My Genealogy Hound

William S. Waide, an agriculturist and stock raiser of considerable prominence, is the son of William and Mary (Ray) Waide, of Hickman County, Ky., nativity, being born in 1845, and one of four children (one son and three daughters). William Waide, Sr., was born in Virginia and his wife in Kentucky. Their deaths occurred in 1846 and 1863, respectively. After Mr. Waide’s death in Kentucky, the family came to Woodruff County, and here Mrs. Waide ended her days, after a widowhood of seventeen years. The subject of this sketch received but a meager education, as the schools in his early boyhood days were very limited; sometimes a few weeks only would be the extent of his schooling for the year. Mr. Waide and a sister are the only surviving members of the family, and since 1861 Woodruff County has been his home. In 1862 he joined Company G, Eighteenth Arkansas Infantry, which was stationed east of the Mississippi river until the fall of Port Hudson, when he was captured and held a prisoner for eight days. He was then paroled, came home and finished his war career in Arkansas and Missouri, being with Price in his raid through Missouri, Kansas, etc., and finally surrendered at Wittsburg, in May, 1865. After the war he resumed his occupation of farming, and in March, 1871, he was united in marriage to Miss Emma Riddle, who was born in North Carolina, and the daughter of John and Cely Riddle. Mrs. Waide’s parents came to what is now Woodruff County when she was only six months old (1850). Mr. Riddle was a justice of the peace some years, and a soldier in the Confederate army, being captured and dying a prisoner in Alton, Ill., during the war. Mrs. Riddle died in 1853, and was a life-long member of the Methodist Church. To Mr. Waide’s marriage four children have been born, three sons and one daughter. In 1875 he settled in the woods on 360 acres of land, three miles east of Howell’s Station, and since clearing the land has got one of the finest farms in that portion of the county, and all due to his own efforts. Mr. Waide is largely engaged in stock-raising, and is a hard-working, ambitious farmer and citizen, lending his hearty support to all worthy movements for the advancement of the country. He is a Democrat in his political views, voting the Seymour ticket in 1868. He is a member of the I. O. O. F. and K. of H. at Augusta. Mrs. Waide is a communicant of the Baptist Church.