GENEVA HOLT & "Princess" from Nicholas County, West Virginia

Nicholas County, West Virginia

Nicholas County, West Virginia, is located in the center of the state. The population is small with the largest town, Summersville, being home to 3,572 people.

This posting should be called "Geneva Holt and Family" since I found more information about her family than I did about Geneva. What interested me most about her letter was her mention of her siblings that had passed away. "I have three little brothers and two little sisters whom God has taken away, and before I got 'Princess' I could not go and take flowers to put on their graves, as it was too far to walk to the cemetery. Now brother and I can drive "Princess" and take flowers and she doesn't seem a bit tired when we get back home."

George Willey Holt, age 24, married Betty F. Dotson, age 25, on Christmas Eve 1901. Nine years later in the 1910 census, George and Betty are the parents of four children: Ione (6); William (5); Geneva (3); and an unnamed baby son who was less than a year old.

The Gauley River
flows through
Nicholas County 

By the next census in 1920, only two children remain, Geneva and the brother (William) that she mentions in her letter. I can find no record of the death of her baby brother, but I was able to learn something about Ione. She was born October 2, 1903 and died on March 23, 1913. The cause of her death was listed as paralysis. Unfortunately, I can find nothing about the other two brothers and one sister that Geneva mentions.

And sadly, in the 1930 census, the family only numbers three; siblings Geneva and William and their father George. Mother, Betty, had died in Ohio on March 1929. Why was she in Ohio? The only connection that I can find to that state is through Geneva's brother William. He died in the Cleveland area in 1982 at the age of 77.

What became of Geneva? I don't know. Since I cannot find any death record for her, all I can assume is that she married and therefore has a different last name that I have been unable to trace.