Radcliff, Susan Jane

Married names: Shaw, Wootan, Lloyd

Letters from Susan Jane Radcliff Shaw Wootan Lloyd to her children

Note: A letter from Susan J.R. Shaw (Wootan/Lloyd) to her son William, Sr., in Texas, three years before her death. Original (copy) follows...she included notes to Silas Messer in the letter also.

Kemper Co., Miss.

May 21, 1877

To Mr. Wm. E. Wootan

My Dear Son,

I received your kinde favor of May the 7, On the 19 it founde us all up but this leaves us all well except your Pa. He is not well meny dayes at a time. I was so glade to hear that you were all well.

Tell my son, Silas, that I alwayes include him and his familey with you and your familey. I got a letter from your sister Ann on the 19 writen the 13. Her and Margaret have a series, Tim Misgeave.

Lyda has bin confined to her beade evere since the 18 of Janawrey. Has another boy. It wayed tow poundes and a half. Is 5 weakes olde yesterday, and she is stil confined to her bead.

I have not sean none of the familey since last decmber, and Momses wife was vere sick. Had bin confined to her bead 29 dayes. Olde Peter Rushing and Enock Lang is croping with him on haves. Your Pa findes all the lande, teame, and worke twoles (land, team & work tools) and gives him half. He makes him tende 50 aceres, but I had rather lease my land to a negro than to him. He is noacount and I fear he will be more expence to your Pa than profit. But him and me are too old to work much now, but I worke my garden. I have plenty of peas, beates, potatoes, colarde, letes, (?____) and beans a runing.

I must stope writing to go and get som forke to stick them, so good buy my dear children. Give my love to all of the familey and conexion, after taking a ful shear to yourselves. Your Pa and the children all join me in love to you all, and oh may the blesing of God ever rest on you all in this life. And may God prepare you all for heaven, and hapiness after death will ever be the prares of your olde mother to her dear children.

Wm. E. and S.M. Wootan, Silas, you mist write to me m dear son.

S.J.R. Lloyd

(note: this letter was sent to William and Silas, her sons, in Texas, informing them of their mother's death. Remember that after Israel died, she married John Lloyd, who had many children whom she helped to raise.)

Spinks P.O. Kemper, Miss

July 16, 1880

Dearest William & Silas;

To be the bearer of sad news is indeed a painful task to me. We have again been bereft of a dear & kind Mother. She was visiting Margaret and Ann. Had just been gone a mile from home, wishing to attend church near them. Mr. J. Giles took her in his buggy. On the way home, his mule became unruly running away to throw them out of the buggy, and the fall caused her death.

She only lived two days from all I can learn. I don't think she was concious of her injury....sat up the day she died. Margaret & Ann will write you the particulars. Mr. Wells wished to send for Papa, but she, knowing his feeble condition, would not give him her consent. So the shock was almost more than he could bear....almost prostrated him. Could not stand the trip to see her buried.

The weather being so warm, she had to be buried in Newton. We let Margaret and Ann do as they wished about it, although if we had our wish, we would preferred having her brought home. She died the sixth, & was buried the eighth.

We feel the loss much more than you do for she was longer with us. I feel that she was snatched from all her cares and troubles instantly and now rests sweetly from them all. While we are left to bear this great responsibility. Oh so incomplete, so little prepared for the duties which now rest so heavily upon us and which she so fully discharged.

Silas, she was so elated at the thought of you visiting her this fall. If she had sickness & died we could have bourne it better. I feel Papa will not long survive her. For several days he was inconsolable. Seems now to be more composed.

We are having a great deal of rain for lowland. Leonis can't mark his crops, all bottom land & too wet to work. Fear we will make a failure this year. Considerable sickness in the vicinity. I don't think I ever heard of so many people dying in one year as this.

Excuse this for I can't write anymore. Papa, Pat & Leonis join me in love to you both & family. Aunt Dinah is with us yet & sends (?____) & love. She's taken Mother's death so hard.

M.A. Lloyd

Late one summer day, Mrs. Susan Jane Radcliff Shaw Wootan Lloyd, decided to visit her daughter, Margaret, in Newton County in Center Ridge, Mississippi. She lived in the next county over, Kemper County, which wasn't to far away. While there, she decided to go to the church they had built and hear her grandson, Thomas Israel Wells, preach. At almost the same area where her granddaughter had been killed, the horses spooked and Susan Jane would be thrown from the buggy. She lived only three days after the accident. In the letter from her husband, John Lloyd's daughter, to William and Silas Wooten, in Texas, she explained what had happened, and said that Margaret's husband John really took it hard. It sounds as though, in the letter, that John Lloyd is bedridden, and they were afraid to tell him for fear it would kill him too. So Susan Jane died from the injuries in July, 1880 in Newton County, Mississippi. She was buried in the little churchyard near the Center Ridge Church, where many other members of the family were buried. (This area is located near Chunky, Mississippi, which almost straddles the Newton and Lauderdale County lines. Kemper County is the county north of Lauderdale.)

Susan Jane Radecliff Shaw Wooten Lloyd

John Lloyd

Thomas Israel Wells (Susan's grandson)