Edward

The Reeves Family and the Ewing Family Genealogies

Edward (Ned) Franklin Spears

(May 28, 1857 April 4, 1930)

Laura Francis Smith

(August 28, 1852 August 14, 1928)

Parents:	Charles Thompson Spears and Melisa Ann Boucher John Moore Smith and Mary Elizabeth Conyers
Daughter:	Nannie Maude Spears

Edward Franklin (Ned) Spears

Edward Franklin (Ned) Spears was born on May 28, 1857[1] in Allen County, Kentucky. Laura Francis Smith was born in Cumberland Gap, Tennessee a few years earlier, on August 28, 1852. Family records show their marriage was performed by Rev. J.D. Gilliam and was witnessed by Joe Spears and Jim McGuire.[2]

Those same records show that were married on October 14, 1875(?), in Scottsville, Allen County, Kentucky. The 1875 date is apparently wrong since the 1870 census, five years earlier, showed them as husband and wife.

They first appear together in the 1870 census records. He was then a 22-year old farmer in the New Roe community of Allen County, Kentucky. She was listed as Laura F. Spears, age 26. Their children are Docia E. Spears, age 3 and Myrta W. Spears, age 1. The census showed that he and his parents were all born in Kentucky. Laura and her parents were shown as being born in Tennessee. Their children were born in Kentucky.[3]

The 1880 United States Census for Allen County, Kentucky shows the household of Edward Franklin Spears living in the New Roe community. He was 22 and she was 28. They had two children, three and one. He was working as a farmer.[4]

He is shown in the 1900 census as a 42-year old farmer in Allen County, Kentucky. He is shown as being born in May 1858. In his household was his wife, Laura, then 44. She is shown as the mother of six children, all living. He and his parents were all born in Kentucky and she and her parents in Tennessee.

There were three children living with them: Docia Spears, born November 1876; [illegible], born September 1878; John Spears, born June 1878; [illegible], born January 1886; and born 1888.[5]

They actually had six children, Theodocia Ada Spears[6], Myrtle Walker Spears[7], Mammie (Mamie) Spears[8], John Ellis Spears[9], Nannie Maude Spears[10] and Edna Jane Spears[11].

The 1910 United States Census showed him as a 53-year old farmer. Living with him were his 54-year old wife, Laura Spears and their 20-year old daughter Edna Spears. By this time one of their children was shown as deceased.[12]

Edward Franklin (Ned) Spears (left) at his store on Main Street in Bowling Green, Kentucky. Circa ____.

By the time of the 1930 United States Census, he had moved to Bowling Green, Warren County, Kentucky. He was living in the home of his daughter Myrtle Walker Spears and her husband, Andrew Bond. He is listed as "Edward F. Spears, father-in-law," and as age 71, male, white, widowed, age 18 at his first marriage, able to read and write, he and his parents were all listed as being born in Kentucky, and having no occupation.[13] His wife had died almost two years earlier. He died on April 4, 1930, just two days after the census taker left.

Nannie Maude Spears remembered that her mother, Laura Francis Spears, went by the nickname “Doll.” She lived in Bowling Green, Kentucky for the last 23 years of her life, eventually dying at the home of Nannie Maude Spears after a 2-year illness.[14]

According to a newspaper obituary of Laura Spears[15], her funeral was conducted at the home of her son-in-law, L.L. Ewing. She was buried in Fairview Cemetery, Bowling Green, Kentucky. Kentucky Death records confirm her place of death.[16] According to the posting, Laura F. Spears died at age 76 on August 14, 1928.

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