♀Mary Butler Wilkinson

Mary Butler Wilkinson (21 November 1847 – 2 February 1923) was the daughter of the Friendsville merchant and county judge William Robert Wilkinson, and the wife of John H. Allison. She was the great-grand-aunt of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), the sister of Robert Thomas Wilkinson (1850–1917), Nancy’s great-grandfather.

Early life

She was born at Friendsville, Wabash County, Illinois, on 21 November 1847, the daughter of William Robert Wilkinson (1816–1886) and Sarah Williams (1816–1885). She was three years old in the 1850 census, which has her in her father’s household beside her sister Alice, her baby brother Robert and her English-born grandmother Ann Wilkinson. By 1860 she was twelve, in the Friendsville household, which had grown to include her mother’s father, George Williams, then seventy-four.

Later life

She was no longer in her parents’ household at the 1870 census, when she would have been twenty-two. The county history of 1883 names her among the Wilkinsons’ living children as the wife of John H. Allison. No children are on record for the couple. In 1917 the obituary of her brother Robert listed her among his surviving sisters as “Mrs. Mary Allison of Ullin”.

Death

She died in Alexander County, Illinois, on 2 February 1923, aged seventy-five. The state death record writes her name as Mary Butler Allison. A Find a Grave listing gives her burial at Dongola, Union County, Illinois.