For someone whose family were well known and prominent in Greenville, Herbert L. Gee's tombstone seems oddly incomplete, since it is clearly a tombstone for a husband and wife, but only one side is filled.
The tombstone reads as follows:
[back]
WOW Medallion
H. L. Gee
[Front]
IOOF
[L side]
H. L. Gee
1872-1901
[R side]
-blank-"
From Find-a-Grave: (
visit link)
"Dallas Morning News, Tue, 17 Dec 1901, page 8:
MORTUARY.
Special to the News.
GEE-Greenville, Tex., Dec. 16-Herbert L. Gee, aged 28 years, died at his home in this city yesterday afternoon from the effects of a stroke of apoplexy. He served for several years as correspondent and circulator for The Dallas News at this place. He resigned his position with The News to accept the city editorship of the Greenville Morning Herald, which position he held until Feb. 26, 1894, when he accepted a like position with the Greenville Evening Banner.
Hunt County, Texas Cemeteries, Volume 3, by Kathy Lynn Penson & Robert Lee Thompson, 1979, page 55:
GEE, H.L., (W.O.W.), 1872-1901"
There are LOTS of Gees in Greenville, all descended from War of 1812 veteran James Gee and Ann Hawkins Gee. Their son Thomas J. Gee was born in 1842 in Tennessee. James and Ann left Tennessee for Greenville, Texas by 1860.
In 1860 Thomas J. Gee was living with his parents in Greenville TX, but he soon joined the Confederate Army, serving as a Private in Co. K, 3rd Confederate Cavalry and left Texas. He stayed in Mississippi after the Civil War, and married his wife Lavinia there in 1868. We found them in the 1870 US Census in Madison Co. MS. Thomas J. and Lavinia Gee's son Herbert L Gee was born in Mississippi in 1872.
According to the 1900 US Census, Thomas Gee and his family moved to Greenville in the mid-1870s. Their first Texas-born child (Herbert Gee's sister Annie) arrived in 1877.
[A small digression: In the 1870s, a new Federal law was passed granting monetary pensions to War of 1812 veterans who served honorably. Thomas Gee's father James Gee had fought in that war, and been honorably discharged in 1813. Soon after, James claimed the 8- acres of free bounty land granted him in TN for his service. BUT - when James Gee applied for the new Federal 1812-service pension, his claim was denied because his sons Thomas and Frank's Gee's service in the Confederate Army, which, under the 1812 pension law, was grounds to consider James Gee disloyal to the US. Sometimes actions have unintended or unforeseen consequences.]
Herbert's father Thomas Gee died in Greenville in Nov 1900, and is buried under a double tombstone with his wife Lavinia (died 1949) in East Mount Cemetery. In the same plot, Herbert L Gee is buried by himself under a double tombstone. But why does his tombstone mirror his father and mother's?
On Ancestry, we found Herbert L Gee in the 1900 census, age 28, born in Mississippi, working as an editor (for the Greenville local newspaper), and married to Floy E. Gee, his wife. They had an infant son, Harold L. Gee, age 3 months.
They married on 03 Jun 1896 in Greenville, Hunt County TX. Their marriage record lists her as Floy Schoonover. They were married a little over 5 years when he died in 1901, a few months after his father died in November, 1900. So the father's and son's tombstones look alike because both stones were ordered about the same time.
But what happened to Herbert Gee's widow, Floy? Where did she go? Did she stay in Greenville and marry again? Is she nearby in this cemetery under a new name?
Time for some more research: In the 1910 US Census, we found 1900 census baby Harold, now 9, living with his mother Floy S. Gee, a widow, at 1169 Spruce Street in Berkeley, California, which was the home of his maternal grandmother Mary Scoonover. They are all still here in the 1920 Census. Harold is now 19 years old.
The next record I could find was from Harold Gee's marriage to Ruth E. Ruser in Alameda Co. CA in 1927.
In the 1930 US Census, Harold is back in TX, living in Dallas with his w1fe Ruth and a boarder. He is working as a lithograph salesman, and they are living in a rented home at 4511 Rusk Street in Dallas.
In 1940 he and Ruth had moved from Dallas to San Antonio. He registered for the draft in San Antonio in 1942.
We found his mother in the 1940 Census still in Berkeley, living with her sister and brother in law Charles W. Gee in the house she was living in for the 1920 US Census. She was still here in the 1950 Census.
Harold Gee eventually returned to California from Texas, and died on 12 Aug 1961 in Alameda County, California. He was buried in Sunset View Cemetery. When he died, he was living in his grandmother's (and later his mother's) house at 1169 Spruce St.
So that's the solution to the mystery: Blasterz thought Floy might have remarried, but instead she moved to California to live with her mother, never remarried, and lived with family until she died.