Who is Roxie Earl?

One key person that I have been doing research on is my great-great grandmother, Roxie Earl. I know very little about her. The information that was presented to me is that she resided in Lanehart, Mississippi a small town in Wilkinson County, MS. She died when her youngest son, Elijah, was an infant and is buried in a cemetery called Bunker Hill. She was also a widow. That was the only information that I had to go on in an attempt to find out anything about her life.
I made several attempts in earnest to locate her using different spellings of her name, first and last. I then knew that I would have to take another approach to locating her through census records since the 1890 federal census records have been destroyed. After searching for her daughters Kate and Jane, I was able to ascertain a very good lead on Roxie. Here is the information that I was able to acquire from ancestry.com. I will demonstrate the records that I used to acquire this information.

First I found Jane Lutcher, my great grandfather's sister in the 1920 census.

Jane Lutcher 37 born abt 1883 in Tennessee
Clarence Lutcher 17
Allen Parker 38

Next I found sister Kate/Katie Earls in the 1900 census records raising brother Will.


Katy Earls 23 born in Mississippi in Sept 1876
Leola Earls 1
Chester Earls 3
Willie Washington 11 (my great grandfather)

From this information I know that Katy was born in Mississippi and Jane was born in Tennessee. Information I hadn't known prior to my search. On a wing and a prayer, I searched in Tennessee for Kate. This is what I found.

1880 census record for Shelby County, Tennessee

Jacob Earl 48
Charlotte Earl 47
Steven Earl 26
Mary Earl 18
Lee Earl 4
Henry Earl 2
John Earl 24 Roxana's husband
Roxana Earl 21 born about 1859 in Mississippi
Kate Earl 3 born abt 1877 in Mississippi
Millie Earl 2
Lucy Earl 1
Mary Earl 1M

This is a very strong match for my great-great grandmother, who was called Roxie and her eldest daughter Kate/Katie. As I stated previously, Jane is listed as being born in Tennessee. If this is in fact, my great-great grandmother and her children, I wonder what happened to her husband and her three daughters Millie, Lucy and Mary.