#52Ancestors, Week 14: Begins with a Vowel

This prompt seemed like a no-brainer. Every part of Ann Elizabeth Echols’s maiden name begins with a vowel. Her two married names connect mine and cousin Heather’s families. Ann’s first marriage was to Thomas J. Green, the father of my great great grandmother, Emma Kate Green. Ann’s second marriage was to Benjamin Everett Pearson, one of Heather’s direct line ancestors. He also happens to be my great great great grandfather’s brother.

Ann Elizabeth Echols, born 1839, was the eldest daughter of Benjamin F. Echols and Sarah Rebecca Arter. According to Thomas Green’s Civil War pension file, he and Ann were married in 1854. She and Thomas had two daughters, Emma Katherine and Dora Isabella, before Thomas answered the call to fight in the Civil War. Unfortunately, like so many others who had experienced the grisly realities of Civil War combat, he returned from service a changed man. By 1869, he and Ann had divorced. Ann’s deposition given for his pension request described the deterioration of their marriage. “After he came from the army, he got to drinking pretty hard, and that is the reason we separated. The fact is he was never like the same person after he came home."

After the Civil War and the death of his second wife, Theodosia, Benjamin Everett Pearson (who had fought for the Confederacy) moved from West Virginia to live near his brother Joseph Allen Pearson in Pulaski County, Illinois. On August 28, 1873, he married Ann Elizabeth (Echols) Green in Alexander County, Illinois. This union was likely a contributing factor to the marriage of Benjamin’s son, John Winston, to Ann’s daughter, Emma Kate in December 1874. Ann inherited quite a few stepchildren when she married Benjamin, but they also added a child of their own to the mix. Virginia M. Pearson was born April 13, 1876, in Olmsted, Illinois.

In 1880, Ann Pearson and family were still living in Pulaski County, Illinois. It is unknown exactly when Benjamin decided to move back to Virginia. Perhaps the catalyst was his mother’s death in Franklin County, Virginia, in 1881, or maybe he left Illinois after his brother, Joseph, died in 1882. Regardless of the motivation, in 1886, when Ann gives her deposition regarding her ex-husband’s pension, her address is Pearisburg, Virginia. Ann lived her whole life in Illinois, so I have to imagine it was difficult to leave behind all she had known.  I think it’s fortunate she had a young child of her own to raise when her husband decided to pull up stakes. Emma Kate remained in Pulaski County, Illinois, and Ann’s other daughter, Dora, was living in northern Illinois.

Ann Elizabeth (Echols) Green Pearson died in Pearisburg, Virginia, on New Year’s Day 1896.