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Have you considered that Eleanor Wilday may have been married prior to Samuel Rhea and Wilday may be her 1st husband (and thus daughter's) name? When widows married, they were often married under the name of their deceased (or divorced) husband and not their maiden name. If Rachel was the child of a first marriage, but raised by Samuel Rhea with her mother especially if she was young at the time of the marriage of Samuel Rhea & Eleanor Wilday, she might have been known as Rachel Rhea her whole life and her own children may not have known any different. That would explain the half-sister comment from one sister. Some siblings wouldn't differentiate between a half and a full sibling so that would explain why another sibling might just refer to her as a sister. Rachel herself would have known her true maiden name at the time of marriage. Whoever gave the obituary information may have used the name they thought she had or had been commonly known by when she was growing up. My own great-grandmother's obituary and death certificate are riddled with errors because her second husband gave the information.
There is also the possibility that she might have been an illegitimate child. It did occur sometimes. However, given the Wilday info I saw on the Morgan County, IL website, I'm inclined to think that perhaps Eleanor was a widow. It looked like there were a lot of Wilday siblings and several of them were deceased when the bios were written. Perhaps she came with Wildays as a widow or perhaps her spouse died shortly after they arrived in Morgan County with the others. I'm just speculating, but a lot of families travelled in groups to new locations. Have you looked at the Bureau of Land Management records to see if all the Wildays that were mentioned in the bios were accounted for or if there were any that got land, but don't seem to show up in later census records?
Again, I'm just speculating. I have no facts to back this up, just my own experiences doing research. I've hit several road blocks when it comes to women in the family due to lost maiden names or poor information on death certificates or in obituaries. I've also been researching a first marriage that may never have occurred, but part of the family story used as a way to cover up an illegitimate child. I understand the old desires to hide things viewed as unpleasant or immoral or whatever, but it makes the job of any genealogist a lot harder when they try to figure out the truth.
Good luck. Let me know how things turn out.
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