Ruff

State vs. Spencer Gay.

To stave off responsibility for caring for poor women and their children, unwed mothers were regularly brought before justices of the peace to answer sharp questions about their circumstances.

On 4 September 1868, Ann Ruff admitted to Wilson County justice of the peace F.W. Taylor that she had given birth out of wedlock, and the child’s father was Spencer Gay. Taylor ordered that Gay be arrested and taken to a justice to answer Ruff’s charge.

The next day, Gay appeared before Taylor with his father Anthony Gay and James W. Davis and posted a two hundred-dollar bond to guarantee his appearance in court.

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  • Spencer Gay

On 9 August 1868, Spencer Gay, son of Anthony and Catherine Gay, married Adeline Barnes, daughter of Baalam and Jinny Barnes, in Wilson County.

In the 1870 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: farm laborer Spellman Moore, 24; wife Jane, 22; children William, 2, and Walter, 1 month; Adeline Gay, 20; and husband Spencer Gay, 20, farm laborer.

Spencer Gay is listed in the 1880 mortality schedule for Wilson, Wilson County, having died of consumption in February. He was a brick yard laborer.

  • Ann Ruff

On 4 October 1884, William Dailey, 45, married Ann Ruff, 31, in Wilson.

Venus Ruff, centenarian?

In the 1880 census of Wilson, Wilson County: Sarah Jackson, 21; brother-in-law Gabriel Bowden, 40, brother-in-law, laborer; sister Anna, 32, cook; nephews Columbus, 11, house servant, and James, 9; son B.F. Jackson, 6; mother Vinus Ruff, 52; and boarder Whitehurst Wiswould, 64, laborer.

In the 1900 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: jailor Columbus Gay, 39; Silva Mix, 24, housekeeper; Vinous Wisber, 72, housekeeper; and Sarah Jackson, 47, cooking.

In the 1910 census of Wilson township, Wilson County: Sarah Jackson, 55, widow, private cook; mother Venus Ruff, 73, widow; and adopted daughters Effie, 17, private nurse, Bessie, 17, private cook, and Etta, 12.

There is no accounting for the 27-year gap between Ruff’s estimated age in the census and her age on her death certificate, made the same year. Earlier census records, however, suggest that she was closer to 82 than 100 when she died.