Ancestors
Laura E. Shell
1898-1954 · Kansas
Born 1898, Kansas
Died 1954
Father: William Henry Shell
Mother: Nancy Elizabeth Enlow
Children include Dorothy
Laura E. Shell was born in Kansas on 26 March 1898. In 1916, at eighteen, she married Warren Sherman Sellens of Russell County. Their first children were born at Hoisington, in Barton County: Gertrude, Roy, Dorothy Irene on 8 July 1920, Warren in July 1924, and Richard on 19 September 1925. The state census of 1925 found her in Barton County with Warren and four children. By 1930 the family was in Blue Township, Jackson County, Missouri, outside Kansas City, with six children at home, the last of them Mary.
The family later settled in Franklin County, Kansas. Laura died on 2 March 1954, a few weeks short of 56, and was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery, Pomona, where Warren joined her in 1964. Her son Richard, marrying at Great Falls, Montana, the year before she died, gave her maiden name on his license as Laura E. Schell.
Laura was the daughter of William Henry Shell, an Ohio-born laborer and farmer, and Nancy Elizabeth Enlow, called Nicey, of Indiana. In 1900, at two, she was living with them and six brothers and sisters at Bunker Hill in Russell County. By 1910 the family had moved to Hoisington, where the census entered her as Laura E., 12, the youngest of seven children at home. Her mother died in 1915, the year before Laura married. Three of her sons later gave her maiden name on their Social Security applications as Laura E. Shell.
Sources
Kansas State Census, 1925, Barton County; United States census, 1930, Blue Township, Jackson County, Missouri; FamilySearch index.
Montana, County Marriages, Cascade County, Marriage License Record no. 28024, 30 July 1953, and Marriage Certificate, 1 August 1953, filed 6 August 1953; FamilySearch image 61903/3:1:33S7-9GY7-3HS.
Find a Grave memorials 62083661 (Warren Sherman Sellens) and 62083670 (Laura E Shell Sellens), Woodlawn Cemetery, Pomona, Franklin County, Kansas, photograph.
Wichita, Kansas, newspaper obituaries, May 1980, "ELLINWOOD -- Dorothy (Mrs. Rollie) Radke"; Wichita, Sedgwick, Kansas, Obituaries 1977-1980, FamilySearch image 61903/3:1:3QHV-B352-YSH5.
Marriage license of Richard L. Sellens and Ruth Stratton, Cascade County, Montana, no. 28024, 1953 (FamilySearch image 3:1:33S7-9GY7-3HS); Find a Grave memorials 62083670 and 288344091, and the Woodlawn Cemetery gravestone; obituary of Dorothy Radke, Wichita, May 1980; Kansas state census 1925 and 1930 census (FamilySearch).
United States census, 1900, Bunker Hill, Russell County, Kansas; FamilySearch 1:1:MMYK-HTV and 1:1:MMYK-KWT.
United States census, 1910, Hoisington, Barton County, Kansas, ED 16; FamilySearch 1:1:M2H2-B14.
Marriage license of Richard L. Sellens and Ruth Stratton, Cascade County, Montana, no. 28024, 1953 (FamilySearch image 3:1:33S7-9GY7-3HS); Find a Grave memorials 62083670 and 288344091, and the Woodlawn Cemetery gravestone; obituary of Dorothy Radke, Wichita, May 1980; Kansas state census 1925 and 1930 census (FamilySearch). 1900 census, Bunker Hill, Russell County (FamilySearch 1:1:MMYK-KWT); 1910 census, Hoisington, Barton County (FamilySearch 1:1:M2H2-B14); Social Security applications of Roy Horace, Warren Sherman and Richard Lewis Sellens.
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Cite: Heirology, "Laura E. Shell (1898-1954)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/laura-e-shell-1898-1954-f6e126.