Dessie Ellen Kimsey was born April 11, 1896 in Platte County, Missouri. In 1900 census, taken on June 22, 1900, her father, Thomas Frankly Kimsey was listed as a widower, so her mother, Sarah Ellen Spencer, died before that date. Dessie was 4 years old. Then in January 1903 her father died, leaving her an orphan at the age of 6. In the 1910 census we find her living with Joseph Wilson, the father of Lewis Wilson who married Dessie’s aunt Melissa Kimsey.
In April 1918 she and Samuel Anderson were married. According to their marriage record, she was living in Kansas City at the time. We don’t know how they met, but both had previously lived in Platte County, Missouri. They were married in Buchanan County and in the 1920 census were living in St. Joseph, Missouri. Samuel was working as a paper hanger.
Some time before the 1930 census they bought their house in Breen Acres. They raised three children in that house: Ruby Mae born in 1920, Harold Glenn born in 1922, and Laveta Grace born in 1927. The property had enough space for a large garden and sometimes they even raised a hog.
Sam was a painter/paper hanger at Park College in Parkville, Missouri, for 15 years, up until his death.
Her grandchildren called her Memaw, a southern term for Grandma. Our Memaw loved to whistle while she worked. Dessie was an active member of the Assembly of God Church.
Dessie and Sam lived in that house until Sam died. She then moved into a duplex that Winston and Ruby Klamm owned. At some point Dessie went to live near her daughter Grace near Kidder, Missouri. She died December 16, 1985 at the age of 89 at a health care center in Hamilton, Missouri and is buried in the East Slope Cemetery, Riverside, Platte County, Missouri.
We are not sure when Dessie’s Kimseys arrived in America. Benjamin Kimsey was in North Carolina and in 1778 signed the oath of allegiance to the United States. I believe the Kimseys were Scotch-Irish or English people who lived for a while in Northern Ireland before immigrating to America. The Kimseys were very early immigrants to central Missouri (Howard County), then to the Platte Purchase. One of her ancestors is Samuel Crowley who died in the first battle of the Revolutionary War. Here’s the link to my blog post about that battle.
Many of Dessie’s ancestors have been in American since the mid 1600s. Some of the very early immigrants lived in the Northern Neck if Virginia, the area in which George Washington was born.