Ida Estelle Corbett Mathews

Ida Estelle Corbett Mathews. Ida Estelle Corbett born September 8, 1860 was the daughter of Charles C. Corbett and his wite Zilphia Crowningshield, natives of Vermont. A stone cutter and funeral director by trade, Charles, moved his family to the area now known as Baker County about 1880 and became the first known county ‘undertaker’. Many of the county's older grave markers were engraved and funeral records hand recorded by him. In 1890, their daughter Ida Estelle married Frank H, Matthews, son of James Bosworth Mathew’s originally of New York and his French Canadian wife Margaret Newman. Matthews was previously in the newspaper business in Chicago and when he moved his family to Baker County he was editor of the county's only newspaper, The Baker County Standard Ida Estelle and Frank Matthews had a son, Frank Maynard, who died in the 1918 flu epidemic. Their daughter Ida Mae (Padgett), born in 1893 grew up in Baker County under the scrutinizing eyes of her strict mother. As a young girl, Ida Mae was one of three employees in the old Baker County State Bank which eventually folded. She was also the first Health Registration officer in Baker County. After Frank’s death she married her first cousin, Cecil M. Corbett., After her father's death, Ida Estelle Matthews took over her father's business as the county funeral director selling caskets and recording some of this county's first death records. She inherited all the west half of Lot 27 in Macclenny and the original Corbett family home built on the corner of Sixth Street and Macclenny Avenue that still stands in 2005. After her death in 1932 the land and home was inherited by her daughter Ida Mae who had married Barney Padgett the first principal of the Macclenny School, as well as coach of the first basketball team.