Field Notes

Researching Family History One Record at a Time

Ancestors / Woodruff

Anna Maud Woodruff

b. 2 Jul 1879 · Maryville, Nodaway County, Missouri – d. 23 Nov 1954 · Monte Vista, Colorado

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Black-and-white photograph of a young woman seated indoors, holding a small girl close against her, the girl clutching a doll. Patterned wallpaper, a curtained window, and a framed picture are visible behind them.
Anna Maud Woodruff with her daughter, Alice Josephine Davis — Shannon's grandmother — as a young girl. Original photograph in the collection of Shannon's mother; scanned by Shannon.

Vital Facts

Event Date Place Status Source
Birth 2 Jul 1879 Maryville, Nodaway County, Missouri Proven 1a,1b,1c,1d Self-reported as July 1878 on the 1900 census — a minor recorded variant; the death-certificate-era date is treated as authoritative.

Family

Parents

Spouses

  • Robert Abraham Lincoln Davis — m. 14 Aug 1895 , El Paso County, Colorado, at the residence of J. F. Woodruff (Proven) 2a,2b — Colorado Marriage License and Certificate No. 19, El Paso County, license issued 5 Aug 1895, Colorado Springs; ceremony performed 14 Aug 1895 by Wm. C. Allen, Justice of the Peace, at the Florissant-area residence of Anna Maud's father, John Farney Woodruff. Groom listed as Robert L. Davis of Cripple Creek; bride as Miss Maud Woodruff of Florissant. Both recorded as never previously married, not divorced. Witnesses: T. P. Golden and Mary W. Patton. Recorded across his lifetime as Abraham L. (1870 census, age 5), Robert Lincoln (1880 census, age 15), Lincoln A. (1910 census), and Robert L. (1900, 1940 censuses, death certificate). Born 22 Feb 1865, Davis Corners, Michigan; died 27 Aug 1943, McDonald County, Missouri. Divorced from Anna Maud 26 Jul 1920, Mineral County, Colorado (decree itself still being located). At death, recorded as married to a woman named Cora Davis, age 76 — a marriage unknown to the family and not yet documented beyond the death certificate. See his own page for full research detail, including his later years in Missouri and Arizona.
  • Charles Lane — m. 9 Sep 1920 (Working Hypothesis) 3 — Born 1872, Nebraska; died 1948, Creede, Colorado. Married Anna Maud just 45 days after her divorce from Robert Davis was finalized. A Creede Candle news item, 11 Sept 1920, confirms the marriage but describes it as having taken place "on Wednesday" — the Wednesday preceding that Saturday issue would have been 8 Sept, a day off from the 9th recorded here. See open questions.

