McDowell County WV Archives Photo Person.....Cloninger, Nancy Ellen Shields 1940 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/wvfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joe Mode jmode@mindspring.com July 26, 2012, 10:59 am Source: Family Picture Name: Nancy Ellen Shields Cloninger Date Of Photograph: 1940 Photo can be seen at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/wv/mcdowell/photos/cloninge165ph.jpg Image file size: 274.7 Kb Nancy Ellen Shields, daughter of Joseph Winston and Henrietta Aldridge Shields of McDowell County, West Virginia, was born on 16 May 1862, most like in Grayson County, Virginia, and died on 25 January 1952 in Knoxville, Tennessee. She married James Moses Cloninger on 23 February 1879 in Knoxville, Tennessee. 12 Children were born to this union. CLONINGER, MRS. NANCY ELLEN Age 89, died at 1009 Calloway Avenue at 9:30 p.m. Friday. Member of the Deadrick Avenue Baptist Church. Funeral 2:30 p.m. Sunday, Rose Chapel, Rev. Bruce Dozier officiating. Internment New Gray Cemetery. Pall bearers: Bill, Ted, and Paul Mynatt, Delmar Allbright, Robert Walker, Roy Moon. Body remains at Rose Funeral Home. (Note, New Gray Cemetery is on Western Ave. and very visible with stones for both Nancy and James Moses and several of their children.) According to her Death Record, Nancy Ellen Shields Cloninger died at the home of her daughter. She lists Nancy as being born in West Virginia. The informant, Mrs. P.E. Farrington only knew that her father was a “Shields” and “don’t know” was listed under mother’s maiden name. Cause of death, according to her death certificate (# 52-00918) was a “Cerebral Hemorrhage due to hypertension.” She was survived by three daughters: Mrs. P.E. Farrington, Mrs. W.M. Weisgarber and Mrs. W.E. Sliger, all of Knoxville and three sons: Jessie James Cloninger of Knoxville, Frank Cloninger of California and Vergil Cloninger of Oregon. She had “several grandchildren, great grandchildren and four great great grandchildren.” The total cost for the funeral was $400.00. Nancy Ellen Shields married James Moses Cloninger on 23 February 1879 in Knoxville, Tennessee by Paschal Carter. Bondsman was A.B. Cash. Nancy Ellen told Jewell Vermillion that she met James Moses Cloninger "while she was staying with some people to help with the children and housework." I do not know where this occurred as of yet and have not found how Nancy Ellen came to be in Knoxville. James Moses was born on 8 March 1859 and died of "stomach trouble", according to his Death Certificate (#48898), on 26 March 1910. But, Jewell Vermillion, daughter of Minnie Mae Cloninger Farrington, stated that he died of TB. His death record lists him as a “Merchant.” He owned two grocery stores and rented four houses. He lost all of this, plus his own house to a crooked lawyer because he believed he had everything in order in the way of paperwork, etc. According to Nancy Ellen Shields Cloninger her mother had had a new baby, perhaps the twins Eli and Levi, and she was sent to live with her Grandmaw Baker and uncle, who was a Baker too. She told Jewell Vermillion that her Grandmaw Baker and uncle raised her. Nancy Ellen used to say, "Grandmother Shields, pick her up by the heels, Grandmother Baker, pick her up and shake her." Not sure if she meant that her Grandmaw Baker and uncle lived together or separately. Have also heard that Nancy's mother was sick and may have died, thus causing her to leave home. Nancy Ellen Shields told my Granny Mode Sliger Caldwell that her uncle had been in a war, probably the War for Southern Independence, and that she remembers him coming home in his uniform. In an interview with my granny I asked her who the story was about and she said the story was about Nancy's uncle and that "she was a little bitty girl too, then. She said that when he (her Uncle Baker) come across there (the field) it scared her. She thought it was some stranger, you know. She went runnin into the house. He had been to war." Nancy had also told my granny that her uncle had to burn his clothes. Nancy Ellen Shields told Jewell Vermillion that "She and her Grandmother Baker were working out in the fields and saw her uncle coming down the road from the war. They didn’t know if he had been killed or not, but were waiting for the men to come home. They started screaming when they saw him and she wanted to run and hug him but her Grandmother Baker told her she couldn't and made him burn his clothes and bathe before they could hug him." She related that she had one younger sister, two older sisters and two twin brothers named Eli and Levi who were killed in a mill accident. Jewell verified this saying that her grandmother, Nancy Ellen, told her that she had a sister named Martha and twin brothers named Eli and Levi who died in an explosion at a mill.Nancy Ellen related to Jewell that when the twins were born she and her sister Martha felt like they had their own babies and they would wrap them up like little dolls and play with them. She said that once they had built a little cabin in the woods and had the babies with them when two hunters came along and told them they had better get the babies out of the woods, saying "There's bears in these woods and they'll eat those babies up." Nancy again related to Jewell that she "lived in the Allegheny Mountains." Nancy Ellen apparently had contact with her family for she knew of her brothers' deaths and also had pictures of them, which Jewell Vermillion now has. Material from other sources verify what Nancy stated regarding her twin brother’s dying and her not being within the Shields household. Said material stated that the twins were killed when a boiler exploded at a sawmill. The twins were born on 15 January 1869. Eli Shields died on 29 December 1888 and Levi died two days later on 31 December 1888 in Sandlick, Mercer County West Virginia. This material also lists Nancy Ellen as the 6th child of Joseph Winston and Henrietta Aldridge Shields. Having found her family and noting that she was not in said household in the 1870 Grayson Co., Virginia Census also verifies Nancy Ellen's story regarding her leaving home to live with her Grandmother Baker and Uncle. She is absent in the 1860 census because she was born in 1862 and absent in the 1880 census because she was married in 1879. (This new material and family information is listed below) My granny (Nancy Ellen Shield's granddaughter) told these stories to me during an interview with her on 2 January 1991. She was 85 at the time. This is transferred just as it was told to me by my granny, including how she spoke and her dialect. She said she (Nancy Ellen Shields Cloninger) "told me this herself." Her uncle (Baker) was at war and her mother had a new baby and her grandmaw (Baker) took her, took grandmaw (Cloninger) because she was next to the baby one and she kept her so long that she just raised her. They lived, wasn't in seein distance, but I think her mother was kindly sick after she had this new baby. So she (Grandmaw Baker) just kept on keepin my grandmother, Nancy Ellen was her name. And she kept her so much. And then her uncle went to war. He lived with his mother, grandmaw's grandmaw. She said that she just stayed on there till she growed up, till she married. And she never did live back at home.” Additional Comments: I have a few more stories about Nancy Ellen Shields Cloninger if you are interested, when she was a littel girl, etc. File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/wv/mcdowell/photos/cloninge165ph.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.poppet.org/wvfiles/ File size: 7.8 Kb