The Family of Thompson L. Green and Ellen Belle Hoffman

Thompson L. Green spent most of his life in the small communities of northern Kentucky, moving from Harrison County where he was born to Robertson County where he taught school, served as postmaster, and raised a family. He died in the late 1890s, leaving behind a wife, three known children, and a fourth who has been nearly lost to history.

His wife Ellen Belle Hoffman outlived him by more than thirty years, survived widowhood twice, worked as a cook, followed her children to Ohio, and died in Manchester in 1929. Together they are my second great-grandparents.

Lineage

Thompson L. Green and Ellen Belle Hoffman are my second great-grandparents.

The line of descent is as follows:

Cynthia Sue Fuller Kolf, daughter of Dixie Sue Rath, daughter of Gertrude Lee Bratton, daughter of Leona Deming Green, daughter of Ellen Belle Hoffman and Thompson L. Green.

Vital Statistics — Thompson L. Green

Full Name: Thompson L. Green (also recorded as Thomas L. Green)
Parents: Fielding Benjamin Green and Mary “Polly” Doane
Date of Birth: August 27, 1840 (FamilySearch; no confirming record located)
Place of Birth: Harrison County, Kentucky
Marriage: Ellen Belle Hoffman, March 4, 1875
Date of Death: Likely between 1896–1898
Burial: Unknown

Occupation: Farm hand; farmer; school teacher; postmaster

Known Residences:
1850 — Harrison County, Kentucky
1860 — Harrison County, Kentucky
1870 — Harrison County, Kentucky
1880 — Robertson County, Kentucky (Kentontown)
1884–1890 — Postmaster, Kentontown

Military: No record located

Vital Statistics — Ellen Belle Hoffman

Full Name: Ellen Belle Hoffman Green Wilson (born Laura E. Hoffman)
Parents: John T. Hoffman and Sarah “Sallie” Garrett
Date of Birth: December 13, 1854
Place of Birth: Harrison County, Kentucky

First Marriage: Thompson L. Green, March 4, 1875
Second Marriage: Randolph D. Wilson, January 31, 1901

Date of Death: November 21, 1929
Place of Death: Manchester, Adams County, Ohio
Cause of Death: Myocardial insufficiency
Burial: Unknown

Occupation: Housekeeper; cook

Known Residences:
1860 — Harrison County, Kentucky
1870 — Harrison County, Kentucky
1880 — Robertson County, Kentucky
1900 — Robertson County, Kentucky
1910 — Bracken County, Kentucky
1920 — Norwood, Ohio
1929 — Manchester, Ohio

A Note on Names

Thompson Green presents the researcher with an immediate problem of identity. Across census records, he appears as both Thompson L. and Thomas L. — two names similar enough that records can easily be attributed to the wrong man, or the right man missed entirely. When searching for him, both variants must be checked. The middle initial L. is consistent across records, but what it stood for is not recorded anywhere that has been found.

His wife presents a mystery of her own. Her birth record — one of the few early documents that survives — lists her as Laura E. Hoffman. She never appears under that name again. From every subsequent record forward she is Ellen Belle, or simply Belle. Whether Laura was set aside in favor of a middle name, recorded in error, or abandoned by family preference, no document explains the change. For researchers, it is worth knowing that the girl born Laura E. in 1854 and the woman who married Thompson Green in 1875 are the same person.

Thompson’s Early Life in Harrison County

Thompson L. Green was born on August 27, 1840, in Harrison County, Kentucky, the son of Fielding Benjamin Green and Mary “Polly” Doane. FamilySearch records preserve that birth date, though no birth record has surfaced to confirm it. He appears in the 1850 census as an eight-year-old living with his parents in Harrison County, and in 1860 he was still at home — now a young man of twenty, working as a farm hand on the family land.

The Civil War years are a gap in Thompson’s story. No military record has been found for him, and the records that might have illuminated those years are largely silent. By 1870, he was still in Harrison County, now listed as a farmer and living with his widowed mother. Fielding Green had died at some point between 1860 and 1870, leaving Mary “Polly” to carry on, and Thompson remained with her.

Marriage to Ellen Belle Hoffman

Ellen Belle Hoffman was born on December 13, 1854, in Harrison County, Kentucky, the daughter of John T. Hoffman and Sarah “Sallie” Garrett. She was the girl her birth record calls Laura E. — a name she never used. She grew up in Harrison County, appearing in the 1860 census as a five-year-old with her parents and siblings, and again in 1870 at fifteen, still at home. The years of her girlhood are quiet in the records — the ordinary rhythm of a Kentucky household in the years following the Civil War.

