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The People Who Lived on the Land that is Now Redstone Arsenal, page 323
N. R. BELL Wife F M W 32 AL S. E. BELL Dau F S W 4 TN E. O. BELL Son M S W 2 AL R. A. BELL Dau F S W 2M AL The 1890 census was accidentally burned. The 1900 census shows John W. Woodward, his wife Sallie, and their 9 living children. The 1910 Madison County census record for the family of John W. Woodward does not show Charles and John living in the household. The census records indicate Sallie had a total of twelve children; nine were living at the time of the 1910 enumeration. A check of the children's names (for those young enough to still be living at home with their parents) indicates that son Paul had died between 1900 and 1910. His tombstone shows that Paul died in 1906. Even though John's son Charles Woodward was not found (anywhere) in the census records of 1910 and 1920, it is probable that he is the Charles Woodward who is listed in the 1930 census of Madison County AL. He was enumerated with his wife Laura and his daughter Vivian in the Whitesburg Precinct 6, “off Green Grove Road”. This location places him at the ancestral home site on pre-arsenal land. Charles is listed in 1930 as a farmer, age 43, married at age 24, born in Alabama of parents who were both born in Alabama. Laura D. Woodward is given as age 35, married at age 17, born in Missouri of parents who were both born in Missouri. Their daughter Vivian was listed as age 12. Vivian Woodward, the only child of Charles and Laura, was raped and murdered in Huntsville in 1936 at the age of 19. She is buried in Maple Hill Cemetery, as are both of her parents, who divorced after her murder. Both later remarried to others and lived elsewhere. Apparently, in death the family wanted to be together again at last. The second spouses of Charles and Laura are not buried in Maple Hill with them. The land index by G. W. Jones, Inc. shows that by 1912, James Chapman had acquired a portion of the land around the cemetery from John W. Woodward and his wife Sallie. Less than a year later, John W. Woodward was deceased. Note: The researcher talked with Evelyn Darwin by telephone in August of 2005. Evelyn Darwin is the widow of Tyler Darwin. Mrs. Darwin voluntarily brought up the subject of the book about Vivian Woodward's murder. Mrs. Darwin said Fred Simpson interviewed her husband extensively for an entire day to learn the details of the Woodward girl's murder in Huntsville during the cotton mill days. After the book was published, Simpson brought her a complimentary copy. The story of Vivian's rape and murder, as well as the resultant trial and execution of a perpetrator, can be found in Fred Simpson, Murder in the Heart of Dixie, published in 2003. The Woodward story is told on pages 55 - 83. By the time of the 1920 enumeration, John W. Woodward had died. Sally was shown as a widow living in a Meridianville household headed by her widowed daughter, Edna Darwin. While all of the census records show that John W. Woodward was married to “Sallie,” the probate records after his death consistently referred to his widow as “Emma.” Sallie's full name might have been Sarah Emma Bell Woodward. Later pages 323 - (4356)