We found a death record for a Sarah Riddle that appears to give her death as October 1880. On examining this record, we discovered that it was listed as containing death records for the records year ending May 31 1880. Therefore a death entered in this form, for Oct would be for Oct 1879, not 1880.

This is a problem because we have a census record for Jun 8 1880 that shows her as alive and well. Of course, the clerk who entered the record could easily have put it in the wrong year, making her death really 1880 as we originally believe. But there is another problem with this record. Her age is given incorrectly as age 31. But the Census gives it correctly as age 29. The fact that there seems to be two serious errors in this record seems to strongly suggest that the Sarah Riddle in the death record is another Sarah Riddle.

In trading emails with Cathy Jo Gregory, I found more information suggesting she was in fact deceased in 1881, and was burried in the Smoot Cemetery in Menard County.

Here's Cathy's comment:

Hello again, We think Bettie and Andrew moved to Sweetwater, Menard County, Il. but Rick Lanham of the Fredrick Basil Greenwood Gregory line(Ed's cousin) said they took a trip there and found no death record and visited a zillion little cemeteries without any luck.

Then he found a book that said she is buried in Smoot Cemetery in menard County, but it said it got the information from a combination of obits, cemetery inscriptions and whatnot. He thinks she died in 1881 He further said that after she died Andrew moved back to KY and remarried. He said Andrew had been in the civil war and thinks he was on the Union side. He thinks Edward Templeman had lived near the Riddles in Menard county and then moved back with Andrew to Ky later and remarried an Ellen or Elenor Lane. Then for whatever reason came back to Sangamon County to live. That is all I know. Cathy

The photo displayed above was taken by Jeanie Hale Lowe and is used with her kind permission.