The Battle of Fort Fisher, N.C.

Friday, September 3, 2021

Writes His Dad-- Part 5: Move to Elgin

The Parentis do not know whether Charles Wayne ever got the pony he so wanted.

Charles and his mother later moved to Elgin, Illinois.  Mrs. Wayne took along a rectangular steppingstone from the Union home which had the name Wayne chiseled into it.

The Parentis located Harley Wayne's descendants in Elgin back in 1962 and found that that stepping stone was still at the house where his widow had lived with her son Charles.  They said they could have the stone so it is now back at the Union home.

Charles Wayne became a prominent Elgin attorney and served a term as its mayor from 1896-1897.  He married a woman named Mary Smith who was an ardent advocate of the "Southern Cause."  They did not have children, but did have many nieces and nephews.

In 1905, Charles fell after slipping on a patch of ice and had a cerebral hemorrhage and died from it.  His body was returned to Marengo for burial next to his father, mother and sister he had never known.  His mother had already died in 1900.

Mary Smith Wayne died in 1941.  Shortly before her death she grudgingly admitted that Lincoln was a great man.

--Old Secesh


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