Oscar Leslie Harris

Oscar L. "Bones" Harris

This photo from Mom's collection shows Oscar Leslie "Bones" Harris with a team of horses pulling what looks like a disc to me.   I never knew the background behind that nickname until one of his great-granddaughters filled me in that it was due to his size and bone structure.  Specifically:

• As a young child he was very tall and skinny and the other kids called him "Bones" or "Boney."
• As an adult, he was about 6 foot 3 or 4 inches tall and was very thin.
• As for his facial features, his bone structure was well-defined by protruding cheek bones.
• The bones in his big hands and arms were visible.

So the nickname that began in his youth stayed with him throughout his adult years as well.  (Thanks to Juanita Fallihee for this info.)

According to birth records in Marshall County, West Virginia, Bones was born on 13 September 1870 near Easton (now Glen Easton).  Interestingly there are two different registers that appear on the WV Division and Cultural History website and neither of them included Oscar as his first name.  Makes me wonder if his parents, Samuel and Mary (Richmond) Harris, intended to call him by his middle name.  The two different birth registers also reflect two different spellings of his middle name:  Leslie and Lesley.  I have a handwritten list of the Samuel Harris family that I received from my grandmother, and it shows his name as Oscar Leslie as does his marriage record - so that is the spelling I believe is correct.

The death certificate shows his name as Oscar L., with the informant being his daughter, Leona Dobbs.  According to the certificate, he died in the Wetzel County Hospital from pneumonia, but I remember my mother, Alda Louise (Harris) Kuhn, saying that he was in a nursing home in New Martinsville when he reportedly fell down the steps and died.  According to Mom, the family suspected that he had been pushed down the stairs ... but Mom didn't seem to know why the family believed that. 

Bones married Mary Bane Cummins on 12 August 1893 per the handwritten family record I mentioned earlier; that is confirmed by the record of their marriage.  They are both buried in the Fork Ridge Christian Church Cemetery, Fork Ridge, Marshall County, West Virginia.