Burnette) Thompson

Obituary, hand clipped from
unknown newspaper

Mrs. Cordie B. Thompson

     STANFORD (Spl.) - Funeral for Mrs. Cordie Burnette Thompson, 91, of East Main St. in Stanford, will be conducted at 11 a.m. Tuesday at the Beazley-Raney-Speaks Funeral Home in Stanford by the Rev. Charles Jenkins. Burial will be in Buffalo Springs Cemetery.

   She died Sunday morning at Ft. Logan Hospital after a long illness. She was the widow of Morris Thompson and the daughter of the late Cornelius and Ursula Martin Burdette (sic).

     A native of Pulaski County, she was a housewife and member of the Stanford Baptist Church.

     Survivors are one son, M.G. Thompson of Stanford; one daughter, Mrs. Gladys Osborne of Stanford; one grandson, Johnny Thompson of Stanford; two granddaughters, Mrs. James D. Weaver of Lexington and Mrs. Wayne Hazlett of Stanford and three great-grandchildren.

     Friends may call at the funeral home.

Daisy Cordelia (Burnette) Thompson was the half sister of my great grandmother, Sarah (Davis) Wallen. She was married to Morris Milton Thompson on 21 Sept 1904 in Pulaski Co., Kentucky. "Cordie" died 18 Apr 1976 in Lincoln Co., Kentucky. She was mentioned regularly in the diary of my great grandfather, Oliver Morton Wallen.

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Jesse Tyree: Murder of a "Lunatic"

JESSE TYREE 1847 - 1885

Eastern Kentucky Asylum for the Insane - Photo by Waller Overton Bullock, 1898

Jesse Tyree was the younger brother of my third great grandmother, Louisa Tyree Wallen. He was born in Scott Co., Virginia to William and Lucy Osborne Tyree and was 17 years younger than Louisa who married when he was about 2 years old. Jesse's mother died when he was about 4 and the family relocated to Rockcastle Co., Kentucky. When Jesse was about 18 he married Melinda V. Byrd, daughter of James A. and Margaret Kelly Byrd. Together they had three children: James, Florence and Willie.

It is not yet known exactly what happened to Jesse's father William Tyree. William married for the second time to the widow Martha Kilgore Francisco and had one daughter, Ellen, by her and when Martha died he married another widow in 1865, Margaret Castle Yanders. In 1870 Margaret is found living in Pulaski Co., Kentucky under her previous married name and with the children from her first marriage. Also in her household is her newest offspring, Nannie Tyree. At the same time Jesse is found living in Missouri with his wife, two children, his half sister Ellen and a young girl of some relation, Louisa Tyree, who had been living with the family as early as 1860.

Jesse and his family must have returned home from Missouri shortly after 1870 because half sister Ellen married John Watts in Rockcastle Co. in 1875, however, by 1880 Jesse shows up in the Eastern Kentucky Lunatic Asylum in Lexington, Kentucky, listed as an epileptic. They list his previous occupation as "Teacher". His wife and children (by now there was a third child) were all living in Tennessee, each in a separate household but within close proximity of each other.

Eastern Kentucky Lunatic Asylum

In mid December 1885 Jesse was murdered at the asylum by an attendant, Arthur W. Platt, who was trying to force him to come to dinner. When Jesse refused these attempts Platt pulled a loaded gun from his pocket and shot Jesse through the heart. One version of the story says Jesse was pleading piteously for his life. According to one article, 40 inmates witnessed the killing (it is more likely they only heard the gunshot from another room) and apparently some of them came after Platt. Platt briefly alerted another attendant of the incident, packed a valise and fled. He managed to elude arrest for ten years and decided to return home to England where he had family. Platt changed his name to Edward R. Taylor and lived in England for three more years before he decided he liked it better in America. He committed a small crime in order to get arrested and after he was incarcerated he informed Scotland Yard of his warrant in America. Arrangements were made and Platt was finally brought back for trial and was given a light sentence of 4 years in prison. Platt insisted the whole incident was an accident and there were no witnesses still alive to contest his story and even if they had been alive it was doubtful their testimony could be used in court.

After 4 years Platt was given his freedom to resume a normal life. I found no less than 20 newspaper articles on this murder and trial in 6 different Newspapers: Hazelgreen Herald, Morning Herald, New York Times, Mt. Vernon Signal, Kansas Semi-Weekly Capital, and the Omaha World Herald. There is also a lengthy and detailed account entitled "Murder of Jesse Tyree" at kykinfolk.com, contributed by Pam Brinegar.

Jesse Tyree is buried in an unmarked grave in the cemetery of what is now called the Eastern State Hospital.

