Special
Someone Sunday
Elizabeth Thomas Dean Rafferty
1877 - 1922
Cloverport
Cemetery; Cloverport, Breckinridge County,
Kentucky
By Dave Rafferty
Elizabeth
Thomas Dean, daughter of John and Mary Ellen
Rogers Dean, was born in Cloverport, Kentucky, in
1877. She met
and married Dr. Bradley Turner Rafferty, 56, who
was a native of Harrison County, Indiana. He was previously married
to Susan Enola Miller of Cloverport, which ended
in divorce in 1902.
Legend has it he met
Elizabeth (Lizzie) while treating her mother
while practicing in Cloverport. Exact details
unknown, but something must have happened for
them to probably elope to Canada to get married
in 1907. She was 20 and he 56.
My father, Bradley D. Rafferty, was born in
Cloverport in 1908 and brother's Robert and
William during the next few years. The family
moved to Louisville after a few years. One other
son, Harry, was born in 1922, but died as an
infant. She died in 1922 and is buried in
Cloverport cemetary.
She has been a
special person to me for several reasons.
She contracted tuberculosis early on and was able
to persevere to have the children and carry on
for as long as possilble, most likely in poverty.
My dad an his brothers were place in the
Louisville school of Industrial Reform starting
in the teens, later Ormsby Village, due to the
parents being unable to care for them. They had a
fine upbringing and schooling while at the
Village. I have learned much in the past decade
or so from my mother's genealogical work and my
investigaions. I was born 20 yrs after she died
and thus never had the chance to know her, or my
grandfather who died in 1932. There was some
tragedy and bad decisions, but succeeding
generations have benefited from their union and
keeping their memory alive.
