Friday's Photo/ May Lawhead of West Virginia

May L. Lawhead

     May Lawhead, and her twin sister Gay were born May 10, 1869 in Monongalia, West Virginia to Ashbel and Mary Lee Lawhead.  The girls and their eight siblings grew up in that county, where May met Doctor Charles Alexander Wade.  The two were married  in April of 1898, but theirs was to be a short marriage...very short.  In June of 1898, after only 58 days of wedded bliss, Charles died.  The young doctor probably never knew May was pregnant with their son Charles Jr. who would be born the following March.

     May returned to her parent's home to raise her child, working as a department store clerk to support him.  She and Charles Jr. both resided in the family home until 1925 when he married Bessie Beatty.  By 1940 May was living with her unmarried twin Gay, still in Monongalia, and working as a mail clerk at the university at age 70. Certainly not the life she had anticipated that spring day in 1898.