A Little Help From the Archives In Clearing an Old Mystery
In Tuesday’s Record we reprinted an article from the March 2, 1939 La Grange Journal newspaper that was brought to us by a reader. The article detailed the death of Lucy Kinder Shelton, which the article stated was believed to be 120 years old.
This issue was relevant right now because in an edition last week we had speculated that La Grange’s Mary Lee Mewis, who celebrated her 109th birthday last week, might be the oldest person ever in Fayette County. This information about Shelton would not only make her the oldest person in Fayette County history, but the longest living person in US history.
We asked for anyone who might have some information on Shelton to share that with us.
Tuesday we got a message from Rox Ann Johnson of the Fayette Heritage Museum and Archives, who did some research “Apparently, I can’t pass up a challenge,” Johnson said. “I spent some time researching Lucy Shelton and found that she was probably 89 years old when she died. I checked census records, marriage records, newspaper articles, and her death certificate trying to sort out her story ...
“The first time I could find her in Fayette County records was in 1872 when Lucy Johnson married Moses Bufford. In the 1880 census she is enumerated as being 30 years old and living with the Dave Shelton family. In 1882 Lucy Bufford married David Shelton. They were together in 1900, when she was listed as being 50 years old, born in Alabama, having never had children of her own. In 1902, Lucy Shelton married Antony Kinder. I couldn’t find them in the next census, but in 1920 she was living alone as Lucy Kinder, age 75. By 1930, she was living with the Tom Shelton family as a widowed stepmother, age 93. Olivia Shelton Waddles, who signed Lucy’s death certificate was her stepgranddaughter. Lucy’s cause of death is listed as senility, so maybe she had claimed to be 120. However, it’s much more likely that Lucy was about 89 years old, based on the three early census records. She’s buried at Bethlehem A. M. E. Cemetery, but I don’t believe she has a marker.”
Thank you Rox Ann for the help!
– Jeff Wick