Ancestors

Rhoda Ellen Hendry

Rhoda Ellen Hendry was born on 16 December 1882 at Arcadia, Florida. Arcadia was then a settlement in the cattle range of Manatee County. Her uncle, the Rev. James Madison Hendry, called Boss, gave it its name. Five years after her birth it became the seat of the new DeSoto County.

She was one of fifteen children of Capt. Robert Calvin Hendry, called Cab, and Nancy Virginia McEwen, who had married in Manatee County in 1868. Her brothers and sisters were probably William Judson, called Judd, Zilla Ann, James Alexander, Francis A., John Parker Milton, Robert Milton, Augustus Mallory, Gustavus, Edward Charles, Harriet, Harry Harrison and Newton Calvin, with two who died as infants. Her father was "one of the most solid stock men of the county." The family was in Manatee County in 1885 and in DeSoto County in 1900.

In April 1904, when she was twenty-one, her father died at Atlanta after an operation for appendicitis. He was buried at Joshua Creek Cemetery in Arcadia under a tall marble obelisk. Her brother John Parker Milton Hendry later acted as guardian for the two youngest boys in settling the estate.

On 24 May 1904, at Arcadia, Rhoda married Terrell Elmer Fielder, seventeen years her senior, who was then sheriff of DeSoto County. The wedding came seven weeks after her father's funeral. Their first child, James Arthur, was born in 1905. Seven more followed: Robert Elmer, William, Lily Marie, Rosena Mae, Jesse Willard, Ruth Hendry, and Mayme Alice. Ruth carried her mother's maiden name as her middle name.

The family lived at Gardner, in the north of the county, in 1910. They were in DeSoto County in 1920, and at Gardner again in 1930 and 1935, by which time Gardner lay in the new Hardee County. Her youngest child, Mayme Alice, was born there on 24 April 1923, when Rhoda was forty. Mayme later took the name Julie Alice and became an Army nurse.

Terrell died at Arcadia on 15 June 1934, and Rhoda was a widow for almost twenty-nine years. By 1940 she was living at Bartow, in Polk County, where her youngest daughter was working as a nurse in 1950. A snapshot from her later years shows her white-haired, in glasses.

Rhoda Ellen Hendry Fielder died at Bartow on 15 February 1963, aged eighty. She was taken home to Arcadia and buried in Joshua Creek Cemetery, where her husband and her parents lay. Her grave was marked with a metal plate from the Ponger-Kays-Grady Funeral Home: "RHODA HENDRY FIELDER, 1882, 1963."

If Rhoda Ellen Hendry is in your family, start your own tree.

Cite: Heirology, "Rhoda Ellen Hendry (1882-1963)", https://heirology.com/ancestors/rhoda-ellen-hendry-1882-1963-2554ae.