(click here for picture taken during WWII)
Ermon "Erma" Laura Sharp was born on May 31, 1905 in Chanute, Pickett County, Tennessee to Thomas Lee Sharp and Polly Ethel Barrier. She married Everett Rector on December 27, 1923 in Wayne County, Kentucky. After they married, they lived for a short time in Cincinnati, OH, where Erma worked as an aide in a hospital. Before their first child was born in 1925, Everett and Erma moved north to South Bend, Indiana to work in factories supporting the relatively new automobile industry. Erma died from congestive heart failure on April 6, 2000 in South Bend, Indiana at the age of 94. The Sharp's are one of the proud and fearless pioneer families with their roots in Colonial Virginia. Their family history is part of the great migration of settlers who came through the Cumberland Gap into Tennessee and Kentucky in the early years of the 1800's. With her passing we lose a direct link to a way of life that no longer exists. Erma was one of the last of her kind: a sweet, simple country woman born into a southern mountain culture with roots extending deep into our pioneer past. The many years spent living in a northern industrial city did little to change her essential character, which was shaped growing up in the hills of Northeastern Tennessee around the turn of the last century. She was blessed with a big heart filled to the brim with love of God and family. Erma Sharp Rector is sorely missed by those who knew and loved her. These Sharp Family history pages are dedicated to her memory.
Everett Newell Daniel Rector was born on October 31, 1902 at Rector's Flat, Wayne County, Kentucky. He was the oldest child of Christopher Wayne Rector and Virginia Emmarine "Emma" Frost. After he married Erma Sharp and moved up north, Everett worked as a supervisor at the Studebakers Automobile Company's factory in South Bend, Indiana, where he stayed until he retired in the early 1960s. He was a squirrel hunter, and he loved to go target shooting in the gravel pits around the Michiana area. He made his own bullets in the basement of his house. Everett came from a long line of ironworkers, toolmakers, and farmers which has been documented back to 1550 in Siegen, Germany. His Rector ancestors came to America in 1714. They settled at what is now Fauquier County, Virginia and were part of the original settlers of the Germanna Colony. One branch of this Rector family made their way into Wayne County, Kentucky when Samuel Rector pioneered there before 1807. Much later, Everett and his young wife, Erma, carried on the pioneer tradition when they gave up their rural lifestyle and moved north to work in the automobile industry in the early 1920's. Everett Rector died on July 27, 1983 from congestive heart failure.
Everett Newell Rector and Erma Laura Sharp had 2 sons:
1. Fred Harold Rector, Sr., born 30 March 1925 in Lakeville, Indiana; died 11 November 1996 in South Bend, Indiana. Teresa Grimmer (1926-2015), and they had 7 children.
2. Robert Eugene "Gene" Rector, born 17 Jul 1927, died 15 Jan 2011 in South Bend, Indiana. He married Norma Jean Fieser (1932-2023) and they had 4 children.
Go to the table of contents for the Sharp Web Pages
Go to table of contents for the Rector Web Pages
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This site last updated on November 19, 2023
