Mary E. Martin Ivey

IVEY, MARY E. MARTIN (1850-1920) ~ Mary E. Martin Ivey was born on May 28, 1850, in Wilson County, Lebanon, Tennessee to J. Burton Martin and Caroline Chambliss. Her father was a farmer who, by 1870, owned a sizeable estate and had farm laborers working for him.

Mary married January 9, 1868, to James Calvin Ivey who was born in April of 1841, in Tennessee. Her husband was a Confederate Veteran who served in Co. H 4th Tennessee Cavalry. By 1880, Mary and James were still living in Tennessee where James worked as a farmer and Mary kept the house. They had no children listed with them on the census.

Mary and James left Tennessee in 1889, and arrived in Collin County, McKinney, Texas where they settled, rented a home and James went to work as a farmer. They still had no children listed with them on the census records. It is very probable that they did not have any children. Mary stated in a letter written to the Commissioner of Pensions, George W. Kyser, that she was alone and “have no one to look to for a living...” James died on October 16, 1913, in McKinney, Texas. Mary applied for her husband‘s pension October 24, 1913, in which she was allowed to keep receiving her husband‘s vouchers.

Mary did enter the Confederate Women‘s home but it is not known how long after her husband‘s death that she moved in. She was living in the home in January of 1920, at the age of 69. She died shortly after her 70th birthday, on June 9, 1920, and was interred in the State Cemetery the following day.