Week 46 #52Ancestors: Poor Uncle

This story came about while researching a collateral Sutton line and will not be about a family's wealth but how Mildred Poore came to be the mother of a famous Sutton descendant.  It begins several generations back when Thomas Sutton and Hannah Lawson's daughter, Susan, married James Whitten Yeary in 1848 Claiborne County, Tennessee.  The couple raised five boys and one girl and, although some of the children remained in Claiborne and Hancock Counties, several moved to Kentucky.  Their son, Henry Carl Yeary, raised his family in Bell County, Kentucky and continued in the tradition of farming.  He may have been a minister as well. He and his wife, Sarah Minter, had a very large family of 12!

Henry and Sarah Yeary with family (Photo source: Dentons336 tree on Ancestry.com)

Their son Charles Mitchell Yeary remained in Bell County farming the land but broke from tradition and changed occupations to fireman, then policeman, and onto owning a taxi business in Middlesboro, Kentucky.  His first wife was Cornelia Jane Brooks and the union was blessed with four girls and four boys.  Many of their children would remain in Kentucky but their son, Carl, would head to Detroit, Michigan where he worked in an automobile factory (per the 1930 census) and later in a steele mill.  He married a young woman in Michigan named Alice Ect or Eck in 1923.  The couple would have three children but Carl would only know his first two children named Betty and Carl.  He died in November, 1938 at the young age of 34 and would not welcome his youngest son into the world who was born the following spring.  The son was named Henry (according to the 1940 census).

Charles Yeary (Photo source: Brian Tice family tree on Ancestry.com)

A most unfortunate turn of events happened on September 1, 1940 when Mrs. Alice Yeary was involved in an automobile accident or rather it sounds like she was walking and hit by an automobile:

Detroit Free Press (Detroit, Michigan) 02 Sep 1940

Mrs. Yeary, a maid in the children's ward of Wyandotte General Hospital, died at 10 AM Sunday of injuries suffered when she was struck at 6:25 AM by an automobile driven by Wilbur Hooks, 30, of 323 Eureka.

Witnesses said that Hooks' car cut diagonally across Biddle at Clinton and struck Mrs. Yeary after it had jumped the curb.  Hooks, a bartender in a Wyandotte cocktail bar, also was injured when his car ran into a utility pole

Mrs. Yeary, a widow of a year, was the mother of three children.  Police were holding Hooks a prisoner at the hospital.  Assistant Prosecutor Harry Letzer, said that a manslaughter warrant probably would be issued against Hooks.

Her death certificate lists the informant as her neighbor, Elmer Holliday and I often wonder if she had family nearby.  At this point the lives of the three siblings become less public but it appears that young Henry became known as Harvey Lee Yeary, Jr. as he was adopted by his uncle and aunt named Harvey Lee Yeary and Mildred Catherine Poore.  According to biography.com, young Harvey did not know he was adopted until he was a teenager.  He was involved in track and football in high school earning a scholarship to Indiana University but returned to Eastern Kentucky University to earn a degree in History and Physical Education.  After college he moved to Los Angeles where he was encouraged to attend acting school. At this point forward he became known as "Lee Majors".  Many of us remember his roles on the Big Valley, The Six Million Dollar Man, and The Fall Guy just to name a few.  Now that was a long way to get to the name "Poore" but there you have it and to think I had such a crush on this cousin growing up!

Lee Majors 1972 (Photo source: Wikipedia), a 4th cousin.