Children

  • John Franklin Davis (b. 8 Mar 1897, Colorado) — Child of Anna Maud and Robert Davis. Died 1951. Recorded in the 1900 census as 'Frank J.,' age 3 (birth given there as Feb 1897, a minor variant). Married Caroline Davis — despite the shared surname, not a blood relative: she was the stepdaughter of Robert Davis's brother, Arthur Montrose Davis, and carried the Davis name from that marriage rather than by birth. As of the 1930 census, the couple lived in Creede — a few households from his sister Alice Josephine's family — with four children: Frank R. (b. 1922), Leroy C. ('Lee,' b. about 1926 — named for Anna Maud's brother, Lee Roy Woodruff), Maud E. ('Polly,' b. about 1928 — named for her grandmother), and Nancy A. (b. about 1929). 1d,4
  • Edna Rosamond Davis (b. 18 Jan 1899, Colorado) — Child of Anna Maud and Robert Davis. Recorded in the 1900 census as 'Rosamond,' age 1. Named for Anna Maud's older half-sister, Edna Latitia Woodruff, who died in infancy in 1888 — see John Farney Woodruff's page. Per her brother Robert Lincoln Davis's Find a Grave memorial, she married a man surnamed Cook, went by 'Rose,' and died in 1971 — consistent with her mother's 1954 obituary, which names a surviving daughter 'Rose [Cook?]' of Altadena, California. Both leads point the same direction but neither has yet been confirmed against a primary record (marriage license, death certificate, or SSDI); status held as Working Hypothesis pending that confirmation. 1d,4,5
  • Robert Lincoln Davis (b. 29 Dec 1900, Wolcott, Eagle County, Colorado) — Child of Anna Maud and Robert Davis, named for his father. Died 3 Nov 1918, Creede, Mineral County, Colorado, during the 1918 influenza pandemic, of bronchopneumonia per his own death certificate (located 2026) — which also independently confirms his birthplace (Eagle County, Colorado) and parents' birthplaces (father, Michigan; mother, Missouri), and names his father, Robert Sr., as informant, placing him in Creede at the time. The certificate's own date-of-death digit is ambiguous and reads as if it could be either the 3rd or the 9th; a contemporary Creede Candle death notice, published 9 Nov 1918, describes the death as having occurred "Sunday morning" — since 9 Nov 1918 was itself a Saturday, that points to 3 Nov (the preceding Sunday) as the actual date, consistent with Find a Grave and the date used here. The Creede Candle notice also gives his age at death as 18; Find a Grave and his documented birth date instead give 17 (one month short of his eighteenth birthday). Both age figures are recorded here rather than silently resolved. Family memory holds that the grief of his death contributed to the strain that ended in his parents' divorce not quite two years later; it is not known whether the marriage was already troubled at the time of his death. 1d,4,6a,5,6b
  • Alice Josephine Davis (b. 13 Mar 1904, Alma, Park County, Colorado) — Child of Anna Maud and Robert Davis. Died 7 Jul 1980, Colorado Springs, El Paso County, Colorado. Shannon's maternal grandmother. After her parents' divorce, she took her own children to Missouri to visit her father; at that time he was living with his sister, not yet married to Cora. 4
  • Albert Woodruff Davis (b. 18 Dec 1905, Colorado) — Child of Anna Maud and Robert Davis. Died 6 Nov 1967, San Benito County, California. Known to family as "Uncle Woody"; per Shannon, this is the "Woody" who stayed with his sister Alice Josephine's family in Creede in the early 1930s and is named in his nephew John Jackson's memoir "Please Go to Hell." 4
  • Arthur M. Davis (b. 28 Jun 1908, Colorado) — Child of Anna Maud and Robert Davis. Died 21 Oct 1978, Creede, Mineral County, Colorado. Possibly named for Robert's own younger brother, Arthur M. Davis, born 1868 in Michigan — a naming pattern noted but not yet confirmed. Married Marguerite Davis, daughter of his stepfather Charles Lane by an earlier marriage — the 1930 census enumerates the couple within the Lane household, Arthur as son-in-law and Marguerite as daughter. Per family account, the couple later divorced and each remarried. 7
  • Charlotte Florella Lane (b. 18 or 19 Oct 1925, Creede, Mineral County, Colorado) — Child of Anna Maud and Charles Lane. Shannon's great-aunt. Died 23 Oct 2009, Creede, Mineral County, Colorado, per the Social Security Death Index and her Find a Grave memorial, which agree. Her birth date is unresolved: a contemporary Creede Candle birth notice, published six days after the fact, states she was born "on Sunday the 18th" — 18 October 1925 was in fact a Sunday, 19 October a Monday, favoring the notice's internal consistency — while both the SSDI and her own family-submitted obituary (via Find a Grave) independently agree on 19 October. Both dates are recorded here. Married John McClure, one of "these McClure men," with Harry and Gene, recalled in John Jackson's 1947 memoir "Please Go to Hell" as having "drilled a million holes" at the Amethyst Mine; see the Name Index. 8a,8b,8c
  • Raymond Lane — Son of Charles Lane from a prior marriage. Family account (via his sister Charlotte Florella Lane McClure, as related to Shannon) holds that Anna Maud adopted him, and the 1930 census independently corroborates this: he is enumerated as 'Raymond C. Lane' in the Charles Lane household at the family's Lane Ranch, Creede, explicitly as 'adopt[ed] son.' No formal adoption record has been located, but the census entry moves this beyond family memory alone. Predeceased Anna Maud by 1954, per her obituary, which lists him among three sons who predeceased her (Robert, Raymond, and Frank). No birth or death date yet documented. 1b,7

