Week 14 52in52: Great

 This week's #52AncestorsIn52Weeks prompt was "Great"

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Alfred "The Great" Riggs was born on July 12, 1879 in Randolph County, Arkansas. His parents, Elizabeth Bryant and Logan Riggs already had 8 children, 2 daughters and 6 sons, and had recently moved to Arkansas from their home state of Kentucky. Logan was a farmer and his sons all started helping on the farm at a young age. When Alfred was only 6 months old his eldest brother James passed away. 2 years later a baby sister joined the family. The children attended the local one room school house but missed school often due to needing to help with the farm. In 1887 Elizabeth died at the age of 46. 

Around 1900 Alfred left Arkansas and moved to Charleston, Kentucky where his brother Ralph had gone some years earlier. There he met Mary Davis and the two married on July 15, 1900. The couple had 5 children, Carl (1901), Erma (1904), Euen (1905), Hazel (1913) and Henry (1918). Alfred, like the rest of his brothers, was a farmer and though not rich did pretty well for himself. He and Mary bought a large farmhouse and their youngest son was born in the front room of the house. Sadly Mary got sick with Tuberculosis not long after Henry's birth, she passed away at the age of 37. 

In 1921 Alfred married Barbara Eli-Collins, a widower with 4 children. They went on to have 3 more children; twin girls Estelle and Aminell in 1922 and Alfred Ray in 1925. Similar to his own experience, a few months after his youngest son was born his daughter Erma from his first marriage passed away. Alfred began working for the coal company in Dawson Springs. 

In May of 1949 Barbara passed away from a heart attack at the of 68. After her funeral Alfred took some time to travel to Michigan to visit his sons Euin and Carl for several weeks, and even went to Canada. 

On March 5, 1952 Alfred suffered a heart attack and died at the age of 72. He left behind 7 children, 4 step children, 13 grandchildren, a brother and a sister. 

His daughter Estelle actually wrote a book (very) loosely based on Alfred's life and some of his stories from childhood. (You can check that out on Amazon here)

Alfred was my 1st cousin 4x removed