More Information, More Questions

When I had entered my notes on the Wood/Rice research and was checking to make sure I had everything done I remembered that I owned an Illiopolis history. It was put together for the 2006 sesquicentennial of the town by the same Mary Ann Kaylor who tracked down and transcribed the Pritchett Funeral Records. For several years she was the County Coordinator of the Sangamon County ILGenWeb site.

I looked up Charles McCorkle, he who married Hattie Wood. On p. 89 in a section where Mary Ann collected items from old newspapers, I found that “Mrs. Charley McCorkle, Miss Louesa Rice and Elmer Rice spent Friday in Springfield.” Unfortunately there is no date but it is in the 1923-1934 section.

I also learned in the same section that “After spending a month visiting friends and relatives in this community, Mr. and Mrs. Charley McCorkle returned to their home near Alexandria, Indiana, early Saturday morning.”

Later on I learned that McCorkle was a member of and made tables for the new Christian Church in 1905 and that he had been a janitor in an Illiopolis school.

It gets better.

Also working at the school was Sanders Rice. Remember, Hattie Wood McCorkle’s mother was a Rice. Those Rices weren’t from the same county area and the census does not list other Rices in the area. But I do know Sanders Rice. He was married to Lovina Wood, my great grandaunt from my maternal Wood line.

In the course of tracking this down I located Emily Rice Wood Beason living with a Beason son whose name I cannot make out, possibly Oscar, born June 1881 and Cline McCorkle, born May 1889, grandson, but not with Joseph Beason on the 1900 census. He is a boarder in town. Obviously a split. Did she also split from William Wood? Is that what caused her to use her maiden name when marrying Beason?

The more you learn the more questions you have.