Ahnentafel

This week’s snapshot of family history centers around the untimely death of Zina Edward Flanigan, my fifth cousin twice removed. He was a descendant of “Bottom Billy” Davis, mentioned here previously. The fifth of twelve children of William T. and Lydia Jane (Greene) Flanigan, he was born 16 December 1895 in the Coal district of Harrison County, West Virginia. This is not to be confused with Coal City, West Virginia, which is farther south in the state, in Raleigh County. Many of our relatives were from the Seventh Day Baptist strongholds of Harrison and Doddridge Counties.

In the 1900 census Zina’s father is listed as a coal dig[g]er, supporting his growing family in one of the many coal mines throughout that region. In 1910 Zina, now 15, is still listed as attending school and not employed. An interesting photograph from the West Virginia History OnView website shows a boy of 15 at work in the coal mines in 1908, so it would not have been unheard of for Zina to have been working by this time.

This reliance on the coal mines for the family’s livelihood can be readily seen throughout their census records. By 1920 Zina had married, but his siblings still at home were beginning to find employment to help out; his sister May, 24, is listed as “working out,” and Lester, 17, as a “laborer, coal mines.” In 1930 Zina’s father’s occupation had changed to “quarry man, stone quarry,” but Howard, 24, was a “loader, coal mines.” In 1940 William, Lydia, and Howard were living with Zina’s youngest sibling Glen, though Glen is a carpenter. William, now 72, is still employed in the coal mines, now as a coal loader, while Howard is listed as a “machinist, coal mine.”

Meanwhile Zina, no longer under his father’s roof, continued down the coal mining path. On 2 July 1917 21-year-old Zina married Bessie Arthelia Ash, 20 years old, at her father’s residence. At about the same time, Zina registered for the draft and noted his employer was the Clark Coal Company. In 1918 Bessie gave birth to their first child, Kenneth Bute Flanigan, but Kenneth died in 1920. His cause of death (along with that of 5 others on the same page) is listed helpfully as “complications.” Three more sons followed (in 1921, 1924, and 1931), all of whom lived to adulthood and can be found in later censuses.

Zina can be found in 1930 but not 1940, as he died 84 years ago today at the age of 44. Unlike the death certificate for baby Kenneth, Zina’s provides a bit more detail on both his life and death. His occupation is listed as Coal Miner at Katherine Mines. His parentage, birth date, and marriage to Bessie are confirmed. And according to the information supplied by his attending physician, Zina died at the Union Protestant Hospital in Clarksburg at 4:30 a.m. on the 28th, having been attending by Dr. Williams starting on the 26th. Dr. Williams indicates Zina’s cause of death as “meningitis (strep)” and then adds “A history of a head injury while working in the Mines – (a possible cause).” I didn’t realize meningitis could be caused by head injury, but a quick Google search confirmed this is a possibility. One thinks of mining accidents and black lung, but less so about injuries from which one recovers only to have them prove fatal in a circuitous way later on. Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to find further details about Zina’s head injury history.

The newly-widowed Bessie appears in the 1940 census as head of the household, along with her sons, then 19, 15, and 8. None are listed as having employment. According to the Find a Grave website, Bessie remarried in 1944, but that marriage soon ended in divorce. In 1954 she married again, to Harvey Kyle in Frederick County, Virginia. That marriage lasted 21 years until Harvey’s death. Bessie herself would die in 1990 in Baltimore at the age of 93, having outlived Zina by more than half a century.