Tag: Moorefield

Sallie Francis Method was my paternal ancestor, born during the American Reconstruction Era to an unwed mother, Phoebe Method.¹ Sallie was her mother’s fifth child and second daughter. Her grandparents, Solomon Method and Millie Davis Method lived in the town of Moorefield, Hardy County before the Civil War, before the area became a part of the new state called West Virginia.

In her late teens, Sallie worked for a wealthy farming family as their nanny. I learned about her job through the cemetery’s groundskeeper.² He recalled how the former Moorefield Mayoress (mayor’s wife), Myrtle Miley Pickard visited him while he maintained the Oak Hill cemetery where Sallie is buried.³ He said Myrlte stood near her marker and said, “She was my nanny.”

Photo Credit: Glon Turner, Find A Grave Volunteer. Mr. Turner gave me a lead to interview Mr. Washington for my research.

Prior to her passing, Sallie raised eight children mostly on her own. The mother of two, Charles and Edna, became Willard Ford’s third wife in 1914. ⁴ She and Willard would have three daughters Mary, Mildred, and Helen. Willard was killed in December 1918 while Sallie was pregnant with their youngest daughter.⁵ Sallie supported her family as a restaurant cook.⁶ She owned her home and grew her own food. Her daughter said, “We had fields and fields of land.”⁷ She birthed three more daughters.

Sallie was resourceful and family oriented. Her daughter, Pearl remembered that their mother designed their dresses and made their dolls.⁸ Her younger daughter described how her mother named them after family members and friends. Her oldest, a son is named after her Uncle Charles. A middle daughter, Mildred Francis after her Grandmother Millie, and herself. Her youngest daughter Anna Mae is her sister, Mae’s namesake.⁹ Her naming practices would later help me make a huge genealogy discovery.

Sallie’s Uncle Charles Clinton Method lived in my hometown.¹⁰ He left West Virginia around the death of his mother, Millie Davis Method in the mid-1870s.¹¹ He married Keziah Foster Lowery in 1877, in Ross County, Ohio. ¹² The couple raised their son, William Arthur Method, who became a physician and founded the first and only African American Hospital in Central Ohio in the 1920s.¹³

Click here to see the hospital and the physician on page 28. https://www.columbuslandmarks.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/02/African-American-Comm.pdf

Sallie spent her last day caring for her family. Her daughter described they were going in and out of the house hanging laundry.¹⁴ When she returned inside Sallie collapsed in the kitchen. The neighbors later arrived and found her surrounded by her daughters.¹⁵

Her former in-laws agreed to have her buried in their family plot in Oak Hill cemetery.

Sallie Francis Method Ford, 1884 -1938.

I hope you celebrated your mothers today and remember those women who are no longer here physically to nurture and love us through these earthly journeys.

Sources.

1. 1900 US Federal Census.
2. Interview with former Oak Hill Cemetery Groundskeeper, Omer Washington, 2020.
3. The Cumberland News, July 4, 1968 pg 22.
4. Hardy County Marriage Registry.
5. The Washington Post, December 22, 1918 pg 9.
6. 1930 US Federal Census.
7. Interview with Sallie Ford’s daughter in 2021.
8. Interview with family friend, Joalee Jones, 2022.
9. Interview with Sallie Ford’s daughter in 2023.
10. 1920 US Federal Census.
11. 1880 US Federal Census.
12. Ohio, U.S., County Marriage Records, 1774-1993
13. library.osu.edu/alphahospital
14. Interview with Sallie Ford’s daughter, 2019.
15. Interview with former Oak Hill Cemetery Groundskeeper, Omer Washington, 2020.