Charity Evelyn (Gowens) Ray 1887-1983

 Charity Evelyn (Gowens) Ray 1887-1983

A Biography of my 3/4 great-grandaunt

Charity Evelyn Gowens was born on August 29, 1887, in Old Silver Valley, Coleman County, Texas, the daughter of General Washington Gowens and Rachel Ann Needham. She entered the world in a rural ranching and farming community during a time when Coleman County was still relatively young, its small settlements closely tied by kinship and shared labor.

Tragedy struck early in Charity's life when her mother, Rachel, died on April 9, 1891, leaving four-year-old Charity and her older siblings in the care of their father. In the years that followed, General Washington Gowens remarried, and Charity became the eldest sister to a large blended family of half-siblings born between 1893 and 1913. Sadly, not all survived infancy—Charity experienced the early deaths of her half-brother Moses in 1893, her half-sister Lola May in 1898, and her half-brother Joseph Calvin in 1908.

George Leonard Ray and Charity Evelyn (Gowens) Ray

By 1900, the thirteen-year-old Charity was living with her father, stepmother, and younger siblings in Justice Precinct 6 of Coleman County. On September 25, 1904, at the age of seventeen, she married George Leonard Ray, a man eleven years her senior. The couple made their home in Silver Valley, where George worked in farming and stock-raising. Their first child, George Washington Ray, was born in 1905, followed by Ida Mae Ray in 1907 and Willis Raymond Ray in 1910.

In February 1914, Charity endured one of the most painful moments of her life when she gave birth to twins, Charity Ann Ray and Jerry Dan Ray, both of whom died the following day. More than a decade later, on March 25, 1926, she welcomed her youngest child, Rosa Evelyn Ray.

The Rays remained rooted in Coleman County throughout their marriage. Census records from 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940, and 1950 document Charity's life as a farmer's wife, raising children, tending to the household, and helping maintain the family's livelihood through decades of economic change, including the Great Depression and World War II.

Charity's life was also marked by the continual bonds and losses within her extended family. She lived to witness the passing of her father in 1945, her husband in 1957, and many of her siblings and half-siblings over the decades. Yet she also saw her children grow to adulthood and establish their own families, and she became a grandmother and great-grandmother many times over.

50th. Wedding Anniversary in 1854

Gowens' Siblings in the early 1970s

 

In her later years, Charity lived in Coleman, where she remained part of the close-knit community she had known all her life. On August 12, 1983, at the age of 95, she died at 11:05 a.m. at the Holiday Hill Care Center in Coleman. Funeral services were held two days later at Stevens Funeral Home, officiated by David Coffman of the Novice Church of Christ. She was laid to rest in Coleman Cemetery beside her husband.

Photo by Ralph Terry

Spanning nearly a century, Charity Evelyn Gowens Ray's life reflected the endurance, faith, and family-centered values of rural Texas women of her era. Her legacy lives on in the many descendants who carry her memory forward.

Written from facts by J. Paul Hawthorne (3/4 great-grandnephew) and AI (ChatGPT) 08/13/2025.

3/4 relationship? Even though Charity was my maternal grandmother’s 1/2 sister (different mothers), Charity’s maternal great-grandparents were also my grandmother’s great-grandparents! This is called pedigree collapse. Maybe 3/4 is not the correct term.