Winifred Pauline Koonce

Winifred Pauline Koonce

Winifred Pauline Koonce Ponton,1850-1936

• Father: John Philip Koonce b. 10 January 1827, d. 1 February 1863
• Mother: Harriet Newell Melton b. 10 January 1827, d. 22 October 1884

• Winifred Pauline Koonce was born circa 8 June 1850 in Yalobusha County, Mississippi.
• John Philip Koonce and Harriet Newell Melton appeared in the US federal census of 1 June 1850 in Yalobusha County, Mississippi, south of the Yalobusha river. Other members of the household included Winifred Pauline Koonce, Elizabeth E. Koonce, Adelaide Koonce and Zena? Koonce. Actual date of recording was 2 October and, contrary to enumerator instructions, the child born during June was included in the household.
• She For some reason, possibly enumerator error, Winifred has been omitted from her family's household in 1860 Lavaca County.
• She married Stephen Best, son of Ebenezer Best and Bathsheba (?), circa 1867.
• Winifred Pauline Koonce became a widow at the March 1870 death of her husband Stephen Best.
• Harriet Newell Melton appeared in the US federal census of 1 June 1870 in Lavaca County, North Carolina. Other members of the household included Winifred Pauline Koonce, Julia Koonce, Josephine Koonce, Lilia Koonce, Eben Best and Bathsheba Treatise Best. The name and age of the youngest Koonce child in the household are indecipherable.
• She married Alexander Campbell Ponton, son of Joel Ponton and Rhoda Delaney, on 5 September 1871 in Lavaca County, Texas, and Winifred's sister Elizabeth married Alexander's brother Joel. Also, late in life, Winifred's mother married Alexander's father.
• Winifred Pauline Koonce became a widow at the circa 1879 death of her husband Alexander Campbell Ponton.
• Winifred Pauline Koonce appeared in the US federal census of 1 June 1880 in Lavaca County, Texas. Other members of the household included Bathsheba Treatise Best, Alexander Hugo Ponton, Thomas Joel Ponton and Minnie Lee Ponton.
• She married John Ponton, son of Joel Ponton and Mary Henderson.
• Winifred Pauline Koonce appeared in the US federal census of 1 June 1900 in Lavaca County, Texas. Other members of the household included Alexander Hugo Ponton, Thomas Joel Ponton, Harwood D. Ponton, Louella May Ponton, Boyce Ponton, Elsie Isabelle Ponton and John Ponton. John is identified as a lodger, working on the farm.
• She was a farmer, according to the 1900 census.
• The following appeared in the 1903 edition of the Year Book for Texas:
        THOMAS JOEL PONTON, HALLETTSVILLE, TEXAS,
  Representative from the Fifty-second district (Lavaca and Wharton counties) in the Twenty-eighth Legislature of Texas, is a school teacher by occupation and was bom in Lavaca county, February 17, 1876, [sic] the son of A. C. and Mrs. Winifred (Hoonce) [sic] Ponton. His father was born in that county in 1842, served gallantly through the war between the States, and was killed by a horse when the subject of this notice was a child. His mother is still living in Lavaca county. She was bom in Mississippi, and in 1860 moved to Texas with her father, who was an extensive planter and slave owner.
       Thomas Joel Ponton, after attending the common schools, completed his literary education at a college in Houston, Texas. He has taught school six years, is a close and constant student and keeps abreast of his profession. He has always taken an active interest in politics and worked in the interest of Democracy. He has also labored ardently for good roads, the development of the rice industry, the betterment of conditions for the laboring class, and purity of the ballot. He was a member of important committees and made an excellent record in the Twenty-eighth Legislature. In that body he introduced and pushed to enactment a bill providing for the publication of notices of the sale of lands under execution and (with Mr. Pearson), a bill for the protection of the birds of Texas. He also took an active part in securing the passage of the general good roads bill and a bill offering a reward of $50,000 to any person who discovers an effective means to exterminate the boll weevil.
• Winifred Pauline Koonce appeared in the US federal census of 15 April 1910 in Lavaca County, Texas, at Neeld-Ezzell Road enumerated next to John Koonce, likely her brother. Other members of the household included Boyce Ponton, Louella May Ponton, Elsie Isabelle Ponton and John Ponton. Apparently son Boyce is identified as "David C." and John Ponton is identified as her brother-in-law.
• John Ponton and Winifred Pauline Koonce appeared in the US federal census of 1 January 1920 in Hallettsville Road, Lavaca County, Texas, enumerated near Winifred's son Alexander.. Other members of the household included Louella May Ponton.
• John Ponton and Winifred Pauline Koonce appeared in the US federal census of 1 April 1930 in Lavaca County, Texas, enumerated next to Winifred's son Alexander "Dick."
• Her husband John Ponton became a widower at her death.
• Winifred Pauline Koonce died circa 21 July 1936 in Lavaca County, Texas, . Her death was officially witnessed by Minnie Lee Ponton.
• She was interred at Salem Cemetery, Ezzell, Lavaca County, Texas. There are a few days difference between birth and death dates on her death certificate and her grave marker.

• Last Edited: 6 Mar 2014