| Frank Joshua Grace Frank Joshua Grace was the son of Gilbert Grace and Eliza Faulkner and older brother of Edward F. Grace. Considering the time, the Graces seem to have moved around quite a bit. Frank and his older siblings were born in North Carolina, but by the time he was six, in 1860, they were living in Kemper, Mississippi. While living there, Frank’s brother John was killed in the battle of Vicksburg. Ten years later (1870), when the census-taker once again knocked at their door, they were 400 miles north, in Arkansas. They moved a little within the state (touching down in Phillips, Franklin, and Pulaski counties), until patriarch, Gilbert, died in 1875. In January 1879, Frank married Lilly James Polk (rumored cousin of President Polk) in Fort Worth, TX. Unfortunately, only general, historical information is available for the next decade of Frank’s life. We know he was in Limestone, Arkansas in 1880 (U.S. Census), and that his daughter, Pearl, was born in Sacramento, California in 1890. But the 1921 fire that destroyed most of the 1890 U.S. census leaves us with no details on where he lived or (perhaps more importantly) how he supported his family during this time. Our guess is that Frank heeded the call to “Go West, young man, Go West!” Between the mid-century gold rush and the alluring selection of land grants available, the call to leave the war-scarred South for pastures that were literally greener was likely irresistible. In many land acts (including the Donation Land Claim Act of 1850, the Homestead Act of 1862, and the Timber Culture Act of 1873), settlers were given huge plots of land – 160 to 320 acres – in exchange for living on, cultivating, and improving the land. In about 1891, Frank finally settled in Sedro-Wolley, Washington (only about 45 miles south of the Canadian border) where he and Lilly had three more children, bringing the total to eight! Based on listed occupations in census documents, Frank was a carpenter and handyman. Not long after Lilly passed away in 1906, Frank moved in with his daughter, Adele and her family in Bellingham, WA. Around 1935, he moved one last time to Seattle, where he lived with his son Gilbert A. Grace. Frank died in 1945 at the age of 90. |
For those interested in learning more about Frank's experiences as one of the early settlers of the Washington Territory, visit the Skaggit River Journal. Although this particular link will take you to the source of the land act information used in this biography, the entire website is a fountain of information about life in the Sedro-Wolley area. We're still trying to decide if this is Frank and Lilly's wedding photo. |
| Personal Data | Tombstone Data | ||
| Birth: | 15 Nov 1854 | City: | Sedro-Wolley, WA |
| Marriage: | 22 Jan 1879 to Lilly James Polk | Cemetery: | Union Cemetery |
| Death: | 2 Nov 1945 | Section: | |
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