Mary Lucinda Ketchum Porter (1862-1922)

(Relation to me:  First cousin 2x removed in law)

The eldest of Jack and Frances Ketchum's four children, Mary was born in 1862 in St. Francois County, Missouri.  Her story, and that of her children, included quite a bit of tragedy.  In January 1883, she married Thomas Myers.  Mary and Thomas had one son, John, who was born in 1883.   Thomas died in the mid-1880's.  I haven't been able to find a record of his death yet.  On July 4, 1886, Mary married John Henry Porter.  Mary and John had three children:  Myrtle Ann (born in 1888), James J. Harry Porter (born in 1890), and an infant son, who was never named, in 1896.  The Porter family was living in Liberty Township, St. Francois County in 1900.  John Porter was listed as railroading.  John Myers was a farm laborer.    In 1910, John and Mary were living with her sister, Jennie (Virginia) Ketchum Bourland in De Soto, Jefferson County, Missouri.  John died in 1919.  Mary, Myrtle, James and Myrtle's 8-year-old son were in St. Francois Township, St. Francois County, Missouri in  the 1920 census. 

Myrtle never married, but she did have a child, Nathan, in 1911.  Her obituary writer apparently tried to hide that fact, by giving her the title of Mrs. Porter.  The inscription on her grave was sad, saying only "Pray for Me".  Apparently her family was concerned about her salvation.  There was a flower on the grave, though (which I didn't even notice until I saw this picture again).

James J. Harry Porter served as a private in the army in World War I.  Records show he was in the Battle of Argonne.  He married Hazel Jarrett in 1921 and they had two children.  James died in September 1928 at Jefferson Barracks Hospital in St. Louis, as the result of a perforated duodenal ulcer. 

Mary's son from her first marriage, John H. Meyers, apparently moved to East St. Louis, Illinois and then to St. Louis, Missouri, where he died in 1946 from a bleeding ulcer.  He left a wife, Emma.


Mary's husband, John, died in 1919.  Mary apparently had a nervous breakdown a few years before her death.  She died in February 1922 as the result of suicide by hanging.  Her obituary was lurid, describing her suicide in detail.  She and John were buried in the Knob Lick Cemetery.