Biographies

MARY FREELOVE HALE

(15 August1859 to 2 August 1916)

Updated: 15 December 2005

Mary Freelove Hale was born in Marcellus, Michigan, on the Fifteenth of August1859. She was the daughter of hotelkeeper David S. Hale (13 September1818 to 13 November 1885) and his second wife Mary Ann McMurtrie (1825-1878). Her father has business interests in several southwest Michigan towns. Mary seems to have spent much of her youth in Three Rivers, St. Joseph County, Michigan, where her father had a hotel.

Mary’s odd middle name may come from her father’s first wife, Freelove Garrett. Some sources list her middle name as “Love” and some census documents call her “Mary L.” or “M.L.”  Some descendants list the name as “Love.” However, other documents give the middle name as “Freelove”.  Her cousin Frederick J. McMurtrie used “Freelove” and that was the name my father, Mary’s grandson, knew her by. The Daughters of the American Revolution papers filed by her daughter Blanche use the middle name “Freelove.”

When Mary was nine years old her mother died. For the next ten years Mary was motherless, but had numerous brothers and sisters. On 30 December 1878 her father married for the third time. His new wife was Adella Priscella Kennedy whose race was listed in the 1880 Federal census as “Mu[lotto]”, a circumstance that must have caused a few whispers in Three Rivers.

Accounts of her Mary’s youth are scanty. One family story is that she became a maid working in the home of the wealthy and well-known Elkhart County, Indiana, Violett family and this was the source of one of her daughter’s middle names. However, Mary was still in Three Rivers for the 1880 Federal census.  At that time she was listed as “chambermaid, Central House.”  Her daughter later implied that she had worked as a teacher. If true, it must have been between June 1880 and October 1882. There was an Ida J. McMurtrie who taught in Union School, Three Rivers, at about this time, but I do not know how they were related.  One of Mary’s brothers, John Hale, was married and living in Goshen by 1880 and this was her perhaps Mary’s link to the town. Three Rivers and Goshen are only about fifteen miles apart.  In any event, when Mary was 23 years old, she became the second wife of Henry Albert Weaver on 8 October 1882 in Goshen, (some say nearby Waterford Mills) Indiana. Henry had been married three years before to Mary Wolf, and a son Henry H. Weaver was born to this marriage. I do not know what happened to the marriage or the son.

Mary and Henry had seven children. All of them were born in Goshen, Indiana, and all reached maturity. They are listed below.

Mary’s husband, Henry Albert Weaver, was a postal and railroad clerk in Goshen. He seems to have altered drunkenness with an excess of religion; one family story, which I cannot confirm, is that he divorced Mary, married a younger woman, and then re-married Mary. All the family stories I have heard about Henry paint his as a very unpleasant person. In 1911 Henry and Mary moved their family to 4314 Fourteenth Street, Rock Island, Illinois. There daughter Blanche and her husband, Rollo Walters, had moved to Rock Island a year earlier.

In 1912 Mary’s husband died of typhoid fever. Mary was left with a ten year old daughter, a fifteen-year-old son, and very little money. On the morning of 2 August 1916 she wrote a letter to her daughter Bernice saying that she was well as usual. Later that day, she died suddenly. The official cause of death was listed as hardening of the arteries. She was 57 years old. Mary Freelove Hale is buried with her husband at Chippiannock Cemetery, Rock Island, Illinois.

1. Bernice Love Weaver (13 March 1884 – 26 May 1949); she married Vernon. Blake McConahay, (19 April 1875 – 30 April 1960) on 15 March, 1904. he had been born in Van Wert, Ohio. In 1910 they were living in Goshen. They had two sons and one daughter: Laura Isabelle McConahay (10 Nov 1912 – 1 Jan 2004) died in Van Wert, Ohio. Vernon Bruce McConahay (16 Jan 1905 – 2 Sep 1927); John Hale McConahay( 2 June 1915 – 15 August ), died in Franklin, Ohio.

 

2. Blanche Violet Weaver (26 January 1886 – 11 October1886; on 18 June 1904 she married Rollo Frank Walters (1882-1949). They had three sons and one daughter. Blanche lived in Rock Island, Illinois; Kalamazoo, Highland Park, and White Pigeon, Michigan. Her husband was a carriage trimmer who later sold fasteners to the automobile industry.  She is buried in Acacia Park Cemetery, Birmingham, Michigan.

3. Harrison Morton Weaver (15 November1888 -1958); he married Madeline Dorn; their daughter. They had two daughters and one son. He lived in Chicago and worked with railroads.

 

4.  Howard Henry Weaver; (4 July 1891- 11 September 1966) he was married to Gertrude McCloughan, who was called Anna, or Vallie.  They had one daughter and one son. He was an electrician and an electrical contractor.  Howard is buried at Oak Ridge Cemetery, Springfield, Illinois. One daughter.

5. Hazel Margaret Weaver. (4 March 1894 - May1968); she married Max Lorrain Hillmer on 15 July 1915. They spent much of their lives in LaGrange, Illinois, where Max worked for General Electric on Diesel locomotives. They had one son and one daughter. She Died in Guthrie, Oklahoma.

 

6.   Noble Ridel Weaver. (3 August 1897 and 17 April 1955); he married three times, Inez K. Nelson, Hazel Shore, and Lillian Barefoot. They had four sons.

7. Mary Katherine “Kappy” Weaver.  (17 February1902 – 20 March 1982); she married Paul Leonard Schneider 16 October 1923. They had two daughters. Two daughters. Paul was an engineer. Kappy is Buried East Maplewood cemetery, Anderson, Indiana.

William D. Walters, Jr.
wdwalte@aol.com

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