19 Feb 1904:

United Once More
Death of the Last of Two Couples Noted and Revered Among Shelby County Pioneers

The death of Mrs. Laetitia Willis Middleton occurred at her home, “Cross Keys” five miles east of Shelbyville, last Wednesday afternoon at half-past four o’clock. She was in the eighty-fifth-year of her age and had been in delicate health for several years.

Besides a sister, Mrs. Rebecca Van-Natta, of St. Joseph, Mo., Mrs. Middleton is survived by six children, Mrs. Mattie Thomasson, of New Castle; Mrs. W. D. Harris, of this county, and mrs. Emma Utterback, Miss Edna Middleton and Messrs. William Robert and Wallace H. Middleton, who live at home.

The funeral will take place at the residence this morning at 10 o’clock, conducted by rev. H. J. Davis, pastor of Clayvillage Baptish church. The interment will be in the cemetery at Old Bethel.

Deceased was the widow of Robert Middleton, who, with his brother Adam, inherited from their father, one of Shelby county’s pioneers, the property known a century ago and even now as “Cross Keys,” or the half way place between Lexington and Louisville. This was a noted hostelry and has been known for more than a century for its hospitality and good cheer. It was there deceased went as a bride in 1840, and she and her sister, mary Frances, who four years before had married Mr. Adam Middleton, became joint mistresses of the domestic affairs of a house that was doubtless conducted unlike any other in the history of Kentucky. Here, two brothers married to two sisters, each couple reared a large family of children, a community of interest prevailing in all things, the children hardly knowing in their younger years, which of the elder people were father or mother, uncle or aunt. For a full half century there was nothing to trouble the waters for the loving and lovable members of this remarkable double homestead, until death, on June 15, 1890, removed Mr. Adam Middleton, the elder of the two brothers. The other brother, Robert, died on November 7, 1891, both of them closing their eyes to this world in the same room in which they were born.

The two sisters maintained the same relations after the death of their husbands, and kept a “home” for their respective children and friends until August 20th, 1896, when the grim reaper claimed Mrs. Mary Frances, the widow of Mr. Adam Middleton. Mrs. Laetitia Middleton, the surviving one of the original members of this hapy and singular family, drifted down to a green old age, loved and respected by sons and daughters, nephews and nieces, and everybody else who had the pleasure of her acquaintance. Her remains will to-day, be laid with those of her husband, sister and brother-in-law in the graveyard near “Old Bethel”, the little church that is on the farm and only about two hundred yards from the old homestead.401