- Born: February 2, 1884, Washington Township, Shelby County, Ohio
- Died: August 25, 1960, Lima, Allen County, Ohio
- Relationship: My first cousin, three times removed
Olive Alta Wegley was my first cousin, three times removed, and the youngest known child of Jonathan George Wegley and Sarah A. Circle. She was born on February 2, 1884, in Washington Township, Shelby County, Ohio, into a branch of the Wegley family that had moved west from Pennsylvania into Ohio during the nineteenth century.
Her life can be followed through birth, marriage, census, and cemetery records. Those documents also raise an interesting question about her given names: the earliest record identifies her as Alta Olive Wegley, while she spent much of her life using Olive as her first name.
Alta Olive or Olive Alta?
An Ohio births and christenings index records her as Alta Olive Wegley, born February 2, 1884, in Washington Township, Shelby County, Ohio. The same record identifies her father as J. J. Wegley and her mother as Sarah Circle.
Later records reverse the emphasis. Her 1901 marriage application identifies her simply as Olive Wegley, while her gravestone records her as Olive A. Rasor.
Rather than assuming the birth index contains an error, the surviving records suggest that she may have been given the names Alta Olive but chose to use Olive as her everyday first name. It was not unusual for someone to use a middle name or reverse the order of given names in everyday life.
For this family history, I use Olive Alta Wegley, while preserving Alta Olive as it appears in the birth index.
The Youngest Child of Jonathan and Sarah
Olive’s father, Jonathan George Wegley, was born about 1836 in Pennsylvania and was the son of Joseph William Wegley and Eve Berkebile. Jonathan eventually moved to Ohio, where he married Sarah A. Circle and raised his family.
Olive was born relatively late in Jonathan and Sarah’s marriage and appears to have been their youngest child. Her birth in 1884 places her in a very different generation from some of the older members of the Wegley family, even though they shared the same parents.
Marriage to Pearl Cloyd Rasor
On December 25, 1901, Olive married Pearl Cloyd Rasor in Shelby County, Ohio. The marriage took place on Christmas Day.
The original marriage application provides considerably more information than a simple marriage index. Pearl was recorded as twenty-five years old and Olive as just seventeen.
Both were residents of Lockington, Shelby County, Ohio, and both had been born in Shelby County. Pearl worked in farming, and neither bride nor groom had been married before.
The record identifies Olive’s father as Jonathan Wegley and her mother as Sarah. Because Olive was still a minor, the application contains an especially valuable notation:
Consent of Sarah Wegley, mother of Olive Wegley, on file in this office.
That sentence provides unusually direct evidence connecting Olive to Sarah and also shows that her mother formally approved the marriage.
Pearl Cloyd Rasor
The marriage application gives Pearl’s age as twenty-five on September 6, 1901, which strongly suggests a birth date of September 6, 1876. His gravestone independently gives his birth year as 1876.
Pearl and Olive would remain married for nearly half a century. Their shared gravestone records:
- Pearl C. Rasor, 1876-1950
- Olive A. Rasor, 1884-1960
The monument preserves the name by which Olive appears to have been best known during her adult life: Olive A. Rasor.
Their Children
Olive and Pearl had at least two known children:
- Herman James Rasor, born March 21, 1905, died December 13, 1985
- Dorothy Miriam Rasor, born February 25, 1908, died September 8, 1996
Through Herman and Dorothy, Olive and Pearl’s branch of the family continued into later generations.
The surviving records presently support these two children. As with other branches of the family, add additional children only if contemporary records establish the relationship.
Working Beside Her Husband
The 1930 United States census provides a glimpse of Olive and Pearl’s working life. Pearl operated a grocery store, while Olive worked there as a saleswoman.
Olive was classified as an unpaid family worker, meaning she contributed to the business without being recorded as receiving a separate wage. That description gives us a much more useful picture of her life than simply labeling her a housewife.
The grocery store was evidently a family enterprise. Pearl ran the business while Olive worked alongside him, combining household and commercial responsibilities during a time when family-owned stores were common in small American communities.
Nearly Fifty Years of Marriage
Olive and Pearl married in December 1901, when she was only seventeen. Pearl died in 1950, ending a marriage that had lasted approximately forty-eight years.
Their shared gravestone reflects the length of that partnership. Pearl’s name appears beside Olive’s on the same family monument, preserving them together even after death.
Olive was about sixty-six years old when Pearl died. After spending most of her adult life married to him, she eventually began another chapter.
Marriage to Charles Trushel
Olive married Charles Trushel on November 9, 1951, approximately a year after Pearl’s death. She was sixty-seven years old.
Her remarriage shows her life did not simply stop after she became a widow. She continued building relationships and adapting to major changes well into her later years.
I would like to locate Olive and Charles’s original marriage record before expanding this part of her biography further. Such a record could confirm their residences, ages, previous marital status, and parents.
Her Final Years
Olive lived for another decade after Pearl’s death. She died on August 25, 1960, at the age of seventy-six.
Some family-tree information lists her death location as “Lima, Miami County, Ohio,” but that combination is geographically inconsistent because Lima is in Allen County. Unless a primary death record establishes another location, her death should therefore be recorded as Lima, Allen County, Ohio.
Her gravestone records simply Olive A. 1884-1960, beside Pearl C. Rasor. The stone further confirms the birth and death years established through other family records.
What the Marriage Record Adds to Her Story
Olive’s 1901 marriage record is one of the strongest documents connected with her because it does much more than confirm the wedding date. It establishes that she was seventeen, lived in Lockington, was born in Shelby County, and that her parents were Jonathan and Sarah Wegley.
The notation concerning Sarah’s consent is especially important. Rather than relying on a later family tree to identify Olive’s mother, we have a legal document created when Olive was seventeen showing Sarah Wegley personally consenting to her daughter’s marriage.
That kind of detail turns a genealogical relationship from an assumption into a documented family connection.
Olive’s Place in the Wegley Family
Olive belonged to the Ohio branch descended from Jonathan George Wegley, one of the sons of Joseph William Wegley and Eve Berkebile. While other descendants of Joseph and Eve remained in Pennsylvania or eventually moved elsewhere, Jonathan’s family established another part of the Wegley story in Ohio.
Olive spent most of her life outside the Wegley surname because she married Pearl Rasor as a teenager. Yet her records preserve her connection to the family exceptionally well through her birth record and marriage application.
Her story also shows how easily names can confuse genealogical research. Alta Olive Wegley, Olive Wegley, Olive Alta Wegley, and Olive A. Rasor all appear to refer to the same woman, not several different people.
Behind those variations was one life that stretched from a childhood in Shelby County in the 1880s through marriage on Christmas Day 1901, motherhood, work in the family grocery business, nearly fifty years with Pearl Rasor, widowhood, remarriage, and ultimately her death in 1960. The surviving documents allow us to see Olive not merely as Jonathan and Sarah’s youngest daughter, but as a woman whose own family story continued for more than seventy-six years.