Winfred Eugene Henderson d. 28 Feb 1976 Eugene, Lane County, Oregon

After several repeated attempts at getting a Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness volunteer to send me a copy of Ira Henderson's obit, I finally received a copy that I could see and read. I used it to update Ira's Find A Grave Memorial (46526701). I already had his wife's obit (Eula); however, one child Winfred had died before Eula, which was the reason I was pursuing Ira's obit.  I was hoping it would provide some leads on Winfred, their oldest child. It worked.

Winfred Eugene Henderson (went by Fred)
b. 9 Sep 1916 Texas (probably Clarendon, Donley County)
d. 28 Feb 1976 Eugene, Lane County, Oregon
m. 27 Dec 1934 Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri
Bertha Agnes Briggs
b. 19 Sep 1915 Kansas City, Jackson County, Missouri
d. 7 Jan 2008 Eugene, Lane County, Oregon

Winfred was born in Texas, a grandson of Lucinda Ann (Booth) Henderson, a great grandson of Mary Jane (McKee) Booth. A year after Winfred's birth, in 1917, his father, Ira, registers for the World War I draft, listing his home as Clarendon, Donley County, Texas.

About 1920, Winfred's grandfather  (Hezekiah Othnell Henderson) moves his family to Kansas City, Missouri. Most of the Henderson family follows Hezekiah. Hezekiah dies in Kansas City in 1933.

Because I had contact with a member of the Henderson family, I knew to look for later records in California, and I found lots of records in California. In Winfred's case, this knowledge did me no good. However, with his father Ira's obituary, I found that I should be looking in Eugene, Oregon. With that piece of information, tracking Winfred became an easy task.

Through my research, I've found that I can't overstate the value of obits. For the subject of the obituary, you frequently get confirmation on parents' names, date and place of birth, who they married and when and where the marriage occurred. The survivor lists provide married names for daughters and place names for everybody. Lots of obits provide interesting details like occupations and hobbies, which you can use to locate more information. These invaluable leads are the reason that I pursue every obit I can.

Corbitt Marie (Collins) Knopp went by Marie

I've continued to pursue death dates and obituaries for everyone in my list with a custom ID of D (dead or probably dead based on their date of birth). It's been slow going as I've been tracking down local libraries and contacting them to see if they offer an obituary lookup service.

In addition, I've added a few requests to Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness. RAOGK volunteer Raymond in the Dallas, Texas area responded almost immediately with an obituary for Marie.

Marie already had a memorial on Find A Grave; however, it was under Marie. Most of the records I have found for her were under Corbitt. Therefore, I added a second memorial and cross-referenced it to the first momorial. See 6734531 and 67581124 on Find A Grave.

Raymond also told me that he couldn't find an obituary for Marie's husband:
Donald Richard Knopp
b. 12 Jun 1926 Minneapolis, MN
d. 18 Mar 2005 Irving, TX

Marie is buried in a national cemetery. Therefore, I'm assuming that Donald was also buried in the same cemetery. I've requested a photo of Marie's gravesite in the hopes that the F.A.G. volunteer will notice and take a photograph of Donald's gravesite too. We'll see.

In the meantime, I'm still in hot pursuit of the right library. When I'm successful, I usually end up making a donation to the library when they don't have a fee for the service. I figure if I have to go back to them a little bit of cash will grease my way into their good graces. After all, many times, librarians are looking up obits for me in their spare time...time that they could use for their own pursuits.