Nelle Cleveland Bridges McCarty -- Wife of an Insurance Company Employee

 

Mark and Nelle Bridges McCarty

Nelle (Nellie) Cleveland Bridges was born on October 14, 1892 in the Maple Grove community of  Trigg County, Kentucky. She was the oldest of five children born to Mark Dale Bridges and Mallie Mae Lancaster Bridges.  Mark Dale was a traveling salesman and both he and Mallie were natives of Trigg County.  Nelle was a granddaughter of Cullen Thomas Bridges.

Nelle’s siblings were Flo Templeton Bridges, born in 1897 and married Ira Clifton Bridges; Preston Dale Bridges, born in 1899 and died at the age of 1½ years of age; Percy Dillard Bridges, born in 1902 and married Edna Pearl Thomas; and Douglas Eugene Bridges, born in 1909 and married Katherine Elizabeth Edwards and then married Dixie Louise Minton and later married Letha Louise Plumbee.

Nelle went to elementary school in the Maple Grove community at the one-room schoolhouse.  She later went to the Cadiz High School where she graduated on May 11, 1909 in a ceremony held in the Court House in Cadiz.  Nelle was a talented musician and played several instruments. She played a trumpet for the Bridges Brothers Band, a family instrumental group and taught music in several schools.  She also played the organ and the piano.  Her father was a traveling salesman who went to schools in western Kentucky to sell organs and pianos and Nelle would travel with him and play the instruments for prospective customers.  It was while she was teaching school in Lyon County that she met her future husband.

On August 2, 1914, Nelle married Mark McCarty in Cairo, Illinois.  They traveled by train from Paducah, Kentucky to Cairo and returned to Paducah to live.  Mark was born May 2, 1895 in Lyon County, Kentucky.  He was the son of William Herny McCarty and Sarah Bell Barnett McCarty. William was a farmer and a native of Caldwell County, Kentucky and Sarah was a native of Lyon County.

Mark and Nelle left Paducah to live on a farm in Lyon County, later returning to Paducah where they owned and lived on a farm in the St. John’s community of McCracken County.  They finally ended up living in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.  Mark left farming and worked for the National Life and Accident Insurance Company for the rest of his career. Nelle was primarily a housewife but did work part time at Gordon Cayce’s Gift Shop in Hopkinsville.

Mark and Nelle were the parents of two children, Harry Clifford McCarty, born in 1915, and married Marguerite Everhart and later married Rosa Lorene McClain and Marian Virginia McCarty, born in 1918 and married Sherewin Hallis Northcutt.

Mark died on October 7, 1953 at the age of 58 of a heart attack in his home in Hopkinsville.  He was buried in the East End Cemetery in Cadiz.  Nelle died on February 14, 1968 at the age of 75 in Coalmont, Tennessee at the home of her daughter with whom she had made her home. She was buried in the East End Cemetery next to her husband.

Baby Nelle

 

Mark and Nelle tombstone

LINEAGE:  (Nelle Cleveland Bridges McCarty was the daughter of Mark Dale and Mallie Mae Lancaster Bridges. Mark Dale was the fifth child of Cullen Thomas and Martha Ann Virginia Thomas Bridges.  Cullen was the twelfth child of William and Mary Thomas Bridges.  William was the fourth child of Drury and Charity Cohoon Bridges.  Martha Ann was the third child of Peyton and Sarah L. Ethridge Thomas.  Peyton was the third child of Cullen and Elizabeth Futrell Thomas.  Cullen was the first child of James and Mary Standley Thomas.)