(1) Name: Marjorie Nell “Bebenel” DOWNING
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Birth: June 26, 1887 New London, Ralls County, Missouri
Death: after June 3, 1970 Age: 82
Father: Dr. Thomas Jefferson DOWNING (1851-1930)
Mother: Sarah Campbell “Cammie” HAYS (1859-1966)
Misc. Notes
Nell Downing Norton is well known among Shawhan, Smith, and Reading family researchers. Her contributions to Julia Ardery’s “Early Bourbon Families” project (1944-1946) in cooperation with the Kentuckian-Citizen newspaper, Paris, Kentucky, is well known. --REF
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Dear Bob Francis,
Greetings!
I found your research on Ancestry.com and can give you some information.
First, let me tell you that I am Edie Gale Hays, a descendant of George Campbell Hays, Jr and Mary Jane Wise though their son, George Edgar Hays who married Fannie Jessie Ogle.
Marjorie Nell Downing / Mrs. Voris Norton used the name "Baby Nell" as a child, made it less childish later by reversing the accent to the first syllable in "Bebenel", and didn't officially take the name Marjorie Nell until she was in college (or later?). My grandmother, Edith Myers (Mrs William Ogle Hays) attended college with Bebenel Bebenel's tombstone in the Barkley Cemetery, New London, Ralls Co., MO, and has "Bebenel" engraved below her name and dates.
If you'd like, I can try for a digital photo of hers and other Hays tombstones in a couple of weeks when I drive through there. (I can NOT find the photos I took about five years ago...)
My father, Howard Hays, <hhays@fidnet.com> can tell you about her, as her knew her since he was a child. He's 79 and his memory is starting to fade, so if you'd like the family gossip from him, I recommend you contact him soon. His only sibling, older brother George Edgar Hays, died last September.
I have the Hays line back to when John Hays and wife Rebecca settled in Virginia. Please go to http://www.web-ster.com/lhays/haysdex/HTOC.htm but know that I intend to take that site down in a few months, and post additions and corrections to EdieGale.com
I also found you listed in Gendex as researching Arderry and Hickman, but was unable to get the link through to your website. These are ancestors of Fannie Jessie Ogle who married George Edgar Hays. I have Peggy Ardery married Jesse Ogle in Harrison Co., KY. I *assume* but have not yet attempted to prove, that William Ardery was her father. Who was HIS father??
Mary Elizabeth Hickman married Jesse Ogle Jr. and moved to Ralls Co., MO. Since she named her first son Hugh, I assume, but again have not yet attempted to prove, that she was a daughter of Hugh Smith Dunn Hickman. I assume (from proximity) that Hugh was a son of Benjamin and Kizzia.
Any information that you would share on these families would be very welcome.
Edie Gale Hays
110 Bryant Road
Rolla, MO 65401
edghays@umr.edu
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Some info on Bebenel (gleaned from my Grandmother, Della Edith Myers Hays, and my father, Howard Myers Hays):
Bebenel was apparently not named at birth, and later was given leave to name herself. Apparently all heroines (or damsels in distress, or both?) of that time were named Nell, and so she named herself (being but a young child) "Baby Nell." It's a bit of a name for an older child, and by the time she was a teenager, she'd swapped the accent and become BEB-eh-nel. As I understand from someone who has a copy of her family Bible, all other entries were apparently written in one hand, and in chronological order EXCEPT for Nell's name. Space was left for the entry of her name, and in that space, but in a different handwriting, appears the name Marjorie [or is it Margarie?] Nell Downing.
I don't know that she ever used the name Margarie. It was not uncommon for anyone in this family to use their middle name as their use-name. Her mother, Sarah Campbell Hays, was known as "Cammie." Bebenel apparently began using the name Nell after her marriage (I think she published everything under the name Nell Downing Norton, or Mrs. Voris Norton), but to family she was always Bebenel.
She was not married long when her husband died. Her father's family owned a construction company (??) in St Louis, and "were not hurting" though were not rich, either. Her father-in-law offered to support her as long as she remained a widow, undoubtedly assuming that she would remarry. She was given a modest pension to live on. She realized that she could live far less expensively back in New London and moved back there to live and follow her heart. Unfortunately for her father-in-law, marrying again was apparently not in her heart. She became a professional genealogist, and did well in her field.
She was a researcher, and apparently a very good one, but she tended to become sidetracked. In the St Louis Public Library is a copy of one of her books. She published the marriage records of Ralls Co., MO, but apparently only in carbon copies, and filled with family references. (Someone else finally re-published the records for major distribution.) She also had the audacity in the above-mentioned "book" to make references to another book which she contributed to the same library. See page ___ of "The Descendants of John Walker of Wigton, Scotland." The problem was, the "page" she referred to was something she had typed and pasted inside the back cover of the Walker book! If someone were to look for this reference in any other copy of the book, they wouldn't find it!
Grandma told me that Bebenel belonged to any and every genealogical organization that she could find that she qualified for. She was not able to prove Mayflower, or she would have belonged to that one, also.
I undoubtedly met Bebenel at some point in my youth, but in the mayhem of family reunions I tended to ignore the adults -- they were all ancient. The last time I would have been likely to have seen her was 1966 at my Great Grandma Hays's funeral. Bebenel's aunt, Jessie Ogle Hays, widow of George Edgar Hays, died at age 94. Bebenel was nigh on 80. I was 12.
Edie
Spouses
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1: Voris NORTON
Death: March 9, 1932
Burial: Green Hill Cemetery, Bedford, Indiana
Marriage: May 25, 1929