Crabb, Aily and Clementine

Lea County Families and Histories, "Then and Now" Vol II, 1984

Submitted by: Zora E. Edelbrock

     Aily Clementine Crabb was born in Georgia December 29, 1835, to Burton Crabb and Rachael Jones Crabb. She married William Thomas Harris, born April 23, 1835, in Georgia, on July 25, 1854. William Thomas was admitted to the Bar of the State of Georgia, in Polk County Georgia on June 21, 1854. They came to Texas October 20, 1854, and located in the town of Quitman, November 23, 1854. He was admitted to Plead and Practice in the State of Texas at Quitman, Wood County, April 1855.

     They had three children: Ella C.; Zora Alma; and William Gustav. William Thomas Harris was to fight for the Confederacy in the Civil War. He went to Corsicana, Texas to a gathering place where he contracted influenza and died at the age of 26, November 16, 1861.

     Aily Clementine Crabb Harris, left with three small children had a difficult time. William Gustave died in 1856 at the age of five.

     On October 15, 1863, she married William S. Scroggins, a grocer, in Quitman, Texas. He was killed July 4, 1867, when he tried to stop a fight between two men in the street in Quitman. They had no children.

     Both of Aily Clementine's daughters married McMillan brothers in 1872. Ella C. died in childbirth that same year. From that time until her death at age 89, February 7, 1925, on the W. A. Mitchell ranch west of Hobbs, New Mexico, she lived with her only remaining child. Zora Alma Harris Scroggins, was buried in Monument, New Mexico and reentered in Hobbs, New Mexico cemetery.