update rec'd 4/7/2017 from PineyTrail:

Ada Katherine ‘Kate’ Day Hale Spencer Elkins was the daughter of John Calvin (or Cox) Day and Sarah Anna Collins (shortened from Collingsworth).

Kate married Bruce Hale around 1904. The children of Kate and Bruce Hale were:

Lloyd Hale (1905-1958)
Sidney Bruce Hale (1907-1985)
Clarence Ray ‘Brown’ Hale (1908-1944)

Bruce Hale died of gangrene from an infected cut around 1910. Kate was left a widow with three young children. She lived with her parents in Kentucky until she married Green Berry Spencer in 1911. Kate became a stepmother to his ten living children. (There was also an unidentified eleventh child who had passed away.) Kate’s stepchildren were:

Icy Spencer (1889-1973)
Mary Spencer (1891-?)
William Jackson ‘Bill’ Spencer (1893-1970)
Clark Spencer (1895-1988)
Dora Ellen Spencer (1896-1980)
James Patton ‘Jim’ Spencer (1898-1993)
Rosa Spencer (1901-?)
Melvina “Viney’ Spencer (1907-?)
Mattie Spencer (~1910-?)
(Unknown)

Kate and Green Berry Spencer had ten children together: The children were:

John Spencer (1912-1985)
Dorothea D.Spencer (1914-1999)
Lucy Bell Spencer (1916-2006)
Annie Lee Spencer (1918-1999)
Archie Spencer (1918-1940)
Margaret Inez Spencer (1919-1931)
Ida Mae Spencer (1920-1920)
Mary Lynn Spencer (1921-1924)
Jesse Violet Spencer (1923-1924)
Charles Clifford Spencer (1925-2011)

Kate and Green Berry lived in the Frenchburg, Menifee area of Kentucky until the 1920’s when they moved to the Hagler, Arkansas County, Arkansas, area. Green Berry had to quickly leave Arkansas in 1925 or 1926 after he was caught making moonshine. He went and lived on an Indian reservation for a few years and Kate and the children at home moved back to Kentucky and Indiana. Kates skills were mainly domestic and she was unable to financially care for her children. Several of the children were placed in an orphans home for a period of time until Kate was able to get them back. Green Berry later rejoined the family again in Kentucky. Kate became a widow for a second time when Green Berry Spencer died in 1939.

Kate later married Marvil Asbury Elkins in 1942. Marvil was the widower of Kate’s sister Margaret Day. Marvil passed away in 1946. Kate passed away in 1965.


Note: The majority of the information included here is condensed from the book, “Barefoot Dreamer” by Kate and Green Berry Spencer’s son, Clifford Spencer. Clifford was the youngest of the 24 children.
********************************************************