Scipio WADE’s wife

One of my favorite characters to research in the WADE family is Scipio WADE, not because he was particularly interesting, but because of his name. In a family with a common name like WADE, what a boon it is to find someone with an unusual first name like Scipio!

Scipio WADE was the oldest child of Joseph S. WADE—the younger brother of my great-great grandfather Allen C. WADE, whom I have so often mentioned, and about whom I have promised to write a post. That is a promise I have yet to make good, but I still hope to at some point.

This weekend I decided to again take a look at Scipio and see if I could find anything new. After a few relatively unexciting discoveries (mostly city directories), I took another look at my gedcom file. Although he spent most of his life in California with his sister Carrie, he had been married at one time.

For his wife, Margaret McADAMS, I had only and birth date and a death date, in addition to the marriage date. I wondered if I could find a little information if I were to search the newspapers around the time of her death. According to my information, which had come from Findagrave and an old Rootsweb board, she had died in Kincaid, Anderson, Kansas on 29 Apr 1896. So I went to GenealogyBank and typed in “Wade” in the surname field, “1896” in the date field, and checked “Kansas” for the state to search. It wasn’t long before I found an intriguing article.

Trimmed from the original at GenealogyBank

Mrs. Wade, Mrs. Cloyes and her son Joe went down in the Cherokee nation below Bartlesville to pick black berries. As they started back Sunday they drove into the river that was up and it was too deep for them. They started to float down stream and Mrs. Wade was drowned. Mrs. Cloyes got hold of one of the horses and got out all right. Joe also swam out all right. The last seen of Mrs. Wade she was holding to one of the wheels of the hack. The body had not been found at the last report.

The “Mrs. Wade” of this article is not mentioned by full name, so it is uncertain whether she is Mrs. Scipio WADE or another WADE. Her companions give no assistance, as the name “Cloyes” is new to me. The date of this newspaper is 2 July 1896, a Thursday. Assuming that the “Sunday” mentioned in the article is the most recent Sunday, the date of the drowning would have been 28 June 1896, almost fully two months after the death date I had recorded for Scipio’s wife. The 29 Apr 1896 I had recorded would have been a Wednesday. However, both of my sources for her death date were secondary at best; it is possible they were mistaken. Also, newspapers are not always entirely accurate, and the “Sunday” referred to is not clear. The location is also problematic. However, it can easily be explained by the fact that she is buried in Kincaid, Anderson, Kansas. Perhaps the person recording her death simply assumed she died where she was buried. With all these uncertainties, I can neither confirm or disprove that this Mrs. WADE is Margaret.

Another article continued the story.

Trimmed from the original at GenealogyBank

Mrs. Wade who was drowned in Big Caney in the Territory was found three days after. Her body was found nearly a mile from where she was drowned.

If she had drowned on 28 June 1896, her body would have been found 1 July 1896, a day before the previous article had been published. The news simply did not reach the newpaper in time for publication. Unfortunately, this second article gives no further information useful toward the identification of this Mrs. WADE. Perhaps Scipio WADE’s wife drowned on her way home from picking blackberries in Oklahoma, or perhaps it was another unfortunate Mrs. WADE. Only more research will tell.

Sources:

Alohawahine75@aol.com. “[IOWA] McAdams's Family.” IOWA-L Archives. Rootsweb, 18 Mar. 2003. Web.

“Chautauqua Local Items,” Sedan Lance, 2 July 1896, p. 3, col. 5; digital images, America’s GenealogyBank (http://www.genealogybank.com : accessed 10 Jan 2015), Historical Newspapers. 
 

“Chautauqua Local Items,” Sedan Lance, 9 July 1896, p. 2, col. 5; digital images, America’s GenealogyBank (http://www.genealogybank.com : accessed 10 Jan 2015), Historical Newspapers.

Find A Grave, “Find A Grave,” database and images, Find A Grave (www.findagrave.com : accessed 10 Jan 2015); Margaret McAdams Wade (Memorial #86839890); Record added 15 Mar 2012 by N. Dale Talkington.