Tombstone Tuesday: Thelma M. Wolfe, 1901 (or 1899 or 1900) - 1923

photo by Gale Green Brister via FindAGrave.com.  Used with permission.

Thelma M[ary?] Wolfe is the second daughter of James Shannon Wolfe (1870-1949) and Anna Volce Wolfe (1879-1936).   She died rather young, at age 23, from gallstones and anemia. She is buried in Evergreen Cemetery in Houston, where her parents, sister Edna Viola Wolfe Ludwig (1896-1931) and her husband Richard F. Ludwig, and my great-grandfather Louis Henry Wolfe are buried.

After posting about her baptismal record on Sunday, I realized I had yet another year of birth for Thelma.  The record in Houston's Annunciation Catholic Church baptismal log indicates she was born January 21, 1899 (she was baptized May 23, 1901):

Her death certificate, where her father was the informant, gives her date of birth as January 23, 1900:

Thelma appears on the 1900 Census, which means she could not have been born in 1901.  I don't think the month below is correct either.  The informant (probably Thelma's step-grandfather, the head of the household) listed Shannon's parents as born in Ohio (they were born in Pennsylvania).

I think 1900 is most accurate as the year of Thelma's birth.  The tombstone may have not been erected until much later, possibly by her younger brother Joseph Shannon after their parents' and older sister's deaths, and he may not have known the year Thelma was born.

© Amanda Pape - 2012 - click here to e-mail me.