08-10-1919 – 06-26-2000
Mother was the 5th child of Henry Allen & Sylva Hewitt Kerr. She was the youngest of three daughters and the first one born in a hospital.
Henry and Sylva ended up having eight children.
When Grandma’s time in the hospital was up and Grandpa came to get her, he came from a house where the other children had whooping cough.
He washed the new baby’s clothes and ironed them to sterilize them and went to Salem to pick up his wife and new baby.
When he arrived at the hospital, he found them short staffed; so after he waited a while, he bathed his new daughter and put a clean diaper on her, and dressed her in her sterilized clothes. He amazed the hospital staff because they had never seen a man bathe and dress a baby.
When they arrived home, he could not take his wife and new baby into the house to the contagious atmosphere; so, he set them up in a bed and bassinet on the front porch.
The other children stood inside the house and looked out the window at their mama and new baby sister, Mary-Alice.
Sylva Kerr did not give any of her daughters middle names. Mary-Alice was a hyphenated first name.
Mary-Alice grew into a bright, beautiful woman, tall at 5’8”, with thick almost black hair and dark brown eyes. Her deep dimples gave her a memorable smile.
Marian Murray McClain Robertson
08-03-08
[Henry&Elizabeth Matheny Hewitt>James Andrew Hewitt>Sylva Leona Hewitt>
Mary-Alice Kerr Murray McClain > Marian Murray McClain Robertson]