Hannah

&

Lizzie

Circa 1895

Hannah Selena Wedgbury was the second child of William Wedgbury and Elizabeth Wheatland.  She was born October 7^th, 1852, at Farm Ridge in LaSalle County, Illinois.  In her early years the family home was filled by her parents, her siblings, and her Wheatland great-grandparents whom she was able to recall in later years.  After her great-grandparents passed away, her father William moved the family to Livingston County, Illinois.  There, her older brother William was died from injury, and she took on the mantle of Oldest Child.  The family moved again to Stockland Township, Iroquois County, Illinois.

Hannah taught was a school teacher in her early adulthood, including teaching at the Blue Ridge School near Raub, Benton County, Indiana.  On September 4^th, 1878, she returned to Illinois and married Henry Smith Richardson.

Henry was the son of Aaron and Sally Richardson.  He was a native of New Jersey, born there May 1^st, 1844.

Hannah and Henry spent their early married life on farms south of Sheldon, Iroquois County,Illinois, and then settled in Sheldon itself in 1900.  They had two children:  Sallie Elizabeth (“Lizzie”), born in 1879, and William Aaron, born 1883.

In 1885, Hannah’s mother Elizabeth died.  By all accounts, Hannah stepped into the role of matriarch of the remaining Wedgbury family.  It is she who remembers the Wheatland cousins and corresponds with them.  The family goes to her home for care in illness and declining days.  Her sister Carrie died at her home, and her father William spent his last years with Hannah’s family and also dies in her home in 1910.

Hannah’s husband Henry dies in 1913.  Their son William had married in 1908 and already was living in a home of his own.  Their daughter Lizzie was still single and had been successfully teaching since 1896, in the schools at Pleasant Hill, Glass, Rhode Island, Clark, and Effner; she was teaching at the Sheldon school at the time of her father’s death and living at home with her parents.  She remained a spinster and a teacher at Sheldon for the rest of her life, caring for her mother.

Hannah took in boarders to help support the running of the home.  She was active in the Methodist church and in caring for her grandchildren and other Wedgbury family members until she fell and fractured her hip in 1940.  Sadly, she did not recover from the fall and passed away on November 7^th, 1940, at the Watseka Hospital.  She was eighty-eight years old.

Henry

&

William

Circa 1895

William Aaron Richardson

at work,

circa 1930

Descendants of Hannah Selena Wedgbury

Hannah Selena Wedgbury     1852 - 1940

Married:  Henry Smith Richardson    1844 - 1913

      Children:

       A.  Sallie Elizabeth Richardson  1879 – 1958

            Never married, no children.

       B.  William Aaron Richardson    1883 - 1958

             Married:  Vera E. Smith           1889 - 1958

            1.  Zelda Mae Richardson         1911 - 1967

                Married:  Russell Byron Taylor  1905 - 1969

                Children:

                 a.  Living Daughter Taylor    1930 -

                        Married:  Living Southard         1926 -

                        Children:  4 sons, 1 daughter, living

                 b.  James Aaron Taylor        1931 - 2006

                        Married:  Living Jean Lowe       1936 -

                        Children: 2 sons, 2 daughters, living

            2.  Amos Everett Richardson    1919 - 1969

                Married (1):  Norma ???      

                Children:  1 son, 1 daughter, living

                Married (2):  Dorothy Catherine Mazur

Hannah Wedgbury Richardson

 with daughter Lizzie

Circa 1935