Ancestors
Louella Thurston
1919-1996 · Kansas
Born 1919, Natoma, Kansas
Died 1996
Father: Phillip Sheridan Thurston
Mother: Bertha Kate Clarkson
Children include Nora
Louella Thurston was born on 1 May 1919 on a rural route out of Natoma, Ellis County, Kansas. She was the eighth child of Phillip Sheridan Thurston and Bertha Kate Clarkson.
In 1920 she was a baby in her parents' crowded household in Saline Township, Ellis County, with her brothers Howard, Harley and Dannie and her sisters Alice, Martha, Eunice, Blanche, Ruth and Beulah. Her mother died in February 1923, when Louella was three. In 1930 she was ten and living in Saline Township with her father and her brothers and sisters.
She married Frank Simpson, who was four years older, and spent her married life in the ranch and farm country around Codell, where Ellis and Rooks Counties meet along the Saline River.
Her daughter Nora Lee was born at Hays on 25 July 1940. Delmar came about 1942, Janice about 1945 and Elva about 1948.
In April 1950 the census found the family in Paradise Township, Rooks County. Louella was 30 and keeping house for a husband and four children, the youngest a baby of one. Frank was working sixty hours a week feeding cattle on a ranch.
When Nora died in 2024, her obituary named her parents as Charles and Louella (Thurston) Simpson.
Louella died on 22 August 1996, four years after Frank. They share one stone at Norman Cemetery in Ellis County: "Simpson, Louella 1919 - 1996, C. Frank 1915 - 1992".
Sources
Obituary of Nora Lee Jennings, Fitzgerald Funeral Home, Ness City, Kansas, September 2024, transcribed on Find a Grave memorial 274503023, https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/274503023/nora-lee-jennings
1950 United States census, Kansas, Rooks County, Paradise Township, enumeration district 82-22, sheet 2, lines 3 to 8, National Archives, https://1950census.archives.gov/ (image 43290879-Kansas-225619-0003)
Find a Grave memorials 19223240 and 19223233, Norman Cemetery, Ellis County, Kansas, photograph added 4 February 2009
obituary of her daughter Nora Lee Jennings, Fitzgerald Funeral Home, September 2024, transcribed on Find a Grave memorial 274503023, which names her as Louella (Thurston) Simpson; 1950 United States census, Paradise Township, Rooks County, Kansas, enumeration district 82-22, sheet 2; gravestone photograph, Find a Grave memorial 19223233
United States census, 1920, Kansas, Ellis County, Saline Township, FamilySearch, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MF6H-NS9
United States, Social Security Numerical Identification Files (NUMIDENT), 1936-2007, FamilySearch, https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:6KWV-GF45
obituary of her daughter Nora Lee Jennings, Fitzgerald Funeral Home, September 2024, transcribed on Find a Grave memorial 274503023, which names her as Louella (Thurston) Simpson; 1950 United States census, Paradise Township, Rooks County, Kansas, enumeration district 82-22, sheet 2; gravestone photograph, Find a Grave memorial 19223233; United States Social Security Numerical Identification Files, Louella Thurston (FamilySearch ark:/61903/1:1:6KWV-GF45); United States census 1920, Saline Township, Ellis County (FamilySearch ark:/61903/1:1:MF6H-NS9); United States census 1930, Saline Township (FamilySearch ark:/61903/1:1:X7QM-QRF)
If Louella Thurston is in your family, start your own tree.
Cite: Heirology, "Louella Thurston (1919-1996)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/louella-thurston-1919-1996-8a1816.