Biography of Peter Coble and Mary Catherine Kimbro Coble Medaris

Peter Coble was born February 1, 1794 in Orange County, North Carolina. 
Mary Catherine Kimbro was born June 24, 1798 in Orange County, North 
Carolina. Peter Coble and Mary Catherine Kimbro were married March 24, 
1821 in Orange County, North Carolina. Four daughters and a son were born 
to them: Peggy, Elizabeth, Milly, Sally, and David. In 1830 the family packed 
up and moved to Morgan County, Indiana. Peter didn't bring money to pay for 
land for fear he would be robbed along the way; so after the family was somewhat 
settled, he rode a horse back to North Carolina to get money to pay for 80 acres. 
He probably worried about leaving his family alone, but he needn't have.
One dark night while he was gone Catherine heard the hog squealing in the log pen 
out back. Grabbing a lantern and an ax, she ran out to find a bear trying to pull the 
hog out between the logs. That hog was vital to the family's survival, so their was 
nothing to do but swing the ax at the bear's head and kill it. waste not, want not. 
Catherine dragged the bear into the house, skinned it, butchered it, and had bear 
meat for weeks.
Peter returned but died the following spring. Now, the hills around Monrovia, Indiana, 
were not an easy place to eke out a living in 1831, with everything going for you. 
Try to imagine what it was like for her, a widow with five children. What she did 
was what she had to do. She worked like a man all day and did her housework 
after dark, often until midnight. She accepted some help from her neighbors, but, 
proud and strong, pretty well fended for herself.
In 1839, Catherine remarried. Her second husband was James Davis Medaris, 
a widower with nine sons and one daughter. His wife Levisa (King) had died in 
Shelby County, Ohio, before James and the children moved to Indiana. He married 
Catherine December 8, 1839, moved to Owen County, and settled on a farm in 
Montgomery Township. Catherine had kept her family together and now assumed 
another man's large family. To this blended household they added a daughter, Mary 
Jane in 1841. She lived only nine years. Jame's children were: Jonathan, Ithamer, 
Eno Rial, Salathiel, Massey, Stephen, Nathaniel, and James, and the only daughter, 
Lency Jane. Another son may have died young. The household blended even further 
with the subsequent marriage of two of Catherine's daughters, Milly and Elizabeth, 
to two of James' son, Stephen and James. James Davis Medaris (B. 13 Feb 1878) 
died at the Montgomery Township home at the age of 90 in 1878; and again Catherine
was left to tend the farm alone-at the age of 80.
"Grandma Medaris" was described as cheerful in spite of being confined to a wheelchair 
after a fall at 92. Her final years of life, with physical abilities limited, she had to depend 
upon her daughters, Mrs. John McDaniel and Peggy (Coble) Rustin, at Brooklyn Indiana. 
She helped with a widow's pension of $8 a month, for her husband's service in the War 
of 1812. She spent much of her time in her easy chair, smoking her corncob pipe and 
reading, especially her beloved bible. Just before her death, "Grandma Medaris" joined 
her loved ones gathering around her death bed in singing "There'll Be No Sorrow There."                                                                             The location of Peter Coble's grave is unknown, but Grandma Medaris 
is buried in the Brooklyn Cemetery, Morgan Co, Indiana. 
Peter Coble and Mary Catherine Kimbro are my great-great-great-grandparents.                   
David Coble and Minervia Meek are my great-great-grandparents.                                        
John Riley Coble and Marietta Hendershot are my great-grandparents.                                
Ralph Coble and Mamie Davis are my grandparents.

Written and Submitted by Diana King of Cloverdale IN