Jesse Elmo Caudill Rev. ¹

  General Notes:

Jesse Elmo Caudill
--- by Robert J. Johnson
Born in the hills of Eastern Kentucky in Magoffin County, my Grandfather
said he found work on the family farm very difficult and at the age of
15-16 he ran away from home, lied about his age and joined the Army.
Jesse became a Sergeant and a cook in the army and served in WW1. He told
my mother he didn't see much action in France but he did claim to have
"liberated a chicken or two" from the surrounding country side. Despite
this, he was wounded during the war by shrapnel in his foot.
Jesse, by his own admission, also became an alcoholic while in the
service and related to me that he had done a number of things in his
younger life which hewasn't very proud of doing. It wasn't until I
started with the family genealogy that I uncovered one of the things he
may have been speaking about.
On January 23, 1913, Jesse was married to Ida Dyer in Magoffin County,
most likely when he was home on leave from the army. Exactly nine months
later, a son Clayton was born to this union. What happened next is still
a bit of a mystery, but from Ida Dyer Ray's last living daughter, I
learned that Ida stated that Jesse deserted her and Clayton and she
returned home to her family. Ida subsequently married Ed Ray. Ed never
adopted Clayton and it was Clayton that changed his last name to Ray when
he was an adult.
According to another Dyer relative, Clayton sought out his birth father
when he was a young man and was told not to come back and that the family
knew nothing of him. Clayton joinedthe Navy during WW2 and was lost at
sea in the Philippines in November, 1944.
While still in the Army, Jesse met and married Mae Bell around 1920.
Afterfinding God and ending his years of alcoholism, Jesse left the Army
to attend seminary. My Grandmother often stated that she wished he would
have remained or returned to the Army since he would have been an officer
(and she an officer's wife,) something that apparently would have been of
value to her. Grandma Mae worked as a switchboard operator at the time
they married.
Reverend Jesse Caudill had a number of churches in Kentucky, Iowa, and
Illinois over the years that followed. By the time I was old enough to
really get to know him in the 1960's, they were living in Bloomington,
IL. At that time my Grandfather was semi-retired but still had a church
in Funk's Grove, IL.
The one thing I remember the most about my Grandfather's services was
that he had a horrible singing voice and during the service he sang loud
and terribly off-key.That has now become one of my fondest and most
endearing memories of him.
For almost all the years I knew my Grandfather, he was suffering from
heart disease and was limited in his activities.
My Grandfather was a wonderful cook and made baked beans, green beans,
and fried chicken that were out of this world. I very much looked forward
to every visit to their house in Bloomington.

Jesse married on 23 Jan 1913.

Jesse next married about 1920 in Kentucky.