On March 4, 1875, Thompson married Ellen Belle at the home of her father. He was thirty-four; she was twenty. The marriage license has been located, a tangible piece of that day still surviving in the archives. What drew a twenty-year-old to a man nearly fifteen years her senior is not something the records explain, but such age gaps were far from unusual in that era, and the ceremony at her father’s home suggests a family that sanctioned and celebrated the match.

A Move to Robertson County

By the 1880 census, Thompson had left Harrison County and established his family in Robertson County, Kentucky. The move may have followed opportunity: the census that year lists his occupation not as farmer but as school teacher— a notable shift suggesting some level of education and standing in his community. He was thirty-nine. Sharing the household were Ellen Belle, their daughter Leona, their son Walter, and Thompson’s mother Mary “Polly” Green, now seventy-nine years old. Mary had followed her son across county lines, or perhaps he had made certain she would not be left behind.

Belle’s occupation is listed as housekeeper, as it would have been for nearly every wife and mother in a rural Kentucky household of that era. The household was full — a grandmother, two young children, a schoolteacher husband — and the word housekeeper barely captures what her days must have looked like.

Postmaster of Kentontown

Four years after the 1880 census, Thompson’s standing in the community took another step forward. On March 25, 1884, he was appointed postmaster of Kentontown, Robertson County — a role he would hold for more than six years. The postmaster register records his appointment clearly, and his successor, Mason D. Ellis, was not appointed until July 10, 1890.

In a small Kentucky community, the postmaster was a figure of some civic importance, handling correspondence and connecting neighbors to the wider world. That Thompson held the position alongside — or perhaps following — his work as a schoolteacher suggests he was a man of real standing and trust in Kentontown. He had arrived in Robertson County as an outsider from Harrison County; by 1884, his neighbors had entrusted him with both their children’s education and their mail.

Thompson’s Death

Thompson L. Green died sometime in the late 1890s. Two dates appear in family records: 1898 and November 6, 1896, the latter recorded on FamilySearch. No death record, obituary, or Find A Grave listing has been located to settle the question. Where he was buried is not known.

He left behind Ellen Belle and their children. He was somewhere between fifty-six and fifty-eight years old — not an old man, but not a young one either. He had taught school, carried the mail, farmed, and fathered four children in Robertson County.

Ellen Belle After Thompson: The Kain Household

By the time the 1900 census was taken, everything had changed. Thompson was gone, and Ellen Belle, now forty-five and widowed, is listed in 1900 as a cook in the household of Laurence and Katie Kain in Robertson County, living alongside their children Berniece and William T. as a domestic servant.

She did not remain widowed long.

Second Marriage: Randolph D. Wilson

On January 31, 1901, Ellen Belle married Randolph D. Wilson — a union of two people who had each known loss. She was forty-six; he was fifty-five.

Randolph D. Wilson had been born on July 25, 1845, in Brooksville, Bracken County, Kentucky, the son of Thomas Wilson and Permelia A. Rorer. As a young man he had farmed, as most young men in Bracken County did, and at twenty-one he had married Debbie Anna Hull, born in 1849. They had four children together. Debbie Anna died on June 15, 1899, in Germantown, Bracken County, at the age of forty-nine, leaving Randolph a widower at fifty-three.

Before all of that, when Randolph was just eighteen years old, he had gone to war.

He enlisted on September 1, 1864, in Brooksville — the town where he was born — and was mustered into Company K of the 54th Kentucky Mounted Infantry, a Union regiment organized that same month. The Company Descriptive Book records him as 5 feet 6 inches tall, fair complexioned, with grey eyes and fair hair, occupation farmer, enlisted for a term of one year. He was eighteen years old.

The 54th Kentucky Mounted Infantry performed duty across Kentucky driving guerrilla forces from the region, then rode into southwest Virginia on what became known as Stoneman’s Raid, running from December 10 through December 29, 1864. The raid included engagements near Marion, Virginia, on December 17 and 18, and at Saltville, Virginia, on December 20 and 21, where Union forces captured and destroyed Confederate salt works critical to the Southern war effort. The regiment suffered considerably on the expedition — not primarily from enemy fire, but from brutal exposure to extreme cold. After the raid, the 54th returned to duty in the Lexington, Kentucky area, continuing operations against guerrillas until it was mustered out on September 1, 1865. Randolph came home at nineteen.

