I cannot imagine my grandmother’s life, a girl who never lived to see her 21st birthday. This is a small attempt to patch together the pieces that I garnered from documents I found on genealogy sites, from newspaper articles and historical events.
Anna Elizabeth Nix was born July 1897 in Paris, Kentucky, to Elisha and Alice Nix. Elisha was 45 and Alice was 22 years old. They lived with his mother, Ann, who managed Drover’s Inn, a hotel and tavern that served as a stage stop for cattle drovers and native Americans. Anna’s father died when she was two years old and while her mother was pregnant with her younger daughter, Elizabeth (Elish). One year later, Alice Nix married Luther Rankin in November 1900, and soon after, the couple and her daughters relocated to Newport, KY.
In a 1910 census report, 13-year-old Anna is listed as the step-daughter of Luther Rankin and was employed as a packer in a canning factory. No school for Anna. She had to work to help her large family. By this time, the family included an 8-year-old, John Rankin. The household also included Luther’s brother, Samuel, Anna’s cousin, Evalina, her husband, Mark Ferris and their one-and-one-half-year-old daughter, Nellie. All nine family members resided at 209 Second Street in Newport, Kentucky, located in the poorest section of town as all of the homes along this street bordered the Ohio River and were prone to frequent flooding.
Mark Ferris was a carpenter. I can only presume that Anna met Wilford through him as Wilford’s occupation was also listed as a carpenter. Anna married Wilford Riley on December 31, 1912, in Covington, Kentucky, when she was 15 years old. Her marriage license shows that she was 18 at the time, but that was likely not truthful as all other records bear out her real age. It is likely also the reason they married in Covington where neither of them lived.
Two weeks after their marriage, the new bride was photographed by the Cincinnati Post measuring the rising flood waters in their home located near Isabella and Southgate Streets in Newport. 1913 was the year of one of the worst floods ever recorded which has come to be known as the “Great Miami Flood.” The flood reached its peak early March 1913. (The Little Miami River enters the Ohio River just above Dayton, Kentucky, and the entire northern Kentucky area suffered extreme flooding.)
Fifteen years old, newly married and her home destroyed by flood waters. It is questionable if any of their relatives were in a position to help as they too likely lost everything in the flood. That is a lot for anyone to cope with let alone a 15-year-old girl. I cannot imagine that this is the life of which she dreamed!
A year later, on January 27, 1914, the couple gave birth to an infant daughter. The infant was listed as “stillborn” and buried at Evergreen Cemetery. What a blow to such a young wife and mother! Was she given time and permission to grieve? Was anyone there to offer support? It must also be noted that World War I started raging in Europe in 1914. While America claimed neutrality, the war impacted our nation and its citizens in numerous ways to include the temporary closure of the New York Stock Exchange.
On Feb. 2, 1915, the couple gave birth to their second daughter, Winnifred Elizabeth. That same year, Northern Kentucky was devastated by a series of tornadoes, the worst ever recorded in the area. The tornadoes struck in July 1915. Where were Anna and her baby when the tornadoes struck? Did she have shelter? Hundreds of people were left homeless or in severely damaged homes in every northern Kentucky city including Covington, Newport, Dayton, Bellevue and Fort Thomas.
The young couple’s son, Henry Riley (my father) was born May 27, 1916, while the family resided in Covington, Kentucky. Just eighteen years old, Anna now had two babies to raise- a newborn and one-year-old Winnifred. That is a lot of diapers and daily feedings at a time when cloth diapers had to be washed daily, and baby food had to be made at home. Social services for impoverished families were absent, and low-income families had to rely on churches and family for assistance.
Life did not get easier for them. Wilford took on employment as a farmer in DeCoursey, Kentucky, some distance from their home in Covington. Farming was not a high-paid job. While coping with poverty and likely the absence of basic medical care, Baby Winnifred took ill and died of pneumonia April 17, 1917, when she was but two years old. Anna was about seven months pregnant with the couple’s fourth child, Grace Riley when Winnifred died. Grace was subsequently born June 5, 1917. That same day, Wilford Riley registered for the draft and requested an exemption from military service. The United States had officially declared war on Germany April 6, 1917, and their future was more uncertain than ever.
Overwhelmed by the harshness of life and grieving for her daughter, Anna met furniture dealer William Beck in Covington. Beck was grieving the recent loss of his wife and the two found comfort in each other. On at least one occasion, Wilford threw Beck out of their home when the older man came to visit Anna. That was told in a newspaper article published after her death.
Anna’s relationship with Beck developed quickly and ended even more abruptly. Beck sold his furniture store and returned to St. Louis, Missouri, where he had lived with his wife and raised his children. That did not end their relationship. Anna and Beck corresponded, and Beck asked Anna to leave her husband and join him in St. Louis.
Beck returned to the area and booked a room at the Grand Hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio, just a short trolley ride across the river from Covington. On February 23, 1918, Anna met Beck at the hotel. She took baby Grace with her to that meeting, presumably, to leave with Beck for St. Louis. Anna, however, had a change of heart and refused to leave her husband and family to go with him. Overcome with grief and disappointment, Beck wrote a seven-page letter while Anna slept on the bed with her baby, and then shot Anna and killed himself. So ended the life of twenty-year old Anna Nix Riley.
Alice Rankin buried her daughter Anna at Evergreen Cemetery south of Newport, Kentucky. No headstone marks her grave. Wilford and his son, Henry, moved in with his parents in Dayton. Baby Grace disappeared from the record. No one in my family knows what happened to her.
Anna was no more than a twenty-year-old girl beaten down by the bleakness of a life marred by the death of two of her children, at least two catastrophic natural disasters, insurmountable poverty, and a world at war. All young girls dream of a better life. While Anna dreamed, she never experienced that. I cannot imagine how difficult her life must have been.
dottieriley 