Biography: The Goode Family

Article / FALL Issue 1998
by Lucille Harp




The Goode Family


ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE HART COUNTY HERALD NEWS , MUNFORDVILLE, KENTUCKY ON APRIL 27, 1989

    Cecil Goode's great - grandfather, Joseph Goode, 1833-1901, was born in Warren Co. It is assumed that his 
mother, Ann Jones Goode, took him and her other two children to Barren County after the death of his father, John 
Collier, in 1844. Joseph was working for his Uncle Nicholas Wren Jones in his cabinet shop when he was about 16. 
When Joseph was 28, he married Mary Ann Sherfey, age, 30, at the home of her parents, Rev. Jacob Walter and 
Catherine Starr Sherfey. He enlisted in the Union Army 19 days later. He settled his family near Nobob Creek on the 
Matt Webb place. His firstborn was Joseph Wm. 1862-1924 who married Evie Lena Gramlin when he was 37. Cecil's 
grandfather, Jacob Samuel, the second son, lived his entire mature life on a farm across the road from his father. He 
married Sarah Amanda Combs, by whom he had Wm. Levie, Cecil's father, and eight other children. He married 
second to Olivia Pearl Yates, and had five children.

    Wm. Levie lived in Barren Co until 1922, when he moved to Tippecanoe Co., Indiana. He married Lela May Cary, 
daughter of Cyrus W. and Mary Celina White Cary, Dec. 21, 1913, at Lafayette, TN. He had nine children, the first 
Cecil Earnest, author of KENTUCKY COUSINS,
genealogy of the Goodes (a copy of which has been donated by Mr Goode to the Museum). The other children were 
Edith Evaline, Lera Arleen, Vera Christine, Helen Lucille, Mary Marie, Samuel Walker, WM., and Patricia Joan.

    Cecil was born and now lives in Barren Co., but he had lived in Virginia and New York City. When he met his wife, 
Dorothy Gene Bryant, daughter of Thomas Cullen and Cecilia Ella Cooke Bryant, she was teaching school. They 
married in 1941. They have three children: Cecil E. Jr., Richard Bryant, and Marilyn Gene.

    In Cecil's family line through his grandfather, he is kin to the Sherfeys, Jones, Starrs, Colliers, Wrens, Kaufmans, 
Burwells, Merediths, Sowells, Jenkins, Scherffigs, Heilmans, Eppes, Mackarnes...The Sherfeys came from Germany. 
Jacob Walter Sherfey took his family to Barren Co in 1846. His farm was located on the road that leads from the 
Temple Hill - Mud Lick Road to the Nobob Road. 

There's more on the Goode Family at the Hart County Museum in Munfordville, KY.