Walking Among The Stones:

Went looking for some tombstones today. Found the map location for the grave-sites of Nannie (Brown) & Joseph Frank Montgomery and Franks father, Logan Russell Montgomery; also Donald Montgomery. According to cemetery officials all are in unmarked graves. When weather permits I will do an on site search to be sure.

The Montgomerys are in Floral Park cemetery on the west side of Indianapolis.

Donald’s grave is in the Washington Park Cemetery on Kesslar Avenue on the northwest side of town. I went there looking for his mother’s grave, Pauline (Aunt Pauline) Montgomery, but according to the cemetery records she is not there. On one census record her and Donald are shown as Pauline and Donald ‘Payne’? So we looked for her as Pauline Payne, but couldn’t find her. This unexplained name problem has previously prevented me from finding anything about Donald, but the cemetery had some new information that allowed me to find additional information about him: date of death, wife’s name and father’s name. His father was Oscar Johnson so I returned to the cemetery and tried looking for her as Pauline Johnson, but still no luck. I have since been told that Uncle Press’s last name was either Miller or Bellamy so I will give that one more shot.

Did Aunt Pauline ever marry or take someone else's name? Any memories of Donald and/or Pauline would be helpful.

I also returned to New Crown Cemetery. As I was getting my cemetery notes together to look for the Montgomerys and Pauline I realized that I had overlooked James Francis William's mother Viola (Bell) Williams-Langford when I visited New Crown Cemetery looking for James & Myrtle’s gravesite.  I found her about 40 feet from Jame's wife Myrtle (Montgomery) Williams, picture below.

3552 N. Salem: Viola Gertrude Williams’ last residence:

In 1964 Mr. Williams's mother, Viola, was staying with her daughter Lora Murray (formerly Williams-Montgomery) when she died of a heart attack brought on by a myocardial infarction. Viola was the widow of Walter Alvin Williams who had died in 1930. Viola re-married after the death of Walter.

At this point I cannot determine who else was living at this residence in 1964, but so far this is the earliest, still standing, residence of the Montgomery-Williams family I can find.

I have discovered 27 addresses in Indianapolis where the family has lived since 1880. I've visited most of them and only three are still standing; this one and the last two locations that Mr. Williams lived at in the 70s and at the time of his death in 1999.

In the case of two houses, churches now stand on the property (N. West Street and N. Columbia). Two more would have been in the general area of the end zone of the Crispus Attucks High School's football field. As for the remainder most of them were located in areas where the entire neighborhood is gone, such as Lockfield Gardens and the surrounding area.

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Who’s who in this article:

• Viola Gertrud (Bell-Williams) Langford is the mother of James Francis Williams. (Walter Alvin Williams was his father.)
• Lora (Williams-Montgomery) Murray is the daughter of Viola and sister of James. Lora was married to James R. Montgomery, the brother of  Myrtle Montgomery, the wife of James Williams.
• The descendants of James & Myrtle Williams and the descendants of Lora & James R. Montgomery are what’s called ‘double-cousins’.
• James and Myrtle (Montgomery) Williams are the focal point of this project.