52 Ancestors: #9- Ophelia Nalley Ray

Ophelia NALLEY-RAY (1925-1943)

This post is part of the 52 Ancestors Series started over at No Story Too Small Blog.

Ophiela NALLEY was my Maternal Cousin, her mother Gertie NALLEY was my mother`s older sister.  All of my cousins were much older than myself so I grew up playing with their children verses playing with them. My mother was the youngest of ten children; and Aunt Gertie was the oldest of the ten. I was my mother`s youngest child so there was quite an age gap there. Cousin Ophiela was born and died before I ever came along.
Ophelia was born 2 March, 1925 in Gideon, Missouri. She was the daughter of Alfred T. NALLEY & Gertie ESTERLINE. Ophelia had two brothers and one younger sister. On 2 October, 1942 in Poinsett, Rivervale, Arkansas she married one William Brint RAY.  The story handed down through our family has been that Cousin Ophelia and her sister both died as a result of their appendix having burst.  See my earlier post on this blog concerning whether the tendency to have a bad appendix runs in families or not. We think it does. My daughter also had to have hers removed as well as several more of our family members.
Ophelia conceived shortly after her marriage and her first child was born on 20 May, 1943, a son, which they named William RAY Jr. Ophelia passed away on the day her son was born. Her death certificate lists her cause of death to have been:
Peritonitis, Puerperal Sepsis, Childbirth and an Abscess in her lower right abdomen. Mother says her appendix ruptured during childbirth and ironically so did her sister Murlene, pictured below.

Murlene NALLEY

Baby William`s Death Certificate has some inconsistencies within it, for one it states that his date of birth was 22 May, 1943 and we know that is impossible given the fact that Ophelia died two days prior. Either his certificate is incorrect or hers is one.  It states that he died 7 Aug 1943, cause of death was attributed to Malnutrition. So he lived just shy of three months after his mother died.
According to a second entry on his Death Certificate the following dates and information is also noted: Month and Year of Death are listed as June 1943 and his age at time of death is listed as being: 1 month and 15 days old.
I do not really have any stories that I can share about Cousin Ophelia due to her having died before I was born. I have several pictures of her that I obtained from my mothers photo box, some of her with our Aunt Laura (Our Mother`s Sister) She and Aunt Laura were probably about the same age and may have spent a lot of time together. One thing about the women in my family they loved to take photos. Especially my mother and her sisters. My mother used to work for a photographer and she and her sister used to make a lot of photos of different members of the family.
I would love to have known Cousin Ophelia and her sister Murlene. I did get to know their brothers Audie and Barney though. With my grandparents having had ten children you can imagine how many cousins I have just from that one set of grandparents. Stay tuned for another 52 Ancestors post next Wednesday!