Luellen or Lou Ella Taylor grew up in the little community of Hundred, Wetzel, West Virginia. She is descended from a British Army deserter, John Taylor, who later joined the Connecticut militia, to fight for America in the American Revolution.

Her maternal Pettit side of the family goes back to Thomas Pettit, a French Huguenot that joined with the English Puritans and arrived in New England after 1630. He was a man that spoke his mind, which occasionally got him into his share of tribulations.

Lou Ella was the daughter of William B.Taylor (1839-1885) and Helena Pettit (1841-1901). Young and beautiful, she fell in love with Thomas Jefferson Villars, a town doctor. They were married in Wetzel, West Virginia, on November 4, 1888. By 1900, they had had 5 children in 12 years of marriage. 4 survived to adulthood. Right after 1900, and before 1910, she and Thomas divorced. He remarried Minnie Austa Postlethwait Crist, a divorcee, previously married to Mahlon Clark Crist in 1898. There were no children from her first marriage.

After her divorce, which was a badge of shame in those days, Lou Ella decided to be known as a "widow" and spent the rest of her life using that identity. Somehow she managed to raise her family over the next years with the support of the Thomas's relatives. When her sister Mary died in 1928, of apoplexy (stroke), she moved in with her brother-in-law, James Villers (Mary's husband), to keep house, as evidenced in the 1930 census records. Lou Ella died on April 25, 1933, of carcinoma (cancer).

Children of Thomas Jefferson Villers & Lou Ella Taylor:

• James S. Villers (1889-1941)

• John Villers (1890-1941)

• Rosa J. Villers (1892-1966)

• Nancy Louisana Villers (1896-1983)

• Unknown Villers (prob. born 1893-1895)

2024 Update:

Thomas married Lou Ellen / Ella Taylor, a beautiful lady he had known all of his life in November, 1888. There was a big celebration. The marriage appeared to be on a strong footing until before 1898. Thomas then fell head-over-heels in love with a divorceé, Minnie Austa Postlethwait, whom everyone thought was a widow. From what I could find, Mahlon Clark Crist, her first husband, didn't die until 1948. 

According to Thomas Villers, he was a veteran of the Spanish-American War, which started in 1898. I could find no records. Was it a ruse????   

From the census records, Thomas appeared to taken off with Minnie after the "war" and moved to Morris, Washington, Pennsylvania. In 1910, they have 1 child, Daisy. She's 9 years old. They tell the census recorder, they have been married 11 years. However, the "official" marriage date entered in the records was 24 October 1916, in West Virginia. When they settled in Pennsylvania, Thomas was no longer a doctor. He became a farm laborer.

Prior to 1916, Thomas felt strong enough, after all the lies, to come back home to Wetzel, with his new family. He actually married Minnie in 1916, to the satisfaction of his relatives. Naturally, a divorce had to happen first. He had been living as a bigamist for 15 or more years. He moved to the Magnolia area. Minnie got the family she always dreamed of…. Daisy, Iris, and Thomas. She and Thomas never parted. Instead of being a people doctor, Thomas put out his shingle as a veterinarian. And that was where they stayed.

*M.Bell - related