He was fifty-five when he married Belle, and the two of them are found together in the 1910 census, living in Bracken County.

Randolph D. Wilson died on October 22, 1917, in Bracken County, Kentucky. He is buried alongside his first wife Debbie Anna at Triumph Church Cemetery in Brooksville.

Ellen Belle’s Final Years

By the 1920 census, Ellen Belle was widowed again and living in Norwood, Ohio, as head of household. Listed with her was her son Earl Green, working as a tracer for the Cincinnati Planer Company. Also sharing the home were Arthur Cabral and Imogene Cabral. Readers of this blog will recognize Imogene — she appeared in the post on George Riley Bratton, noted there as a young woman living with her grandmother.

Ellen Belle Hoffman died on November 21, 1929, at her home in Manchester, Ohio. She was seventy-four years old. The cause of death was myocardial insufficiency — heart failure. She had outlived two husbands, survived widowhood twice, worked as a cook, and followed her children across state lines in her final years.

The Children of Thompson L. Green and Ellen Belle Hoffman

Thompson and Ellen Belle had four children, though only three appear in most family trees. The fourth, Gertrude, has been nearly lost to history — but the evidence of her existence is there for those who look.

Leona Deming Green (1875–1948)

Leona Deming Green was born in Mount Olivet, Robertson County, Kentucky, in 1875, the eldest child of Thompson and Ellen Belle. She grew up in Kentontown while her father taught school and carried the mail.

On June 28, 1896, at twenty-one, Leona married George Riley Bratton in Robertson County. Together they raised ten children across northern Kentucky — a household that kept Leona, listed in every census as a housekeeper.

Sometime between the 1930 census and January 1937, Leona and George’s marriage ended in divorce. No divorce record has been located, and the circumstances are unknown. By early 1937, both had remarried.

On September 1, 1938, Leona married Sherman Bratton — George’s brother — in Bracken County, Kentucky. She was sixty-two years old. After the wedding, the couple moved to Sherman’s home in Southport, Marion County, Indiana. For a woman who had spent her entire life in Kentucky, it was a significant uprooting.

The chapter was not long. On September 17, 1944, Sherman died of chronic myocarditis at sixty-four. Leona came home to Kentucky, spending her final years in Maysville, Mason County, near several of her daughters.

On May 31, 1948, Leona died at the age of seventy-two of hypertension and cardiovascular disease with angina pectoris. She was buried at the Brooksville Knights of Pythias Cemetery in Brooksville, Kentucky, beside her daughter Ethel Insko.

Leona Deming Green was my great-grandmother. Her daughter Gertrude Lee Bratton was my grandmother.

Walter G. Green (1878–1954)

Walter G. Green was born on October 23, 1878, in Robertson County, Kentucky, the second child of Thompson and Ellen Belle. He appears in the 1880 census as a two-year-old in Kentontown.

A small mystery trails him through the records. In his World War I draft registration, he stated that his middle initial stood for Gordon. By his World War II registration, he gave it as Gay. The records offer no explanation.

In 1898, Walter married Arrabelle Curtis, born February 12, 1880, making her eighteen at the time of the wedding. The 1900 census finds them in Maysville, Mason County, Kentucky, where Walter, twenty-one, was already working as an insurance agent — a career that would define the next half century of his life.

By 1910, the couple had crossed the Ohio River and settled in Manchester, Adams County, Ohio, where they would remain for the rest of their lives. Two children had arrived: Harold Francis and Dorothea Alma. The 1930 census lists Walter as assistant superintendent for life insurance, the 1940 census as a solicitor. By 1950, at seventy-two, he had retired.

Walter worked for Western and Southern Life Insurance Company — and so, later, did his younger brother Earl. Throughout all the years in Manchester, Arrabelle kept the home. The records show her consistently as a homemaker, the labor that held the household together while Walter built his career.

Arrabelle died September 6, 1951. Walter followed on February 28, 1954. They are buried together at the Manchester IOOF Cemetery in Manchester, Adams County, Ohio.

Earl Green (1888–1939)

Earl Green was the youngest of the three children who appear in most family trees, born on September 10, 1888, in Kentucky. He was about ten years old when his father died.