Timeline

  1. 2 Jul 1879 Born, Maryville, Nodaway County, Missouri, to John Farney Woodruff and Annie E. Chaney.
  2. 14 Aug 1895 Marries Robert Abraham Lincoln Davis. 2a
  3. 1897–1908 Six children born to Anna Maud and Robert Davis, all in Colorado.
  4. 3 Nov 1918 Son Robert Lincoln Davis dies of bronchopneumonia in Creede, per his own death certificate (located 2026) and a contemporary Creede Candle death notice; his age at death is given there as 18, though 17 (per Find a Grave and his documented birth date) is more consistent with the family's working record. 6b,6a,5
  5. 26 Jul 1920 Divorces Robert Abraham Lincoln Davis. Per Shannon's research; decree being located
  6. 9 Sep 1920 Marries Charles Lane, forty-five days after her divorce is finalized. 3
  7. 19 Oct 1925 Daughter Charlotte Florella Lane born, Creede, Colorado.
  8. 1940 Enumerated as head of household in Creede with daughter Charlotte, son Arthur, and a young grandson named Frank — consistent with the family's pattern of Anna Maud keeping a house in town during the winter months while the family also held the Lane Ranch outside Creede; her town home was typically full of family at any given time. 9
  9. 1940 Second husband Charles Lane enumerated separately as a rancher in Precinct 2, outside Creede — reflecting the family's separate town and ranch residences rather than any rift; the two households appear on the same enumeration sheet as neighboring rural dwellings, not one shared house. 10
  10. Christmas 1940 Serves as midwife for the birth of a Creede baby born with a cleft palate and hare lip, per grandson John Jackson's memoir account — the earliest documented narrative of her decades of work as the town's midwife, previously known only through family memory. John met the same child, by then a grown man, by chance in a Montrose lumber yard in 1989. 11
  11. 27 Aug 1943 Robert Abraham Lincoln Davis dies in McDonald County, Missouri, recorded on his death certificate as married to Cora Davis — a union unknown to the family. 2b
  12. 1950 Enumerated as widowed head of household in Creede with granddaughter Kristine Ann Davis, daughter of son Albert Woodruff "Woody" Davis. 12
  13. 23 Nov 1954 Dies, Monte Vista, Colorado. 1a

Open Research Questions

  1. Was the marriage between Anna Maud and Robert Davis already strained at the time of their son Robert Lincoln Davis's death in 1918? Family memory connects his death to the divorce two years later, but no documentation establishes when the marriage's difficulties began.
  2. What is the relationship, if any, between the 'Simon T. Davis' of the 1870 census and the 'Davis Peter' headship recorded for the same family in the 1880 census? Census and death-certificate evidence together support 'Simon Peter Davis' as the father's full name, recorded inconsistently by different enumerators, but this has not been confirmed by an independent record naming him in full.
  3. Is Arthur M. Davis (Anna Maud and Robert's son, b. 1908) named for Robert's younger brother of the same name (b. ca. 1868, Michigan)? The naming echo is suggestive but unconfirmed.
  4. Anna Maud's 1954 obituary states she 'came to Creede' in 1915, but the site's working timeline (corroborated by the 1921 Creede Candle wedding announcement on Alice Josephine's page) places the family's move to Creede in 1918. Worth resolving which date is accurate, or whether these describe two different events (e.g., an earlier visit versus a permanent move).
  5. What documentation exists, if any, for Anna Maud's adoption of Raymond Lane (Charles Lane's son by a prior marriage)? Family account (via Charlotte Lane McClure) and the 1930 census enumeration as 'adopted son' are the only sources at present — no formal adoption record has been located.
  6. Edna Rosamond Davis appears, per Find a Grave and her mother's 1954 obituary, to have married a man surnamed Cook and died in 1971 in or near Altadena, California — but this rests on two secondary sources pointing the same direction, not yet a primary record. A marriage license, death certificate, or SSDI entry would confirm it.
  7. Robert Lincoln Davis's age at death is given as 18 by the contemporary 1918 newspaper notice, but as 17 by Find a Grave, his documented birth date (29 Dec 1900), and now his own death certificate (17 yrs 9 mos) as well — three sources against one. Still recorded as an open conflict per site convention rather than silently dropping the newspaper's figure, but the weight of evidence now favors 17.
  8. The Creede Candle's 11 September 1920 marriage notice describes Anna Maud and Charles Lane's wedding as having taken place 'on Wednesday,' which would be 8 September rather than the 9th currently recorded for this marriage. Not yet resolved.
  9. No published version of Anna Maud's 1954 obituary has been located. The surviving document is a handwritten draft, prepared by her daughters Jo Jackson and Charlotte McClure for submission to a newspaper — it may never have run, or ran in a paper and date not yet identified.

