Zerelda James

Zerelda Elizabeth Cole James Simms Samuel (January 29, 1825 – February 10, 1911) was the mother of outlaws Frank James and Jesse James. Biography Cole was born to James and Sarah Lindsay Cole on January 29, 1825, in Woodford County, Kentucky. She had one brother, younger than her by one year, named Jesse Richard Cole. Her brother committed suicide in 1895 for unknown reasons. She was of English and Scottish descent. When Zerelda was a child, her father broke his neck in a riding accident, leaving her mother with two young children. They were taken in by her paternal grandfather, who owned a saloon. Later, her mother remarried Robert Thomason, a farmer. Zerelda did not get along with her new stepfather, Robert, so she went to live with some of her mother's relatives in Kentucky, where she attended a Catholic girls' school.