Alvin Ledbetter

Alvin Ledbetter was a son of John Jackson Ledbetter Sr. and Lucy A. Ledbetter, and brother of Col. John Jackson Ledbetter Jr. and Margaret Ledbetter Dewey. The three siblings grew up in Blytheville, Arkansas, where JJL Jr. graduated from high school in 1919.¹

Life in Montana

Alvin settled in Butte, Montana — a copper-mining city in the northern Rockies, far from the family’s roots in Missouri and Arkansas. He is the only member of this Ledbetter generation known to have left the South. He appears only briefly in the surviving diaries, and no birth or death dates have been located in the family records.¹

His sister Margaret married Rico Dewey and lived in Live Oak, Florida, where she died in 1936. His brother JJL Jr. pursued a career as an engineer, attorney, and Army officer, eventually settling in Texas.¹

Lucy’s Death

When their mother Lucy died on June 28, 1948, at 1:50 p.m. in Blytheville, Arkansas, JJL Jr. called Alvin by long distance in Butte to deliver the news.² Lucy had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in December 1947 and never recovered. She was buried at Maple Grove Cemetery, Blytheville, at a funeral that cost $585.00.²