Emma’s first name must have been “Emily Jane”:
When Emily's father, Norman Argalus Whobrey, applied to the US Department of the Interior, Bureau of Pensions, for a pension for his Civil War service, he listed his oldest child as “Emly Jane” with a birth year of 1872. (I need to obtain a copy of this document.) Emma’s Tombstone lists her birth year as 1871.
The 1900 US Census shows a Silas Berle Armes (age 52) and his wife “Emily J” with a birth year of 1870, living in Edmonson County, Kentucky. Although the Census shows that Silas Berle Armes had nine children, “Emily” is shown to have only three children, of which all three were living. The three youngest children shown on the Census are Dessie E, Estille E, and Shelton, which are three of the four children attributed to Emma’s first marriage.
We know that Meredith York Vincent’s first wife, Martha Ellen Vanmeter Vincent, died in 1903, and that Meredith and Emma married on December 31, 1904.
We also know that the children from Emma’s marriage to Silas Berle Armes resulted in four children: Dessie, Estil, Sheldon, Zelma.
So, piecing all this together, it would make a great deal of sense that the “Emily J” in the Census and the “Emly Jane” in Norman’s pension appllication would be Emma.
Silas Berle Armes, then, would have died after June 20, 1900, and before December 31, 1904, and Zelma would have been born after 1900 and before 1904.
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