In the 1900 census, Earl is twelve and living in Robertson County with his widowed mother. He does not appear in the 1910 census — where he spent those years is unknown.

By his World War I draft registration, Earl was twenty-nine and living in Clermont County, Ohio, working as a tracer at the Cincinnati Planer Company, a manufacturer of metal planers founded in 1899 in the Cincinnati area. A tracer was a skilled drafting position requiring precision and a steady hand. He carried this same work into the 1920 census, when he is found in his mother Ellen Belle’s household in Norwood, Ohio.

After Ellen Belle’s death in November 1929, Earl married Estella Estep on January 13, 1930, in Newport, Kentucky, at the age of forty-one. The 1930 census finds them in Newport, where Earl had shifted to working as an insurance agent — following his brother Walter into the trade.

Earl Green died on February 14, 1939, at fifty. His death certificate lists the principal cause of death as tabes dorsalis, a progressive neurological condition affecting the spinal cord and a late-stage complication of syphilis — a disease without reliable treatment until the advent of penicillin in the 1940s. Nephritis, kidney disease, is listed as a contributory cause. He was fifty years old.

Gertrude Green (1885–before 1910)

Gertrude Green does not appear in most Thompson Green family trees, and it is easy to understand why. She left few records, lived a short life, and the documents that might have confirmed her place in the family do not exist. And yet the evidence, carefully assembled, points clearly: Gertrude Green was almost certainly the fourth child of Thompson L. Green and Ellen Belle Hoffman.

She was born in January 1885 in Robertson County, Kentucky, according to both the 1900 census and her marriage record. In the 1900 census, she is fifteen years old and listed as a servant in the household of Zachariah and Susan Lee, an elderly couple in Robertson County, along with their grandson Zachariah Taylor. What brought a fifteen-year-old girl into service in an elderly couple’s home after her father’s death — economic necessity, a family arrangement, or simply limited options — the records do not say.

On June 1, 1902, Gertrude married Harvey Lawrence Mains in what the record calls the first marriage for both. He was twenty-five; she was seventeen. The marriage took place at the residence of Randolph Wilson — the man Ellen Belle had married just the year before. That detail alone carries considerable weight. A girl with no connection to the Green family would have had no reason to be married at her stepfather’s home.

The marriage record supplies further evidence. Gertrude is listed as born in Robertson County. Both parents are recorded as born in Harrison County — exactly as was true of both Thompson and Ellen Belle. And because Thompson had been dead for several years, it was the bride’s mother who gave consent to the marriage, as Ellen Belle would have done for her underage daughter.

The marriage was brief. By the 1910 census, Lawrence Mains is listed as widowed, living with his mother. Gertrude had died sometime between June 1902 and the spring of 1910. She was at most in her mid-twenties. Death records in Kentucky were not reliably maintained until 1911, and no record of her death has been found.

Legacy

Thompson L. Green arrived in Robertson County as an outsider from Harrison County and made himself part of the fabric of Kentontown — as a schoolteacher, as a postmaster, as a husband and father. He died before his youngest child was ten years old, and the records of his death have not survived. Ellen Belle outlived him by more than three decades, working as a cook, marrying again, following her children across the Ohio River, and dying in Manchester with her family around her.

Their four children — Leona, Walter, Earl, and Gertrude — carried the family forward in four different directions. Leona, my great-grandmother, took the line through Gertrude Lee Bratton and Dixie Sue Rath to me. Walter built a quiet, steady life in Manchester. Earl worked with his hands and his brother’s trade and died too young. Gertrude nearly vanished from the record entirely — but she was there.

The gaps in Thompson and Ellen Belle’s story are real: no burial site, no confirmed death date, a daughter who left almost nothing behind. But the shape of the family is clear enough, and it is a good one to belong to.

Sources: Federal Census Records (1850–1950); Kentucky County Marriages, 1786–1965; FamilySearch birth and death records; Postmaster Appointment Register, Robertson County, Kentucky; Company Descriptive Book, Co. K, 54th Kentucky Mounted Infantry, Fold3/Ancestry; World War I and World War II Draft Registration Cards; Kentucky and Ohio Death Records; Manchester, Adams County, Ohio death record for Ellen Belle Wilson; Find A Grave memorial records; Robertson County and Bracken County marriage records.