Samuel Ake, the youngest son of Zedekiah Ake and Rosanna Cook Ake, was a farmer, confectioner and shoemaker. He married Della Clara McCormick in their home county of Allen, Indiana, on 31 May 1888. They had sixteen children. Both were active in their church congregation; Samuel served as a deacon at the West Creighton Avenue Christian Church in Fort Wayne. Della died in 1910 at the same time their youngest child was born. No grave has been found for the child; mother and child may be interred together. Shortly afterwards, Samuel moved his living children except for the two eldest, Preston and Eva, who had married Homer Ruhl, to southeastern Georgia where he rented a farm. On 5 Dec 1914 his second daughter, Cecile (Cecil) married Hulse Woodard in Waycross, Ware County, Georgia.

Tiring of farming, Samuel moved the younger children to the Springfield area of Jacksonville, Florida, where he began working as a shoemaker and confectioner. On 14 August 1917 he wed Mary Kalita Milton Faircloth, the widow of Robert Owen Faircloth, who had two children, Vesta and William. Mary and Samuel, added two sons, Jack Milton and George Ake, to the family. Mary died in 1926 and is buried in Volusia County, Florida.

In 1929, Samuel married Mrs. Margaret Bortel Marks, a native of Ohio. He was her fourth husband. Margaret had little tolerance for the small children who were part of the extended Ake family. She died in 1966 and is buried in Polk County, Florida.

My great-grandfather was a complex man who loved children but estranged several of his own by leaving them to take care of themselves. The younger ones did this very well by relying on one another and their older sister, Hazel. As one of the great-grandchildren, I have special memories of a white-haired man who taught me to whittle when I was very young to the great dismay of my mother and grandmother. Thanks, Grandpa!

-----

With gratitude:

* To Dan for his original bio: "Burial was 11-8-1952. Shoe repairman. Spouse at the time of death: Margaret Ake."

* To Donna Maines for the text of a funeral notice. "Samuel E. Ake - St. Cloud - 86, died at his home here suddenly Wednesday morning. He had been a resident here for the past six years." Published in The Tampa Morning Tribune, Friday, November 7, 1952, p. 3A.

* To Bill Oliver for providing the alternate description of the gravesite from funeral home records: MPC-B-B-39.