Juretta Corley
Juretta Corley was born in Louisiana on 15 May 1875.
On Monday 10 June 1895 a young man named John E. Knox went before the clerk of the county court of Union County, Arkansas, and applied for a license to marry her. He swore that he was 21, that Miss Juretta Corley was 19, and that both were single and free to marry. J. E. Sehon signed the hundred dollar bond as his security. The license itself was never filled in, and no minister signed it. Five days later the clerk wrote down the margin of the page: "Returned not executed June 15 1895".
Juretta married Thomas Daniel Russell instead, a Louisiana man a year older, in Union Parish, Louisiana, just below the state line. A memorial compiled by relatives gives the date of that wedding as 10 June 1895, the same day John E. Knox swore out his license in Arkansas. Thomas and Juretta settled around Huttig, just over the line in Union County, Arkansas.
John Edward Knox stayed at Huttig too. He married Era Prudence Russell, whom memorials compiled by relatives name as a younger sister of Thomas, and they had five sons, the youngest named Russell. He lived until 1941. His obituary called him a "pioneer citizen of Huttig" and named his widow, Mrs. Era Knox. John and Era share a stone in the Harper Springs Cemetery, where Juretta and Thomas also lie.
She had seven children in seventeen years: Allie Eugenia in August 1896, Zena Arlena in 1899, LaDell in 1902, Golden Ezra in 1905, a son Thomas who died as a baby in 1908, Eathon in 1909 and Isora Inez in 1913.
Juretta died at the family home just northwest of Huttig at six o'clock on Sunday afternoon, 2 January 1916. She was 40, and her youngest child was two. The Huttig News called her "a fine Christian woman" and a member of the Harper Springs Baptist church. Her funeral was held at five o'clock the next afternoon, with the Rev. J. F. Johnston officiating, and she was buried in the Harper Springs Cemetery. Her eldest daughter, Allie, had married Dennis Tucker of Cecil, Louisiana, a year and three days before.
Thomas lived another thirty-two years and was buried beside her. Their stone reads "FATHER" over his name and "MOTHER" over hers, and along the base, "THY MEMORY SHALL EVER BE A GUIDING STAR TO HEAVEN". Sixty years after her death her eldest daughter's obituary still named her: "the daughter of Thomas Daniel and Juretta Corley Russell".
A hand-tinted portrait of Juretta and Thomas together survives, she in a high-collared white blouse with her hair drawn back.
Children
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Cite: Heirology, "Juretta Corley (1875-1916)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/juretta-corley-1875-1916-64e999.