| My fathers paternal grandmother was Mattie May Stewart Chaney. She was born on the 4th of December 1892. I knew her as "Granny Chaney" and she was the second of six children born to Richard Dawson Stewart and Martha Anetta Sloan Stewart. She was born in Hopkins County, Texas and it was there that she met and married William Rufus Chaney sometime between 1910 and 1914. They moved to Alba, Texas and there they began their family. Their oldest child, WR Chaney who was born in 1914, was my grandfather. She was widowed in 1948 and later moved to Amarillo, TX and then to Floydada, TX where she passed away in March of 1969 at the age of 76. I initially had problems finding out details her family. My father told me that she was a Stewart, but I knew very little about her family. Her father, Richard Dawson Stewart was born on September 28, 1860 in Nevada County Arkansas. I am not sure when he moved to Texas, but it had to have been sometime between 1880 and 1888. The 1880 census shows him living at home with his parents in Nevada County, Arkansas at the age of 20. He married Martha Annetta Sloan in 1888 in Hopkins County, Texas. They later moved to Melrose, New Mexico. The 1910 census shows them in Hopkins County, Texas but census records for 1930 show them living in Curry County, New New Mexico. He died there on February 13, 1933 at the age of 72. Grandma Stewart was known by my father as "More Granny". I'm not sure how she got this name, but she sure left a positive impression on my father because he still speaks glowingly of her. She passed away in May of 1952 at the age of 86. |