Frances Hite was born on January 18, 1848, in Page County, Virginia, to Abraham and Ann Hite. Her father was a farmer who owned $4,000 of real estate and $7,914 of personal property by 1860. She grew up and attended school in Page County, and she married Claiborne J. Zirkle around 1873. They had at least eight children: Bertie, born around 1876; Sarah, born around 1877; Martha, born around 1879; Maude, born around 1880; Rena, born around 1884; Earnest, born around 1882; Joseph, born around 1886; and Ellert, born around 1889. They lived in Plains, Virginia, and her husband worked in a grist mill. They moved to Lee, Virginia, in the late 1800s. Her husband died in 1928, and by 1930, she was living in her daughter Maude’s household in Washington, D.C. She died in Bealeton, Virginia, on September 18, 1932.

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