E. Maybelle Collingwood

  Notes:

From Find-A-Grave: "Maybelle" according to the birth record in Forest County was named Elvina Maybelle Collingwood, but in every other record her name is listed as Maybelle or spelling variations of Maybelle.

She lived in Forest, Warren, and Venango Counties in her childhood where she hunted with her dad and uncles. She loved the outdoors and was a sharp shooter harvesting much game. One day while in the woods at Bullion, Venango, she was bit by a rattlesnake; luckily the man who partnered with her uncle on an oil lease thought fast. He pulled the hose from the oil pump and suctioned the poison right out of her.

About 1911, the house in Venango County burned, so Maybelle's dad and step-mother moved with the family to Ephrata PA, where her step-mother, Maybelle's dad's mail-order-bride originated.

Things did not go well for Maybelle at home, so at some point after she had moved to Ephrata, she went to live with her sister Dora and her husband James Raymond Gerber in Palmyra, but that didn't last long either. She was used to the wide, wild country and freedom. Town life wasn't good for her. Family sent her somewhere to "fix" her - the exact words: "Where she would tread water or drown."

The next record found on Maybelle was in the 1920 Census at Brooklyn, NY as a dancer in the theatre. Family says she loved big hats and wore them often; perhaps this is where she acquired her love for them. By 1921 she had married John Wesley Shiles and their son was born in Louisiana. They lived in Savannah GA for a time before going north back to District of Columbia and Annapolis, MD. There are newspaper articles found in ancestry.com of her in the Annapolis and District of Columbia of her shooting big deer in the 1940s! She didn't lose her touch! According to oral family traditions, Maybelle died sometime between 1955-1965 in Maryland and was cremated. Any more information on this talented, amazing lady would be appreciated.

E. married John Wesley Shiles, son of Charles Wesley Shiles and Mamie C. Saxty. (John Wesley Shiles was born on 01 Nov 1891 in Washington, DC, died on 01 Apr 1971 in Annapolis, Anne Arundel Co., MD and was buried about 04 Apr 1971 in Cedar Hill Cemetery, Suitland, Prince Georges Co., MD.)