Leaves From My Family Tree

Even though my grandmother and great-grandmother were interested in our Family History, not a lot was passed down about the family of my Great-Great Grandfather, Robert Alexander Henderson. It seemed to me that he had probably been estranged from his family. I was told that he had "fallen from a horse and hurt his head", that he was "sick", and, finally, that he was an alcoholic.

I had no clue as to who his parents were, (though I had been told he was born in Tennessee - as was nearly every Henderson in the USA!) and I couldn't locate him in the area that I had been told he died.

One day I received a telephone call from a woman in Idaho who had lost track of the same Robert A. Henderson... I had been working backwards from his adulthood, and she was working forward from his childhood. A new cousin was found through genealogy!

Robert Alexander Henderson was born in February, 1832, one of eight children born to William Henderson and Elizabeth S.

He married Nancy Monorcas Wilcox on 12 February 1863, in Davis County, Iowa, and they had three children, Sarah, Ella, and William Peyton Henderson, my Great-grandfather.

My Grandmother, Ruth Monorcas Wilcox Henderson Trump, told me a story of the time when her Grandfather, Robert A. Henderson, came to visit when she was about six years old. He let her choose anything she wanted from a Sears catalogue. She chose a little rocking chair, which is now being used by my granddaughter, Genevieve, when she is here visiting Grandma and Grandpa.

Robert A. Henderson died in 1899, and is buried in Nebraska, where his daughters lived. Nancy Wilcox Henderson spent the last few years of her life in Nebraska, living with her daughter, Sarah Stober.

Robert A Henderson

William P Henderson

Nancy W Henderson

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Siblings

Sources

© 2001-2004 Dianne McRae

Revised 8 February 2004