John went to work at Leach & Leach Buggy and remained there for fifteen years or so. In 1898, Albert M Leach and George I Leach moved from Murfreesboro, where they had grown up on the family farm in District 9, to Clarksville and worked with ET Hill in the firm Hill & Leach until 1903, when Hill retired. Their new business, Leach & Leach, grew steadily and was as big in the 1910’s as Harrison and Dugan had been in the 1880’s. At its height the business, which was still making carriages by hand, took up the entire Gorham building in Commerce Street.
Although Katie was six-months pregnant, in February of 1912, John visited his mother in Huntington, Indiana, presumably because she was not doing well. Then in April, Katie died in childbirth. She was 36 years old, and she and John had been together 11 years. The child died, as well: it was their (at least) third lost child.
Katie’s father fell ill soon thereafter, never really recovered, and died three years later, in 1915.
John’s mother died of dementia in 1916.