William Elijah Joseph and Frances Viola Ridley Petty

My mother was/is Ethel America "Janie" Petty.   Her parents were William Elijah Joseph Petty (1875 - 1935), son of Daniel Webster Petty  & Sarah Jane Garrett and Frances Viola "Ola" Ridley (1885 - 1968), daughter of Thomas Jefferson Ridley & Maryetta Ludarden Pullen.

William Elijah Joseph Petty went by Elijah.  He was born in Fannin County, Georgia, and died in Murray County, Georgia.  He lived  60 years.  By 1904, age 29, he had moved with his parents from Fannin County,  and married Frances Viola "Ola" Ridley, age 19.

Elijah had lung problems.  He was recommended by a doctor to  move out west.  He and his family moved to Gillette, Campbell County, Wyoming, where my mother was born in 1918.  They were part of the homestead act. 

The late Opal Petty remembered  one time a band of outlaws on horseback arrived wanting a place to sleep and  food to eat.  The leader said if they gave them what they came food there would not be any trouble.  Elijah told them they could sleep in the barn and Ola cooked food for them.  Elijah sat at his front door with a shotgun all night.  They could hear them riding their horses around and around the house, shooting up in the air and whooping it up.  The next morning they got on their horses and left.

Eliljah and Ola got with some other families and agreed to bring in a school  teacher and gave her free room and board to teach their children.

 After nearly starving one winter they moved back east.   They moved to Appomattox , Virginia.

Ola and the younger kids went by train.  Elijah carried the two oldest, Tom and Wallace with him in their covered wagon.  Now, I would think that was quality time, sleeping under the stars at night and seeing the cross section of the United States.

In Virginia they rented a plantation type ran-down Greek Mansion where Roy was born.   I don't know why they returned to  Murray County, Georgia, but they did and that is where the two youngest, Leonard and  Sarah were born.  Opal remembered her uncle Wesley meeting them at the train station.

Was Elijah a good father or a bad father?  I have heard both version all through my childhood.  At the Petty family get togethers  some of Elijah's children disliked his memory very much and the others defended his memory.   Some feel he abused them and showed favoritism to the others.  So, was he a good father or not?  It is according to whom you ask.

 

Back in Murray County the family got by picking cotton.  Elijah died in 1935 at age 60 leaving his family in bad  financially bad shape.  They had a rough time surviving for years. 

 

 

 

Just a few years later most the children left home for various reasons:  Marriage, college, WWII, and finding work.  It was tough times but they all got through it.  And based some family pictures back then when they all got together they had a good time.

All the children left home  except Opal.  She stayed and took care of her mother as long as she was able.

Ola died in a nursing home in Paulding County  at age 82.

Willliam Elijah Jospeh and Frances Viola Ridley Petty had ten children.   Two died as infants.