Compiled by Teresa
Martin Klaiber 2023
Mary
Jane Montgomery was born 22 January 1879 in Carter County, Kentucky, the
daughter of John Howe Montgomery and Samantha Jane Boggs. John and Samantha Jane were married 27
January 1874 in Carter County.[i] Samantha Jane was only sixteen years old.
They were married at her father, Elihu Bogg,s home in Carter County. Mary Jane had two older brothers James W
Montgomery born in November of 1874 and Elihue, named after Samantha’s father,
born in 1876.
Very
shortly after Mary Jane’s birth, John Howe Montgomery departed for the west,
settling in Iowa. Family tradition says
Samantha Jane had him declared deceased, only to have him come home, find out
he was supposed to be dead, turned around and headed back to Iowa. This compiler has not reviewed circuit court
records for a divorce at this writing.
Samantha
Jane Boggs married James B. Hall on 29 November 1883[ii],
when Mary Jane was about four years old.
Samantha utilized her maiden name of Boggs when she remarried. Hall was born December 1858 in Greenup
County, Kentucky, and became Mary Jane’s guardian. The family resided in the Willard vicinity of
Carter County[iii].
A
horse path from Denton leads across the hills to Long Branch Road, now Boyd
County, Kentucky. From Denton it was
an easy ride to Willard. Long Branch is
still a dead end road leading out of Boyd County into Carter County,
today. On 15 September 1896 Mary Jane
married John Marcus Klaiber the youngest son of John Andrew and Mary Ann
McBrayer Klaiber. Mary Jane was just
seventeen. James B. Hall, her guardian gave consent to their marriage. They were married in the clerk’s office at
the courthouse in Catlettsburg, Kentucky[iv].
The
family first rented at Star Furnace. The
1900 census marked out farming as John Marcus Klaiber’s occupation. The surrounding men were all marked as
miners. By 1910 they had six children
and had moved to Stoner in Clark County, Kentucky where they rented and he did
general farming.
Mary
Jane Montgomery Klaiber developed pulmonary tuberculosis and died 9 August 1912
at Stoner[v]. Mary Jane was just thirty-three years
old. She was brought back to Garner for
burial in Klaiber Cemetery.
The
photo that must have been inserted on the monument as been gone for at best
fifty-five years, as it was not there when this compiler became a member of the
Klaiber family. The widow, John Marcus
Klaiber remarried to Ruth Margaret Chatfield in June 1918 in Lawrence County,
Ohio and settled at Ohio Furnace, Scioto County. Klaiber and Chatfield had seven more children
together.
