Ancestors
Margaret Baker
1899-1980 · Clintwood
Born 1899, Clintwood, Dickenson County, Virginia
Died 1980
Father: John T. Baker
Mother: Frances Vanover
Children include Charles
Margaret Baker was born on 6 May 1899 at Clintwood, the county seat of Dickenson County, Virginia, the daughter of John T. Baker and Frankie Baker, whose name her children gave in full as Frances Vanover. She married Meredith Calvin Reed, a Freeling man ten years older, on 11 January 1917 in Dickenson County; the register gives her age as 18, which she would not reach until May. Her first daughter, Lillie May, was born that November.
Within two years the Reeds had gone over Pine Mountain to the Consolidation Coal Company's camp at Burdine, in Letcher County, Kentucky. Lydia Lee was born there in September 1919, and the census taker of January 1920 listed Margarette Reed, 19, with her husband and two small daughters in house 630 at Burdine. She bore thirteen children in all between 1917 and the 1940s: Lillie May, Lydia Lee, Winston Troy, John McCoy, William, Margie, Norma Aileen, Charles Otis, Shirley Ann, Carolyn, Paul Ervin and Paula among them, all raised in the coal camps at Burdine and Jenkins.
Meredith died at Virgie, Pike County, on 22 February 1956. Margaret, a widow at 56, followed her children north. Her son Coy had settled at Troy, in Miami County, Ohio, and Troy became her home for the last part of her life. She lived at 1327 South Market Street. Her eldest, Lillie May Charles, died at Payne Gap on New Year's Day 1963.
She died at 9:40 on the evening of Wednesday 14 May 1980 at Stouder Memorial Hospital in Troy, eight days past her eighty-first birthday. The Troy paper's notice named her as "mother of Mrs. Jim (Carolyn) Baker of Houston" and counted what she left: four sons, four daughters, 48 grandchildren, 78 great-grandchildren, six great-great-grandchildren and a sister. Two sons, two daughters, three brothers, three sisters and four grandchildren had died before her. The funeral was at the Fisher-Cheney-Cron Funeral Home in Troy on the Saturday, the Rev. James Ellis officiating, and she was buried in Riverside Cemetery at Troy, section 9, under a grey granite stone with praying hands: "Margaret Reed, May 6, 1899, May 14, 1980, Beloved Mother". Coy was buried in the same cemetery in 1998.
Sources
Find a Grave, memorial 82061836, Margaret Baker Reed, b. 6 May 1899 Clintwood, Dickenson County, Virginia, d. 14 May 1980 Troy, Miami County, Ohio; Riverside Cemetery, Troy, plot 9 Morning Journal (Lorain, Ohio), obituary of Charles Otis Reed, published 10 to 11 December 2018, morningjournal.com/obituaries/charles-otis-reed-south-amherst-oh; also legacy.com id 13395493 and Find a Grave memorial 195307119.
Kentucky, Deaths, 1911 to 1967, certificate of Merdith Calvin Reed, 22 February 1956, Pike County; FamilySearch ark 1:1:QVJ5-GMGQ; also Kentucky Vital Record Indexes, death of Merdith C Reed, ark 1:1:QKHB-252Z.
Virginia, County Marriage Records, 1771 to 1989, Dickenson County, 11 January 1917; FamilySearch arks 1:1:6Z9Y-9ZTQ (groom) and 1:1:6Z9Y-9ZTH (bride).
United States census, 1920, Burdine, Letcher County, Kentucky, ED 59, sheet 36B, line 73, NARA T625 roll 587; FamilySearch ark 1:1:MHGJ-Y7P.
Newspaper clipping, Troy, Ohio, about 16 May 1980 (paper not named; the Troy Daily News is the likely one), posted on Find a Grave memorial 82061836, Margaret Baker Reed, Riverside Cemetery, Troy, 2025.
Find a Grave memorial 82061836, Margaret Baker Reed, Riverside Cemetery, Troy, Miami County, Ohio, plot 9; photograph added 2025.
Find a Grave memorial 108100859, John McCoy "Coy" Reed, Riverside Cemetery, Troy, Miami County, Ohio; photograph added 2013 by Preserving the Past.
Find a Grave memorial 94309773, Winston Reed, Bryant Family Cemetery, Burdine, Letcher County, Kentucky; photograph added 27 July 2012 by Randy Dotson.
Find a Grave memorial 277198556, Lillie May Reed Charles, Jenkins-Payne Gap Cemetery, Payne Gap, Letcher County, Kentucky; photograph added 9 December 2024 by Lilly Richmond.
United States census 1900, Clintwood district, Clintwood town, ED 13, sheet 4B, dwelling 66, Dickenson County, Virginia; FamilySearch ark 1:1:MMFT-74V.
Obituary, Troy newspaper, about 16 May 1980, clipping on Find a Grave memorial 82061836 with the stone photograph; Virginia County Marriage Records, Dickenson County, 11 January 1917, FamilySearch arks 1:1:6Z9Y-9ZTQ and 1:1:6Z9Y-9ZTH; United States census 1920, Burdine, ark 1:1:MHGJ-Y7P; Kentucky birth index, Charles O Reed, 1935, mother Margaret Baker, ark 1:1:QKHY-ZRNW; Find a Grave memorials 108100859, 94309773, 277198556, 195307119; WikiTree Baker-76639.
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Researched October 2026. Cite: Heirology, "Margaret Baker (1899-1980)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/margaret-baker-1899-1980-b31f9d.