Hellen Lois Koonce
Hellen Lois Koonce was born on 18 August 1810 at Lebanon, Wilson County, Tennessee. Her memorial names her parents as Christopher Columbus Koonce, called Chris, and Mary Ann Brinson, called Polly. Her brothers and sisters included Lenora, Amander, Courtney Alison, Rev. James Carroll, George Brinson, Elizabeth Berlinda and Philip Koonce.
In 1829 she married Samuel Gibbs Leatherman, a Kentucky man eleven years older. He was a widower with a small daughter, Themira Tabitha, whom Hellen raised with her own children. By 1830 they were in Claiborne Parish, Louisiana, where Adeline Amanda, the eldest of her own ten, was born.
Her children were Adeline Amanda, 1830; Sarah Ann, 1832; Elizabeth Caroline, 1834; Francis Marion, 1836; Martha Ann; Eunice Ann, 1841; Charlotte Jane, 1844; Jasper Newton, who was born and died in 1847; Jasper Gibbs, 1849; and Andrew Jackson, 1853.
In 1854 the family moved to Donahoe Creek in Bell County, Texas, where Samuel opened the settlement's first store and gave land for its cemetery. Hellen lived there twenty-five years. She died at Donahoe on 16 January 1879, aged 68, and was the first of the couple to be buried in that cemetery.
Her stone reads "Hellen, wife of S. G. Leatherman, born Aug. 18, 1810, died Jan. 16, 1879," with the lines "Dear is the spot where Christians sleep, and sweet the strains that angels pour." A photograph of her as an older woman, in a dark dress with her hair parted in the middle, survives in the family.
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Cite: Heirology, "Hellen Lois Koonce (1810-1879)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/hellen-lois-koonce-1810-1879-bddf0a.