Where did you go, William? Happy Birth Month.

I've written about my great grandfather William M. Pettey before, but it's his birth month!

William's older sister, Mary, was born in Arkansas in 1851. But before he was born, in 1852, the family had moved to Texas. He's on the 1860 census, age 8, for Prairie Lea, in Caldwell County and Texas is given as his birthplace.
In 1870 he is on the census, age 18, for Crockett, Houston County with parents Jeremiah C and Minerva Franks Jeffrey and six brothers and sisters. Mary is is missing, but she was old enough to have been married.  Without knowing her married name, she has been impossible to trace.
In the 1880 Census for Crockett, Minerva is still living there but she had married a neighbor, George Forest. The assumption is that Jeremiah C had died during those 10 years. With Minerva are three remaining children but William is gone.
There is a William Jeffrey in Milam County, living with the Harvey family and the relationship is listed as Laborer. This William is also from Texas and his age is given as 28, the correct age for our William. It's quite possible that this is the same William Jeffrey and that he was at an age where he could easily be working and living somewhere other than in the house with his mother, especially since she had remarried.

There are no 1890 censuses due to a courthouse fire. But William is on the Tax Rolls for Leon County from 1883 to 1897. He didn't own much land, or livestock. I'd guess times were pretty hard for him. In 14 Oct 1894 he married Ellen Crane.  In 1900 they were living in Montgomery County with four daughters and William is on the tax rolls for that year and the census taken in June. This is the last record we can find for him.

We can only guess that William died since Ellen married Albert Moore May 4, 1902 in Walker County, Texas and I've found no record of a divorce or for his death either. I suspect that, out of necessity, she had moved in with some of William's plentiful number of relatives living in and around Huntsville where she met Albert.

This has become a brick wall that we just can't seem to get over. What happened to William and where is he buried?

William and Ellen are my great-grandparents, parents of Maud Jeffrey Pettey, my grandmother.