Mariah Tennessee Turner & John W. Russell family

John Woodard Russell and Mariah Tennessee Turner Russell w / baby daughter

John ( January 17, 1850 - November 29, 1916)

Tennessee (November 9, 1852 - February 5, 1937)

John W. Russell was born January 17, 1850 in Franklin County, Arkansas to James Marion Russell and Nancy Simms Russell. John's father was born in McNairy, Perry County, Tennessee, and John's mother was from Alabama.

Mariah Tennessee Turner was born November 9, 1852 to Elias T. Turner and Sarah (Sally) Durning Turner. Tennessee's father was from Perry County, Tennessee and her mother from North Carolina.

John and Tennessee were married April 9, 1871 in Franklin County, Arkansas. They divorced in 1898. Here is a list of their children:

James Marion Russell	March 6, 1872
Elias L. Russell	April 14, 1874
Henry Carter Russell	March 7, 1875
William Monroe Russell	May 28, 1880
Nancy Ada Russell	July 18, 1882
Sarah Emma Russell	July 19, 1883
Amanda Elizabeth Russell	September 15, 1885
Riley Wallace Russell	August 30, 1887
Fred Ham Russell	February 11, 1889
Fanny Pearl Russell	December 25, 1891
Eula May Russell	May 14, 1893
Samuel Henry Russell	May 1, 1898

John Woodard Russell

Mariah Tennessee Turner

(known to both family and friends at "Aunt Tenn")

Mariah Tennessee Turner was a very fiesty gal. When her husband of 27 years started selling off their land, land that she had inherited from her father, she divorced him, despite the fact that she had just given birth to their 12th child. As her grandson Doyle J. Russell said many years later, "That land meant a lot to her." She continued to run the farm with the help of her older children. A 1910 census of Boston TWP, Franklin County, Arkansas, twelve years after the divorce, shows that Tennessee was living with her youngest son Sam while on an adjoining property her son Elias, his wife Addie Jane Mahaffey Russell, and their five children were farming, and living with them was Elias' father John W. Russell.

Email family here - pamruss@frii.com

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