Mary Cornelia McKeown
Mary Cornelia McKeown was born on 28 December 1887 in Chester County, South Carolina, a daughter of Moses McKeown and Maggie Roberts. Her father farmed a short way outside the town of Chester. He died on 29 July 1899, when Mary was eleven, and left her mother a widow with four children.
She married Chalmers Gaston, a Chester County farmer ten years older than she was. In 1910 they were living in Baton Rouge township with two small children, James M. and a baby daughter, Virginia Louise, born on 11 February 1909. Six more children followed: Carrie, Maggie Mae, Ellie Harmon, Marie, Elizabeth and, in April 1925, Chalmers Marion.
Her widowed mother moved into the mill villages of Chester. In September 1914 Maggie McKeown was living on Saluda Street when her brother John Roberts collapsed with a stroke at her house and died. In January 1915 she died herself, at her home at the Springstein cotton mill, about forty-five years old. The notice of her death named "Mesdames Wylie Bigham, Arthur Bigham and Chalmers Gaston" as her daughters.
Mary's youngest son, Staff Sgt. Chalmers Marion Gaston of the 331st Infantry, was killed in action in Belgium on 12 December 1944, at nineteen. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery at Chester.
Chalmers died at their home on West Elliott Street in Chester in February 1953, and Mary gave the details for his death certificate. She lived another twenty years. She died in a hospital at Chester on Monday 6 August 1973. Her obituary named her five daughters, Mrs. Virginia Campbell, Mrs. Marie Alley, Mrs. Carrie Estes and Mrs. Elizabeth Millwood of Chester and Mrs. Maggie Brooks of Rock Hill, her son James Gaston of Chester, and her one surviving sister, Mrs. Carrie Bigham. The service was held in the Church of the Nazarene, and she was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, near Chalmers and their son.
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Cite: Heirology, "Mary Cornelia McKeown (1887-1973)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/mary-cornelia-mckeown-1887-1973-dd6be1.