The many names of Eastern State Hospital:

Fayette Hospital (1817-1822)

Lunatic Asylum (1822-1844)

The Kentucky Lunatic Asylum (1844-1849)

Lunatic Asylum of Kentucky (1850-1852)

The Lunatic Asylum (1850-1852)

The Eastern Lunatic Asylum (1852-1855)

The Eastern Lunatic Asylum of Kentucky (1855-1858)

The Kentucky Eastern Lunatic Asylum (1858-1864)

Eastern Lunatic Asylum (1864-1867)

The Kentucky Eastern Lunatic Asylum (1867-1873)

The First Kentucky Lunatic Asylum (1873-1876)

Eastern Kentucky Lunatic Asylum (1876-1894)

Eastern Kentucky Asylum for the Insane (1894-1912)

Eastern State Hospital (since 1912)

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Treasure Chest Thursday: Finding a Genealogical Jewel

LOUISA TYREE WALLEN 

b. Feb. 1830 in Scott Co., Virginia - d. circa 1913 in Cooke Co., Texas

Louisa was my paternal 3rd great grandmother, wife of Jesse B. Wallen. She was responsible for raising the younger 7 of her son William's 9 children, with the help of the two oldest, Jesse Uriah and my great grandfather Oliver Morton Wallen, after their mother died. Louisa, "Grandma Wallen", is mentioned regularly in Oliver's diary. Their home had been in Wabd, Rockcastle Co., Kentucky from the early to mid 1850s until 1905 when most of them packed up and headed for Texas. By that time nearly all the children were either grown or had died of Consumption. All 9 siblings eventually perished from that disease (as had their mother) and Louisa would outlive them all with the exception of Jesse U. who died in 1917.

For nearly 15 years I'd tried to prove the parents of Louisa. My dad's first cousin and my closest cohort in genealogical research, Charlie Wallen, never let go of the belief that Louisa was the daughter of David and Rachel Rogers Tyree. I went along with him on that assumption for nearly 10 years until I started digging up new clues that pointed to Louisa as being the oldest child of David and Rachel's son William and his first wife Lucy Osborne. The clues were all over the place but I couldn't convince Charlie. Anyone can read more about those clues here and here at my other blog "Genealojournal" where I tend to muse about things yet unproven. There were more clues too that I discovered in Oliver's diary since writing those notes. None of them said what I needed to know...not quite.

I was obsessed with knowing the truth about Louisa's parentage and I had exhausted all my resources short of making a trip to Scott Co., Virginia or hiring a researcher there. Then, a little over a week ago I was browsing the Rockcastle County newspaper, the Mt. Vernon Signal, and I had decided to do a search on the name of the tiny town of Wabd to see if anything interesting might surface. Now, over the years, I'd done many a search in this newspaper on the surname Wallen, including all the variations in spelling. Many years ago the Signal had been transcribed from microfilm and posted to a genealogy web site by a dedicated genealogist, Cindy Crawford, to whom I will always be humbly grateful. I copied and pasted Cindy's entire transcription to my computer's hard drive (hundreds of pages) and I've been over it dozens of times with a fine toothed comb. In other words, I didn't really expect to find anything monumental on this day, I was just browsing and enjoying reading about all the people of the county that I had come to know over the years.

And suddenly, there it was! Just a dozen little words. My proof. The genealogical jewel that became my gift. I immediately got writer's block..that is, after I spazzed out and danced and babbled and sobbed for a few hours. It was so big I couldn't write about it..I couldn't write about anything. I always thought I'd find the proof of Louisa's ancestry by using my skills. But this wasn't skill at all. It was simply a gift, the perfect gift.

Yesterday I came across this quote by Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings in his comments to Martin Hollick's post "Genealogical Gimme":

"...the record that provides direct evidence of a relationship or fact, might better be called a "genealogy gem" or "genealogy jewel." Often, these are hard to find and, when they are published and made known, then they become a "genealogy gimme." or "genealogy gift."

For whatever reason, this little excerpt gave me what I needed to help me write about my new discovery.

So, what were those few special words I found in the Mt. Vernon Signal?

Well, under the title "WABD" - dated Friday, August 12, 1904, were the words: "Mrs. Louisa Wallen, of Wabd, is visiting her sister, Mrs. John Sowder".  

I froze when I saw it. My heart stopped...and then my mouth flew open..and then I did all that heebee jeebee stuff they call "happy dancing". Every Tyree researcher of this particular Tyree lineage knows who Mrs. John Sowder was. She was Elizabeth Tyree Wallen Sowder, daughter of William and Lucy Osborne Tyree! What a jewel, what a gift! I had been interpreting the clues right all along!

I  just wish cousin Charlie was still alive so I could have the pleasure of saying  (respectfully of course) "I told you Charlie!". 

And I still can't get this newspaper article to come up using "Wallen" as a search word!

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