Sentimental Sunday: A Few Buttons and Some Cloth

I wrote the last post in memory of the twin infants of my grandfather’s cousins. I had mentioned that I began gathering information in anticipation of self-publishing a book on my Watts family. The story of the twins did not make it in that final publication. I found that I needed to condense some information in order to make it more manageable to get it published. I decided to include only birth and death information on most of the later generations.

Although that story and others might be considered insignificant in the grand scheme of things, it’s the urge to preserve these stories that makes me a family historian in the first place. Here’s another story that I want to tell about children who might otherwise be forgotten. This story was told to me by my Uncle Perk Watts when I first started gathering information on the family back in 1989:

“Aunt Ivy’s kids, Ollie and Eva died around age 1 of colitis and were buried on the farm [in the small town of Sinking Fork in Christian County, Kentucky].  When the family moved to town (or when the parents died and were buried in Riverside Cemetery), the children's graves were dug up and moved, but all they found was a few buttons and some cloth.” A cousin on the Diuguid side later told me that she thought Aunt Ivy was ”a little funny” and that maybe it was due to having lost her only two children at such a young age.

Aunt Iva May Watts (daughter of John Willis Watts and Ollie Spencer) was a sister of my grandfather, Cephas Bryant Watts. She was born 29 November 1889; married F. Travis Diuguid 17 January 1912; died 8 February 1972, buried in Riverside Cemetery. Aunt Ivy and Uncle Trav had:

Ollie May Diuguid born 4 October 1912 Christian County, Kentucky; died of colitis on 19 July 1914.


Eva Lee Diuguid born 10 May 1915 Christian County, Kentucky; died 3 April 1916 of cattaral pneumonia. Whooping cough was contributory to her death. (This was from the state death certificate.)

Much later, I noted that there were two hand-made gravestones with the name "Watts" on them listed in the Brick Church Cemetery in Sinking Fork and wondered if it might be these girls. The only problem with that is that they should have had they name "Diuguid" instead of Watts. I don't know what mystery Watts these stones memorialize then. This was literally just down the road from where my Watts family lived. Further down that same road is a family cemetery housing most of them with many of the rest of them buried in the Riverside Cemetery in Hopkinsville.  In looking through my files, there are no Wattses in the area of my kin whose burial is not accounted for. Hmmm, sounds like a mystery.


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