Ancestors
Etta Sims
1886-1966 · Alabama
Born 1886, Alabama
Died 1966
Father: Rev. Americus Arastus Sims
Mother: Josephine Sims
Children include Jessie
Etta Sims was born on 2 December 1886 in Alabama. Her mother was Josephine Sims, and her father was almost certainly Josephine's husband, the Rev. Americus Arastus "Ned" Sims, a minister of Butler County. A photograph captioned "Rev. A. A. Sims and family" shows Ned and Josephine with four small children, taken before he died in September 1895, when Etta was eight.
In 1900 Etta, 14, was living with her widowed mother, then 39, and her brothers Marvin, 11, Orson, 8, and Devon, 6, in the Forest Home and Butler Springs precinct of Butler County. Her mother died at Georgiana in March 1904, when Etta was seventeen.
She married Emmett B. Murphy, and their children were Lucy, born in 1909, Annie in 1910, Jessie Mae in 1914, Vurtice Vernice in 1917 and James Earl in 1920. When James Earl Murphy applied for his Social Security number, he gave his parents as Emmitt Murphy and Etta M. Sims.
Emmett died in 1962. Etta Murphy died on 12 September 1966, aged 79, and is buried beside him in Shackleville Cemetery, the same cemetery as her father and mother. Her gray granite stone, carved with flowers down both sides, reads "Etta Murphy / Dec. 2, 1886 / Sept. 12, 1966". Her daughter Jessie Mae lived to 102.
Children
Jessie Mae Murphy (1914-2017)
Sources
Find a Grave, memorial 19792180, photograph added by April D. Sandley, 9 June 2007.
Obituary of Jessie Mae Godwin, February 2017, naming her parents Emmitt and Etta Murphy, transcribed on Find a Grave memorial 176323054; Find a Grave memorial 19792180, Etta Sims Murphy, gravestone photograph added by April D. Sandley, 9 June 2007
United States census, 1900, Butler County, Alabama, Precinct 11 Forest Home and Butler Springs, enumeration district 18, sheet 4A, household 69, line 49; FamilySearch ark 61903/1:1:M9ZT-5M7.
United States, Social Security Numerical Identification Files (NUMIDENT), 1936-2007, James Earl Murphy; FamilySearch ark 61903/1:1:6K7M-YCWJ.
Find a Grave, memorial 19793260 (Josephine Vickery Sims), photograph added by James L. Hahn, 8 July 2012.
United States census, 1920, Butler County, Alabama, Starlington Precinct 1, enumeration district 17, sheet 15A, line 39, household 280; FamilySearch ark 61903/1:1:MXCT-7VX.
United States census 1900, Butler County, Alabama, Precinct 11, household of Josephine Sims, FamilySearch ark 61903/1:1:M9ZT-5M7; United States, Social Security Numerical Identification Files, James Earl Murphy, naming his parents Emmitt Murphy and Etta M. Sims, ark 61903/1:1:6K7M-YCWJ; obituary of Jessie Mae Godwin, February 2017, naming her parents Emmitt and Etta Murphy, Find a Grave memorial 176323054; Find a Grave memorial 19792180, Etta Sims Murphy, gravestone photograph added by April D. Sandley, 9 June 2007
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Cite: Heirology, "Etta Sims (1886-1966)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/etta-sims-1886-1966-aa910c.