Bettice Lineage

My father's paternal grandmother's mother was Dessie Bettice (1881-1969). She married George Martin (1870-1954) in December 1896. It was Grandma Martin who Charlie Boughner called "Mom," as it was Dessie and George who raised him. When Dad was very young, he remembers living in his Great-grandmother's house when his dad was at war in Korea.

Henry Thomas Bettice was born in 1832, and died on 5 December 1898 in Indiana. He is buried in Upper Mound Cemetery, near Covington, Fountain County, Indiana. The tombstone (which I have seen) doesn’t list a date of birth, only his date of death, and age: 66 years. It also has “Co. A 66 ILLS INF” - Company A, 66th Illinois Infrantry; a Civil War veteran. He was my ggg-grandfather.

He was the first husband of Barbara Ellen Fruits, and they had 4 children. Their daughter, Dessie Ann, was my gg-grandmother.

Dessie was born 26 October 1881 in Jamestown, Boone County, Indiana, and died 5 October 1969 in Covington, Fountain County, Indiana. She's buried with her husband George Martin in Lower Mound Cemetery, near Covington. Notes from the funeral home state that she was preceded in death by three brothers, and three half-brothers. She was a “resident of Fountain County most of her life” and a “member of [the] Christian Union Church.”

This was who raised Charlie Boughner, not his mother. I don't know what the circumstances were that Hazel could/would not care for him, and neither does my dad. At any rate, for all intents and purposes, when Dessie's daughter was 16 years old and had Charles, Dessie, then 33, took her grandson into her home as a son.

Grandma Martin (Dessie) lived in a 2-room house on Stringtown Road. (All the roads there when Thomas was a boy were gravel.) There was a storm cellar that Tom played in as a boy, and a general store about 200 yards away that he used to walk to and get Grape Nehi and Orange Crush. About 15 yards from the storm cellar was Grandma Martin’s old 2-room house. When Charles E. was in the service, Tom and his sisters lived with their mother in the partially-finished attic of that house. Tom liked to roll canned food down the stairs as a young boy in that house, after peeling the labels off canned food, so no one knew what was for dinner until the can was opened.

One of my father's memories of Dessie is a pie she baked called Hoosier Pie. It was a plain vanilla cream pie. We're currently investigating recipes that might be similar to his Great-grandma made.