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Submitted: 8/23/23 • Approved: 8/23/23 • Last Updated: 8/26/23 • R1497947-G0-S3
September 14, 1889 - November 10, 1936
William was the only living child of John O. Hays (born Oct. 1959) and Virginia E. Stewart Hays (1870-1943). They lived In Kenton, Hardin, Ohio during his growing up years. He married Ethel Morris in Colorado in 1916. They had a total of 9 children.
During WW I he signed up for the draft of 1917-1918. He was described by the interviewer as tall, medium build, blue eyes, light hair (not bald).
By 1920 the family would be in Kansas and he was working as a section foreman for the KCSR (Kansas City Southern RR). Within the next few years He became a foreman on a track rebuilding crew. So he and his family would go to where the work was located. His children reported that they never stayed longer than a year in any single place. They lived in RR housing which was usually a big house beside the tracks.
They lived "all over the mid west and South". When it came time to move they would load up their possessions and themselves on a train and ride to their next home and move in.
William Martin Hays died very young in 1936 in Sebastion County Arkansas. At that time, Ethel and family moved out to Newberg, Oregon, where her parents and her siblings lived. None of his grand children would remember him and 2 of his daughters might not remember him either.
Photo courtesy of Frances Allen Titsworth
Contributed on 8/23/23 by Billsully060
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Record #: 1497947