Edith Glendora Pancake Watrous 1856-1920
2010
There is no face for ancestor Edith Glendora. We have faces for some brothers but only one for her sisters, the face of her mother but not the face of her father. So, we will have to imagine her face.
Edith Glendora Pancake was born in Jefferson Township, Coshocton County, Ohio near the town of Warsaw. She was the seventh child of thirteen born to her parents Samuel Crawford Pancake and Catharine Darling. The families of both parents were pioneers in the area. During her young life she suffered the loss of many family members who lived in the same place. Her two sisters Emma and Pauline Pancake died weeks apart in 1865. They were just five and six. Two weeks before their deaths, her uncle William died from disease he contracted while serving in The Civil War. Three years previous to William’s death, his only son Oliver had died before his second birthday. Two years after the deaths of Emma, Pauline and Uncle William, Glendora’s grandfather William Pancake Senior died. Four years later, William Pancake Junior’s young wife Maria died, leaving three orphaned daughters.
When Glendora grew to adulthood, she had the opportunity to receive an education. She studied for over three years at the Lake Erie Female Seminary which became Holyoke College. While she was in school, her family migrated from Ohio to Illinois where her father and brother-in-law William McVey bought a bank. There, in her parents’ Blandinsville home, Glendora married Henry Reynolds Watrous in 1878. Henry was an attorney several years her senior. The next year Henry and Glendora moved to Red Oak, Iowa where Henry took his first job as an attorney. His parents and sisters came with them. Glendora’s first child was born in Red Oak. His name was Earl Pancake Watrous. A second child was born in Red Oak named Wayne. Wayne died of cholera at the age of six months and was buried in the local Evergreen Cemetery. Henry and Glendora added a third son in 1883. He is our direct ancestor, Everest Elliott Watrous. Shortly after Everest’s birth, Glendora, Henry and their children moved from Iowa to Utah. Glendora’s large family had already migrated from Illinois to Utah. There, some mined, and most invested in the booming mining business. Glendora’s husband Henry shared an office with Glendora’s father Samuel C. Pancake and her brothers Stewart and Jackson. Henry Reynolds Watrous, Glendora’s husband, was their attorney. He, too, invested.
In 1885, Glendora and Henry became the parents of a fourth son. His name was Martin. Martin Watrous lived and died in 1885. He was buried in a plot purchased by his grandfather Samuel Pancake. He lies in the Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Salt Lake City, Utah. Henry became a prominent attorney. His name was found almost every day in some form in the local newspapers. In 1891, Edith Glendora Pancake Watrous filed for a divorce from Henry. She cited drunkenness and failure to provide as the reasons. She was granted the divorce and the custody of her two young sons, Earl and Everest. Shortly thereafter, Glendora and Henry put their sons on a train and sent them to visit their paternal grandparents Jerome Timothy Watrous and his wife Mary June Reynolds. They lived in the tiny farming community of Terre Haute in Henderson County, Illinois. This town was very near LaHarpe. It was two years before the boys returned to Utah and to their parents.
Glendora’s ex-husband Henry re-married. His new wife, Clara McGregor was only a few years older than Henry’s son Earl. She would also divorce Henry. In 1895, Edith Glendora Pancake Watrous left Utah for her sister’s home in Wellington, Sumner County, Kansas. There she lived with her sister Camilla and her family consisting of a husband named Charles Everest Elliott and a daughter Katherine. She was listed in the directories and on the census as a widow which she was not. Her visit lasted until her death twenty-five years later in 1920. The name of Glendora’s son Everest Elliott Watrous and the name of her brother-in-law Charles Everest Elliott continues to be a mystery within a mystery.
In 1920, Glendora went to the hospital in nearby Geuda Springs hoping to get well. She did not. She had her nurse pen a last letter to her son Earl, asking him to persuade his brother Everest to write to her. An ambulance was called to take Glendora to St. Lukes’ Hospital in Wellington, where she died. Her casket was carried into the parlor of her sister’s home, where the local Presbyterian minister spoke some last words. She was buried in the Prairie Lawn Cemetery. Years later, her sister Camilla was buried next to her.
Glendora left a Will. Her sister Camilla was the executrix. Glendora left her estate to her with the exception of a few belongings. She left a painting for each of her sons and some silver for her granddaughter Wilma. There is no mention of her three grandsons, the sons of Everest Elliott Watrous, who is our direct ancestor.
The “watercolor of the woman’s head”, which was Willed to Everest from his mother is in our possession as of 2010.
The migration of Edith Glendora Pancake Watrous
Ohio to Illinois to Iowa to Utah to Kansas