Jessie was a storekeeper and a carpenter. He and Emmie ran a general store on Dry Creek Road in Clearfield. Jessie also made coffins. He is listed as the undertaker on a lot of old Rowan Co. death certificates, but he wasn't a mortician. In the days when most country people didn't mess with embalming, they just listed whoever supplied the coffin as the undertaker.

Jessie Petitt's bible1 has entry "Jessy Pettit was Born January 27th 1881" and another entry "Jessie Petitt Dead Nov 7, 1966."

His WWI draft registration card, issued in 1917/1918 (the images on Ancestry do not show the side of the card that has the date it was filed), says Jessee Petitt, age 37, residence Crix, Ky, born 27 Jan 1881 in Rowan Co., Ky, occupation farmer, self-employed, nearest relative Emma Jane Petitt.

Social Security Death index lists Jessie Petitt, b. 27 Jan 1881, d. Nov 1966, SSN 404-03-0881 issued in KY, last residence in Clearfield, KY.

Death Certificate (from KY Vital Statistics Dept) for Jessie Petitt d. 11-7-1966, age 85, in Morehead, Rowan Co. states that he was b. 1-27-81, occupation carpenter, married, father Preston Petitt, mother's maiden name Mary Riddle, informant Geneva Bays, cause of death "ascending cholongitis with septic shock".

Ola Petitt McBrayer and Lila Petitt Chadwell, when interviewed in 1993, said that Jessie married Hettie Conn when he was 16 and she was about 14, and they had a daughter named Isabel. Hettie took up with another man while Jessie was off working somewhere. When he came back, he got suspicious of Hettie and followed her one day when she went to the spring to get water. His suspicions were confirmed when he caught her meeting another man. He shot the man with a shotgun, but didn't kill him, and divorced Hettie. She later remarried and moved to Wisconsin. (Nobody I talked to knew whether or not the man Hettie married and moved away with was the same one that Jessie shot.) Hettie's mother raised Isabell. She came to visit Jessie's family fairly regularly. (Lila has a large photograph of Pressie and his wife Mary holding their granddaughter Isabell when she was about 2.)

According to the story as told by Lila, when Isabell was 16, she in turn got married to a Stigall and had a daughter, and both baby and mother died in childbirth. Rowan County marriage records and Isabell’s death record, however, both show that her husband was Estill Sloan, not a Steagall.

1900 census of Rowan Co., KY, Hogstown, lists as family #161:
Mary E. Conn, 32, b. Jan 1868; widow, 2 children, 2 living; Hettie (dau), 15, b. Jan 1885; Mary E. (dau), 1, b. 1899 (no month given). They apparently decided to treat her marriage to Jesse as a non-event. I presume the baby is Isabell.

Rowan County Marriage Register, Book A lists marriage of Jesse Pettit to Hettie Conn on 15 Apr 1897, at Press Pettit's, by Lewis N. Mathews, witnesses Jesse Cornet and Jn A. Black.