References

  • 1a. ↩ Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, standard certificate of death, Registrar's No. 87, District 197, Anna Maude Lane, died 23 November 1954, 7:47 p.m., Rio Grande County (Monte Vista), Colorado; attending physician William N. McKinley, M.D., Monte Vista.
  • 1b. ↩ "Mrs. Anna Maude Lane" [draft obituary text], handwritten, undated; per family account (Charlotte Florella Lane McClure, as related to Shannon), drafted by Anna Maud's daughters Alice Josephine "Jo" Jackson and Charlotte Florella Lane McClure for submission to a newspaper (title not identified); no published clipping has been located, and this document represents the family's own composed text rather than a confirmed printed obituary. States she was born in Marysville, Missouri, 2 July [1879], daughter of John and Annie Woodruff; came to Creede in 1915; was a member of the Episcopal Church, the Rebekah Lodge, and the American Legion Auxiliary; was preceded in death by her husband and three sons, Robert, Raymond, and Frank[lin]; survived by two sons (Arthur, of Creede, and Albert Woodruff, of Nevada), three daughters (Rose [Cook?], of Altadena, California; Josephine Jackson; and Charlotte McClure, both of Creede), three stepsons and three stepdaughters, twenty-three grandchildren, and fourteen great-grandchildren; and one sister, Mrs. Ted Bennett of Lander, Wyoming; died at Community Hospital, Monte Vista.
  • 1c. ↩ “U.S., Social Security Applications and Claims Index, 1936-2007,” database on-line, Ancestry.com (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2015), Annie Maude Lane [Anna Maud Woodruff], b. 2 Jul 1879, Maryville, Missouri; parents John F. Woodruff and Annie A. Chaney; SSN 523-10-9505; name listed as Annie Maude Lane, Apr 1937.
  • 1d. ↩ 1900 U.S. census, Eagle County, Colorado, population schedule, Wolcott/Sheephorn precinct, Supervisor's District 2, Enumeration District 17, sheet 11B, dwelling 269, family 276, Robert Davis household; image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 July 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T623.
  • 2a. ↩ “Colorado, U.S., Select County Marriages, 1863-2018,” database with images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 Jul 2026), Robert L. Davis and Maud Woodruff, Marriage License and Certificate No. 19, license issued 5 August 1895, El Paso County, Colorado; ceremony performed 14 August 1895 at the residence of J. F. Woodruff, Florissant, El Paso County, by Wm. C. Allen, Justice of the Peace; witnesses T. P. Golden and Mary W. Patton; image 378 of 837; citing El Paso County Recorder's Office, El Paso County Marriages, 1862-2018.
  • 2b. ↩ “Missouri, Death Certificates, 1910–1962,” database with images, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 9 July 2026), Robert L. Davis, 1943, State File No. 28708; citing Missouri Office of the Secretary of State, Jefferson City, Missouri.
  • 3. ↩ “News Notes,” The Creede Candle (Creede, Colorado), 11 September 1920: “Charles Lane and Maude Davis were quietly married on Wednesday and left on the afternoon train for a short trip to valley points.” Page and column not confirmed.
  • 4. ↩ 1910 U.S. census, Teller County, Colorado, population schedule, Florissant precinct, Supervisor's District 3, Enumeration District 182, sheet 12A, dwelling 200, family 200, Robert L. Davis household; image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 15 July 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T624.
  • 5. ↩ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 25 Jul 2026), memorial page for Robert Lincoln Davis (1900–1918), Creede Cemetery, Creede, Mineral County, Colorado, USA; listing death 3 Nov 1918, age 17; parents Robert L. Davis (1865–1943) and Anna Maude Woodruff Davis Lane (1879–1954); siblings John Franklin “Frank” Davis (1897–1951), Edna Rosamond “Rose” Davis Cook (1899–1971), Alice Josephine “Jo” Davis Jackson (1904–1980), and Arthur [M.] Davis (1908–1978); half-sibling Charlotte F. Lane McClure (1925–2009). NOTE TO SHANNON: memorial ID/URL not confirmed. This memorial is contributor-maintained (not by you), so the Cook surname and 1971 death year for Edna Rosamond should be treated as compiled/secondary pending primary-record confirmation.
  • 6a. ↩ “Robert Lincoln Davis” [death notice], The Creede Candle (Creede, Mineral County, Colorado), 9 November 1918, p. 2, col. 3, pars. 11–12: “Sunday morning another death was added to the list of Flu victims when Robert Lincoln Davis, son of Mr. and Mrs. R. L. Davis, passed away. The deceased was 18 years old and was born at Wolcott, Colorado. He was one of those who was registered in the last draft.”
