A. J. WELCH

The following bio was taken from pages 438-439 of the book entitled “Rusk County History” compiled and edited by Rusk County Historical Commission  

Transcribed by Gloria Riley

Submitted by Gloria B. Mayfield, Rusk Co. CC

Nancy Ann Buckner met A. J. Welch at Holly Springs Church at Pine Hill. They were married September 30, 1856 at her parents’ home by Reverend James Foreman. They first lived about one and one-half miles northeast of Zion Hill Church, ten miles southeast of Henderson. Their first seven children were born here. They then built a house across the road from Welch Cemetery and lived the remainder of their lives there. Regardless of her mother’s prediction that she would be a helpless cripple, Nancy Ann did the work of a pioneer woman. She bore and reared eleven children, ten daughters and one son. She suffered a stroke and for the last several years of her life was confined to a wheelchair. She died August 23, 1911 and is buried in Welch Cemetery near Brachfield. She and her husband donated the original part of this cemetery. Her husband, A. J. Welch, preceded her in death twelve years, having died in November of 1899. All of the children, with the exception of Ellen, who was deaf from childhood, married and raised families. The children born to this couple were: Sarah, who married R. A. Poovey; Martha, who married Henry Griffith; Eli, who married Almeda Hunt; Elizabeth, who married W. A. Owens; Nannie, who married Louis Jones; Ellen, who died in February 1943 at the home of Eli; Priscilla, who married Tobetha Hunt; Annie, who married John B. Welch; Georgia, who married James Henry Rousseau; Myrtie, who married Aaron Robert Rousseau; and Linnie, who married Christopher Columbus Rousseau. Most of these children lived in Rusk County all of their lives. Nannie, fifth child of Nancy Ann and Jack Welch, was my maternal grandmother. She and her husband, Louis Jones, lived in Rusk County near Pine Hill all of their married life. My mother, one of her brothers, the wife of another brother and my family, are still living on my grandparents’ old home place. Submitted by Joyce Rousseau Maples