Jerusha Rose
Jerusha Rose was born in Georgia in 1794, the daughter of Henry Rose, by the Jefferson County compilation Facts and Folks (1978). On 25 June 1809, at fifteen, she married George R. Rightnowar, a Pennsylvanian, in Livingston County, Kentucky.
They crossed into southern Illinois and lived for some years in what became Hardin County, near Elizabethtown. Her son George, called Reeves, was born there in 1810, and Adam on 29 March 1824. Between 1826 and 1829 the family moved north and settled the south end of Long Prairie in Jefferson County. In 1830 the census put her in the age band of thirty to forty, with four boys and four girls in the house.
In 1820 the family was in Pope County, the county Hardin was later cut from. The state census that year has "Geo. Rightnour" at the head of a house of seven: one man over twenty-one and six others, most likely Jerusha and their children. The house next door was Elbert Rose's. Thomas Rose lived a few doors before, and Pleasant and Sharon Rose a few doors after. Her father, Henry Rose, was counted in the same county with a household of four. The 1876 history of Hardin County names him among the first settlers of Monroe precinct.
She raised ten children. Perrin's county history of 1883 says it in the sketch of her son Adam: "The mother of our subject, Jerusha (Ruse) Rightnowar, raised ten children." Facts and Folks names them: Adam, Reese, Henry, George, Nancy Jane, Jemima, Gooley Jerusha, Rose Mary, Joe and John. Her daughter Jerusha carried her uncommon name, and passed it to a granddaughter born about 1857.
George died on 18 November 1845. Five years later, on 26 September 1850, the census taker came to her small holding, worth two hundred dollars, and wrote her down as "Rose Rightenour", fifty six, born in Georgia. Her daughter Jemima G., nineteen, was with her. Her son Adam lived a few doors away. Two doors beyond him was Nancy Ruse, a widow of fifty five from Virginia, with a household of Ruses. Ruse is the spelling the county history used for Jerusha's own maiden name.
A note on her memorial, quoting the original land entry book, says she bought the east half of the northwest quarter of section 17 on 12 November 1855. That was the square mile her husband and sons had bought up between 1841 and 1852. No purchase in her name appears in the state's land index.
She died on 16 September 1857. She was buried beside George in the family burying ground near Waltonville, under a stone of the same design as his: "JERUSIA, WIFE OF G. RIGHTOWAR". The age line is worn and has been read as sixty four years.
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Cite: Heirology, "Jerusha Rose (1794-1857)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/jerusha-rose-1794-1857-57fffb.