  • 6b. ↩ State of Colorado, Bureau of Vital Statistics, Certificate of Death (Form V.S. No. 12), Robert Lincoln Davis, Creede, Mineral County, Colorado; born 29 Dec 1900, Eagle County, Colorado, to Robert Lincoln Davis (b. Michigan) and Maude Woodruff (b. Missouri); age 17 yrs 9 mos at death; died of bronchopneumonia; informant R. L. Davis, Creede, Colorado; filed 21 November 1918; buried Creede, Colorado; original in the family papers of Shannon's mother; transcribed by Shannon Field, 26 Aug 2026. NOTE: the certificate's own day-of-death digit is ambiguous (transcribed as “9”); day-of-week analysis and the site's existing Find a Grave sourcing both point to 3 Nov 1918 rather than 9 Nov — see robert-lincoln-davis-findagrave and robert-lincoln-davis-creede-candle-death-1918.
  • 7. ↩ 1930 U.S. census, Mineral County, Colorado, population schedule, Precinct 2, Supervisor's District 9, Enumeration District 40-4, sheet 4B, dwelling 23, family 24, Charles L. Lane household (“Lane Ranch”); enumerated 10 May 1930 by C. K. Herbert; household includes Charles L. Lane (head), Maud A. Lane (wife), Raymond C. Lane (adopted son), Charlotta F. Lane (daughter), Arthur M. Davis (son-in-law), and Marguerite E. Davis (daughter); image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 25 Jul 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T626.
  • 8a. ↩ [Birth notice], The Creede Candle (Creede, Mineral County, Colorado), Vol. XXXIV, No. 42, 24 October 1925, p. 1, col. 2, par. 14: “A ten pound girl, Charlotte Florella was born to Charley Lane and wife on Sunday the 18th. Mother and daughter are doing nicely.”; digital image, Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection (https://www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org/?a=d&d=TCC19251024-01.2.5 : accessed 26 Aug 2026); transcribed by Shannon Field, 26 Aug 2026.
  • 8b. ↩ “U.S., Social Security Death Index, 1935-2014,” database, Ancestry.com (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com Operations Inc., 2010); original data: Social Security Administration, Social Security Death Index, Master File; Charlotte L. McClure, SSN 521-30-1588, issued Colorado before 1951, birth date 19 Oct 1925, death date 23 Oct 2009, last residence Creede, Mineral County, Colorado 81130.
  • 8c. ↩ Find a Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/59523183/charlotte_f-mcclure : accessed 3 Aug 2026), memorial page for Charlotte F. Lane McClure (19 Oct 1925–23 Oct 2009), Find a Grave Memorial ID 59523183, citing Creede Cemetery, Creede, Mineral County, Colorado, USA; maintained by Calmly Searching (contributor 47240541); incorporates an obituary naming her parents as Charles and Annie Maude (Woodruff) Lane and her husband as John Robert McClure.
  • 9. ↩ 1940 U.S. census, Mineral County, Colorado, population schedule, Creede (incorporated place), Enumeration District 40-3, Sheet 3B, dwelling 70, lines 69–72; enumerated 16 Apr 1940 by Eloy B. Martinez; household of Annie Maude Lane (head, owned home valued at $500, not a farm), with daughter Charlotte, son Arthur Davis, and grandson Frank (relationship to John Franklin "Frank" Davis inferred by name and age; not yet confirmed); image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 26 Jul 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T627.
  • 10. ↩ 1940 U.S. census, Mineral County, Colorado, population schedule, Precinct No. 2 (outside Creede), Enumeration District 40-4, Sheet 1A, dwelling 7, line 20; enumerated 13 Apr 1940 by Marvin J. Michael; Charles L. Lane enumerated as head of a separate household (owned home valued at $250, living on a farm), age 68, born Nebraska, occupation rancher; image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 26 Jul 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T627.
  • 11. ↩ John Richard Jackson and Pauline Roberta "Bubbles" Jackson Bates, "Please Go to Hell" (unpublished manuscript, Creede, Colorado, n.d.), typescript found among John's papers after his death; transcribed by Shannon Field, 2026.
  • 12. ↩ 1950 U.S. census, Mineral County, Colorado, population schedule, Creede, Enumeration District 40-2, Sheet 3, household 27, lines 13–14, San Luis Avenue (corner of 6th); enumerated 8 Apr 1950 by Mamie Potts; household of Anna Maude Lane (head, widowed), with granddaughter Kristine Ann Davis; image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 26 Jul 2026); citing NARA microfilm publication T627.