Zella (Wakefield) Merrill

These pictures are of Zella Wakefield at 2 years of age, used in my header this month, at 11 years of age with the big bow in her hair, and at 16 with her first two boys, John and Douglas on the running board of an old Ford.

Zella Wakefield is the mother of your grandfather, Kenneth Talmage Merrill and the wife of Kenneth Amanuel Merrill. She married him at age 13 and had three children. One morning just short of her 17th birthday she was lighting the fire for breakfast and tried to encourage the fire with kerosene and it blew up on her, causing her night dress to catch fire. Unfortunately she ran and was overcome by fire and smoke and died from her wounds, leaving a 5 week old Kenneth T. and two brothers John and Douglas alone with their father, Kenneth A. Merrill. Kenneth A. later married Grandma Lavern who raised the boys and had Uncle Evert and Aunty Delores (Young) as well. I was given a scanner and am going to scan in a lot of old pictures from our family files for your enjoyment......