Friday's Faces From the Past: Fearless Females Millie, Marie, & Edith Wolfe, ABT 1917

This is a photograph of the three Wolfe girls:  my grandmother, Sara Melzina "Millie" Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997), her youngest sister Neva Marie Wolfe Ely (1912-1995), and her younger sister Edith Elizabeth Wolfe Smith Murff Brown Gould Knox (1910-2006).  Marie looks to be about age five here, so I think the photo was taken around 1917.  I've written about my grandmother and Aunt Edith before, so I will write a little about Aunt Marie.

Marie was born November 4, 1912, in Houston, Texas.  She was the youngest child of Louis Henry Wolfe and Addilee Tennessee Shelton Wolfe Harris.  The family had moved to Houston from Shreveport, Louisiana shortly before Marie was born.

Marie experienced the tough childhood of her older siblings, including abandonment by her mother when she was three; growing up in the home of her uncle, aunt, and cousins (1917-1921); and the death of her father in 1929 in an automobile accident when she was only 16.  On the 1930 Census, she is listed living in Pasadena, Texas, in the home of her mother and stepfather Charles B. Harris.  In the 1932 Houston City Directory, she is listed living at 1717 Shearn, the home of her sister Sara "Millie" Guokas and her family.

On September 9, 1933, Marie married Louis Walter Ely (1913-1980), who was just a few months younger than her.  At the time he was a caddy at Glenbrook Country Club, and he continued to be employed there through at least 1937. On the 1940 Census, his occupation is listed as a warehouse laborer for a chemical plant.  By 1942 (according to the Houston city directory), he became a fireman with the City of Houston.  By 1959 (again according to the Houston city directory), he had become a district fire chief, and the family had a home at 721 E. Fresa in Pasadena, Texas.  This was part of a piece of land owned by Louis' father, on which Louis and Marie built a house.

Marie and Louis had three children - a son, Louis Edward Ely (1935-2005), and two daughters, Barbara Ann and Edith Carole.  At the time of her death on March 3, 1995, Marie had eight grandchildren and at least ten great-grandchildren (17 by 2003) .  She is buried next to her husband in the Ely family plot at South Park Cemetery in Pearland, Texas.

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