Sacramento County
Biographies
MRS. RUTH SHERFEY
MRS. RUTH SHERFEY.--A highly-esteemed resident of Sacramento County is Mrs. Ruth Sherfey, of Clay Station, a native of McMinn County, in eastern Tennessee, where she was born into the family of Jasper Ware and his good wife, who was Miss Elizabeth Cate before her marriage, the Wares being old Tennessee planters, while the Cate family also dated back in the stirring history of that state. Mr. Ware was a farmer, and when our subject was twelve years old, he moved to the northern part of Arkansas. He homesteaded land, which he never improved; and having disposed of his holdings there, he moved into the southern part of the state. Mr. and Mrs. Ware had five children, among whom Ruth was the eldest; Susan Elizabeth; Allen, and Emma and Simeon, both deceased, being the younger brothers and sisters.
On May 7, 1875, Miss Ware married to John Wilson, the ceremony taking place at the Ware homestead in Arkansas. John was the second eldest of six children, Francis being older, and Samuel, George (now deceased), Anna, and Robert being younger. Mr. Wilson was a native of Camden, Ark., and was a farmer.
In 1889, Mrs. Wilson came to California with her husband and he leased land at Clay, and cultivated it for eleven years, returning then to Arkansas for two years, when they came back to California. He worked on ranches and farmed for himself; and he worked at Forest Hill, getting out mining timber, and then farmed at Auburn. While living in Arkansas, he was justice of the peace. He died at Auburn, March 30, 1907, aged fifty-seven, esteemed and mourned by all who knew him.
In December, 1908, Mrs. Wilson was married at Auburn, Cal., to Allen Sherfey, a native of Illinois, who was seven or eight years old when he reached California with his parents. He grew up in this county and later raised sheep, and had about 2,000 in his flock. He was a Democrat, and a member of the Ione Lodge of Odd Fellows. Mr. and Mrs. Sherfey lived at Clay, and there the home in which Mrs. Sherfey is now living was built in 1915. He was the center of a circle of very devoted friends, and was also truly mourned when he died, on August 12, 1918, when in his sixty-third year.
Sacramento County may well be proud of such pioneer families as these, and every resident of this region will join in doing honor to this very representative Tennessee lady who has done so much, in her day and generation, to make the world better for her having lived in it.
Transcribed by: Jeanne Sturgis Taylor.
Source: Reed, G.
Walter, History of Sacramento County,
California With Biographical Sketches, Page 583. Historic Record Company, Los Angeles, CA.
1923.
© 2007 Jeanne Taylor.