Person:George Conley (6)

_DCAUSE: Valvular Heart Diseae/Pulmonary Tuberculosis

_PHOTO:

George Washington Conley was nicknamed "Wash." He was employed as a laborer and grave digger. In 1850, at the age of 12, he was living at the home of James Carroll, Sr. (U.S. Census) He was also listed under his father's household. According to Morton, page 522, he served in the Civil War as a Confederate soldier. In 1860, he was listed as working as a day laborer for William Potter who lived near his father George's home in Kingwood. (1860 US Census) "Wash" was listed as living at the home of his brother, Martin, in Arrow Rock, Saline County, Jefferson Township, Missouri in 1870. His father, George, and sister Julia, were also there at that time. (1870 US Census)

He was said to have hands "as big as shovels." He lived his later years with his sisters at the corner of Court Street and Tunnelton Street in Kingwood, at the present site of the Garden Apartments.

He was also employed as the janitor of the Kingwood Methodist Church and was listed working there in 1900. He was received as a member 7/13/1889. (PC Methodist Church records) He was said to have walked up the center aisle of the church holding a large stick with chewed pieces of gum stuck in a ball at the end. He was showing the congregation all the gum that had been put under the pews that he had to remove as janitor.