Matrilineal Monday: Martha J. Lynn

Matrilineal Monday is another blogging prompt suggested by Geneabloggers, focusing on the female line of a family (i.e., histories of female ancestors, brick walls, and fortuitous finds, etc.).

As it happens, one of my personal and most frustrating brick walls involves my great-grandmother.  My grandfather, Earl J. Lynn, was born in Independent Hill, Prince William County on 11 October 1891.  Military records give the name of his mother as Martha J. Lynn, noting (in some cases in scrawled handwritten notes) that "Lynn" is Martha's maiden name, not her married name.  (I suppose my grandfather went through his life having to explain/re-explain that he wasn't misunderstanding the directions on those forms when asked for his mother's maiden name.)   One form notes that Earl's father's name is "John Lynn," but every "John Lynn" in the county at the time is married/with children. 

There are no marriage records for Martha or death records, for that matter, other than those of her birth on 14 April 1869 in Prince William County to Edna Ann (Cole) and John Henry Lynn.  She passed away before 1900, probably sometime during the 1890-1900 census "lost record" years, and is buried in the Cole Family Cemetery .  

My grandfather married Anna Bell Walton on 12 September 1925 in Rockingham County, Virginia.  They had two children, Dorothy Jean Lynn and my father, Howard Moore Lynn, but the marriage didn't last.  Very probably for that reason, I never met my grandfather Earl and there have been no papers/photos/memorabilia handed down to me from the Lynn side of the family.  

After 25 years of searching, the mystery remains, and my brick wall continues to loom:  Who is the father of Martha J. Lynn's child? 

Anna Bell (Walton) Lynn, wife of Earl J. Lynn
Elkton, Rockingham Co., VA (date unknown)