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Sara (Sallie) was born in Georgia on the tenth of August 1848. Her parents were Andrew (Bill) and Mary Ann Smith Williams. At a time during her childhood the family moved to Newton, Newton County, Mississippi. It was in Newton that Sara met and married Walter Johnas (Jonas) Ratheal in 1869. She was twenty-one years old. Jonas was a farmer and Sara was a homemaker bearing twelve children. Sara´s children were:A fight between Sara´s son Walter Perry and his friend caused the family to flee in the middle of the night even though no one was seriously injured. They traveled to McLellan County, Texas in 1893 and settled as sharecroppers on farmland owned by a county Judge. The land was located in or around the town of Leroy just northeast of Waco.
- Mollie Elizabeth (1870-1963)
- Sarah Jenie (1872-1895)
- Minnie Lee (1874-1960)
- John (Johnnie) (1876-1876)
- Sophie Cornelia (Nealy) (1877-1963)
- Emma Jessie (1879-1961)
- Walter Perry (1881-1978)
- Thomas Wesley (1883-1960)
- Luvenia B. (Lula) (1885-1944)
- Annie Lee (1888-1965)
- Edna Dollie (1891-1983)
Typhoid fever struck the family in 1876 causing the death of infant Johnny and once again in 1895 causing the deaths of Sara´s husband, Walter Johnas, and their daughter, Sarah Jenie. Walter and Jenie were buried in the Olive Branch Baptist Church Cemetery in Olive Branch, Texas. Responsibility for the family fell upon the oldest son, Walter Perry. The family moved in 1903 to Granite, Greer County, Oklahoma, to gain employment in the granite quarry. The quarry was in need of labor for the construction of the State Reformatory located in Granite.
The Reformatory was completed in 1910. The following year Sara and her family moved to Dickens County, Texas, where they worked on a farm owned by Lee and Mollie Ratheal Overstreet. Then, in 1914, Sara and the family settled in the Pansy Community in Crosby County, Texas, and were active in the Pansy Baptist Church. At the time of her death she was living in Clovis New Mexico with her daughter, Jessie Gressett. Sara passed away on the eighteenth of May 1937, at the age of eighty-eight. Soon after, she was laid to rest in the Crosbyton Cemetery in Crosbyton, Texas.
At this writing, there are over 365 descendants of Sara and Jonas Ratheal.
Submitted by Charles Caballero
Clovis Woman Buried in Crosbyton, Tex
Mrs. S. E. Ratheal, 95, who passed away here Tuesday in the home of her daughter, Mrs. Jessie Gressett, with whom she lived, was buried yesterday in Crosbyton, Tex.She is survived by Mrs. Gressett and several other children, among who are two son, Walter and Tom Ratheal, Crosbyton; and a daughter, Mrs. Mollie Overstreet of Dora.
Clovis News Journal, Friday, May 21, 1937
Submitted by Charles Caballero
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Crosby County TXGenWeb Project
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