Inspirational Message

Inspirational Message

Tuesday, August 2, 2016

Alta and Edith Wilhite

Alta & Edith Wilhite



Alta Wilhite and his wife Edith were residents of Emporia, Lyon County, Kansas at the time of the 1900 Census.

If you zoom in you will see that Alta and Edith had been married for nine months at the time the census was taken.  My quest was to find out how Alta and Edith fit into the Henry Wilhite family. I went back to 1880 looking in the same location since I knew the Wilhite's were there. 

 Sure enough! Living in the household of James W. Wilhite and his wife, Martha J, are Laura, Henry, and Altie. I found both images on FamilySearch.org 
Altie is indexed as Attie. Laura and Henry are the same age, but I don't know if they are twins.  The 1900 census gives the month of birth so a check for Henry and Laura should answer this question.



I found Henry easy enough, but I don't know who Laura married. The only clue I have is this photo.

Mother is Mary Wilhite.  The children are Bill, Harry, Ethyl and Grace. Ennis is a mystery. I think his name is Mann. Grace is the baby of the family and she was born in 1905. She appears to be one or two years old in this photo. No other children appear so it can be assumed that Laura and Ennis didn't have children. I was unable to find them in the 1900 census, together or alone. I noticed the house number in the photo above which gives me a clue. Considering Grace's year of birth, they might be found in the 1910 census.
I looked to see if they are in the 1910-1940 census records. In 1910, they are enumerated next  to Henry and Mary Wilhite in Kansas City, Wyandotte County, Kansas.  However, they live on N. Park and Henry lives on Reynolds.
They have one child, Inez, age 9 and, according to this census, the only child ever been born to Edith. An interesting note, Alta is enumerated as Albert A. 

I found them in the 1930 census living in Kansas City, Wyandotte County, Kansas. Alta states he was first married at age 19, he is currently 60. Edith states she was first married at age 18, she is now 49. This hints at a previous marriage for Alta. In the 1900 census Edith was 20 with her birth month being April and they had been married nine months as of June. That would set the marriage month as Sept of 1899.

I searched all of Ward 5 for house number 723 and came up empty.  Here is a plat map for Kansas City and Vicinity in 1907. 
I found it on Kansasmemory.org 
It shows KCK as well as KCMO. More Kansas maps are linked from KSHS.org 
 
I didn't find answers to all my questions, but I did fit Alta and Edith into the family tree.