Sunday's Obituary - Charlotta Ruth Banks Wade Berry

Charlotta Ruth Banks Wade Berry

Charlotta Ruth Banks Wade Berry 
31 May 1895 - 9 Sep 1960


My great-grandmother, Charlotta Ruth Banks, was born 31 May 1895 in Wabash County, IL to Sarah Eva Talley and Sherman Banks (see previous story).  Charlotta grew up without her father and had four younger half-sisters when her mother remarried Frank Z. Bruce.  On 24 Apr 1912 at the age of sixteen Charlotta married Joseph Washington Wade who was twenty years older than her.  Their first child, my grandmother Doris, was born 27 Aug 1913 followed by Mildred in 1917 and Hugh Joseph in 1919.

Charlotta ca 1905 age 10

Great-grandfather Joseph was a foreman at the car shops in Mt. Vernon, IL cand they lived a good life for the times. Unfortunately, sometime around the late 1920's business slowed and Joseph lost his position.  Sometime after 1930 Charlotta and Joseph divorced and Charlotta later married Mack Berry.  Charlotta was bedridden in the last years of her life; as a little girl I remember going with my parents to her home in Granite City, Illinois.  She and her husband kept many Chihuahua's as pets and the dogs on her bed would growl and snap at me.  As I young child I was terrified of them, strangely enough I now have two chihuahua's of my own.  Charlotta died 9 Sep 1960 in Madison County, Illinois and is buried at Oakwood Cemetery in Mt. Vernon, Illinois.