Friday's Photo: John Knighton Wimberly of Northwest Louisiana

In 1918, on his draft registration, thirty-eight-year-old John Knighton Wimberly had blue eyes and dark hair and was described as medium height. He was a farmer living in Ringgold in Bienville Parish, Louisiana. I'm not sure when this photo was taken, but other photos showing the chair and the painted tree on the background indicates the photo was taken sometime around the turn of the century. The photo, from the files of Marguerite Cook Clark, was labeled Knighton Wimberly by Maggie Martin Cook, a cousin and about the same age as Knighton. Maggie was also the mother of Marguerite Cook Clark. 

John Knighton Wimberly, son of Andrew Lawson Wimberly and Harriet Elizabeth Knighton, was born on 5 April 1880 in Red River Parish. He was the third of eight children. The other children were Missouri Frances, Martha Elizabeth, John Lawson, Andrew Lawson Jr., Annie Harriet, Thomas Cannon, and Mary Ann. 

Knighton spent most of his life in Red River Parish and Bienville Parish; however, in 1900, he was found working in Haskell, Texas, for a farmer, Frank Ross, and living with the Ross family. There is a story found in the Wimberly Family History that indicates that Knighton went to Texas to be a cowboy. 

By 1914, he had been married three times and widowed three times. He had one child, Cleo Wimberly, with his second wife. His fourth wife, Dollie Miles, outlived him. John Knighton Wimberly died on 5 November 1933 and is buried with other family in the Wimberly Cemetery. 

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Diana

© 2023 

"United States Census, 1900," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/3:1:S3HT-6W37-N9G?: 5 August 2014), Texas > Haskell > ED 90 Justice Precincts 2-4 > image 2 of 21; citing NARA microfilm publication T623 (Washington, D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, n.d.).

Knighton Wimberly, photograph, n.d.; digital images, from the privately held photo collection of Marguerite Cook Clark (1913-1989), Waynesville, North Carolina, 2021. Photos were accessed and scanned at the home of Marguerite Cook Clark's daughter in Alpine, Texas, on April 28, 2014, September 14, 2014, and November 9 to 11, 2016. 

"United States World War I Draft Registration Cards, 1917-1918", database with images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:KZ8K-2MG : 24 December 2021), John Kinghton Wimberly, 1917-1918.

Vera Meeks Wimberly, Wimberly Family History, Ancestors, Relatives, and Descendants of William Wimberly, Pioneer from Georgia to Louisiana 1837 (Houston Texas: D. Anderson, 1979).