William Harvey Reaves was born, likely into slavery, on February 5, 1859, in Carthage, Tennessee. Known as "Harvey," his parents were Jim and Mary (Oliver) Reaves. Sometime before 1880, Harvey came to Missouri, where he married. He and his new wife, Cassie, lived in Brush Creek Township, Wright County, Missouri. In the early 1890s, Harvey and Cassie moved to Everton, Dade County, where the Reaves children attended school and Harvey worked at the Everton plant of the Ash Grove White Lime Company. By 1900, the Reaves were living near Ash Grove and Harvey, like most of the Black men in the Ash Grove neighborhood, was working in the limekilns. At that time their household included Harvey, Cassie, their six children, and Harvey’s mother. In 1911, Cassie purchased several adjacent lots on the west edge of Ash Grove, and Harvey and his older sons were working at the Ash Grove plant of the Ash Grove White Lime Company. By 1920, only Cassie and Harvey’s youngest son, Victor, still lived with them in their Ash Grove house, although several of their married children and grandchildren lived nearby, and Harvey and his sons were still working at the lime kilns. Harvey died on March 19, 1925. According to his death certificate, the cause of death was "myocarditis." Harvey was interred in the "Berry Cemetery" on March 21, 1925 (Russel 2012).
Grave Marker: William Harvey Reaves' specific place of burial within the Berry Cemetery is unknown and there is no known individual headstone for him. However, Harvey is memorialized by the inscription of his name (shown below) on the monument, installed in 2017, for individuals interred in unmarked graves in the Berry Cemetery.
