Table of Contents -Volume III
CHAPTER 13
JONATHAN EWING
Ewing Family Lineage: William-James
William and Mary's first son was named for Mary's father. Now, exactly two years and 12 days after Thomas, came a second son into the cabin on Swago Creek, and he would get the same name as Mary's brother, Jonathan. The date of the birth as recorded in William and Mary's Bible was 1 August 1790, when Swago Creek was still a part of Greenbrier County, Virginia. (The following year Swago went to the newly formed Bath County.)
Jonathan grew up on the farm on Swago Creek, learning what every boy had to learn in those days - which was mostly how to farm and how to hunt. Eventually eight more brothers joined Thomas and Jonathan to make their farm chores easier.
When the last of those 10 brother, Andrew, was a year old, Jonathan's family was packing up for the move to Ohio, and in the Summer of 1810, when Jonathan was 20 or nearly so, they were off over the mountains and across the Elk, Kanawha and Ohio rivers to their new home on Raccoon Creek, in what became soon after their arrival, Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio. Jonathan was a year too young to be among the voters in the first township election.
He was, however, the right age to have been in the War of 1812, but if he served it has not come down through the years.
The first years in Huntington Township, Gallia County, were given over to clearing the land, building the log home and making a farm go. To help the family financially, Jonathan and his younger brother, James, got jobs chopping wood at Jackson Furnace.
As soon as Jonathan saw his parents and young siblings firmly established, he began to give thought to his own future. One of the nearest neighbors to the Ewings were the MC MILLINS -
the large family of Edward and Sarah MC MILLIN, a family very much attracted to the Ewings through the years (see 5-5).
The first marriage between the McMillins and Swago Bill's family took place 1 August 1816, when young James EWING married young Mary MC MILLIN. That marriage may have brought Jonathan and Mary's older sister, Margaret - born 27 Dec 1796, closer together. At any rate, 5 1/2 months later on 16 January 1817, Jonathan and Margaret followed suit.
Jonathan's home for his bride was in the northeast quarter of Huntington Township's Section 11, which was fast becoming "Ewingville." Jonathan may have built on part of his father's land. On the 1820 proprietors list he had a house and land worth $120, two horses and three veal and cattle.
Jonathan was firmly established by the time William made his will in 1820, thus he was not named in it.
Over a period of 20 years - 1817 to 1837 - Jonathan and Margaret had eight children (one died in infancy). A year after the last was born in January of 1837, the first, Sarah, was getting married, her husband being William Jasper ALESHIRE.
In the meantime there were two deaths in the family that more than likely meant some young additions to the cabin in Section 11. Jonathan's brother James EWING died in 1824 and Margaret's sister Mary died seven years later, in 1831. Here were four orphans - Esther, 11; Addison, 10; Phoebe, 9 and Rebecca, 8. Judging from the closeness of the movements in the next few years of these four and Jonathan and Margaret's children, almost in unison, like they were sisters and brothers rather than cousins - it appears that Jonathan and Margaret took the orphans, nieces and nephew of both of them, into their home and raised them as their own.
A crowded household to be sure, with 11 young people now, but no doubt a happy home.
Through the years there were more marriages among the 11 Ewing cousins. In chronological order they were:
1837: Esther, daughter of James, married Dr. Ira HOLCOMB
Phoebe, daughter of James, married Elisa MATTHEWS
1843: Mary Ann, daughter of Jonathan, married William MC CUMBER
1844: Fidelia, daughter of Jonathan, married Phineas MATTHEWS, half-brother of Elisha
1847: Rebecca, daughter of James, married Jonas ROUSH
1848: Electa, daughter of Jonathan, married John Ewing HOWELL
In 1846 a case of "Western Fever" spread through the neighborhood. It was the ALESHIRES, William and Sarah, next door in Meigs County, Ohio who started it. They were going to Fulton County, Illinois with William's parents, Ephraim and Elizabeth ALESHIRE and William's brother and sisters. Mary Ann and William MC CUMBER got caught in the epidemic and so did Phoebe and Elisha MATTHEWS. It is believed Addison EWING, son of James, then 25 and still single, was a victim at that time also. A brother of Elisha and Phineous Arron MATTHEWS, went to Hancock County, too.
The group spent two years in Fulton County, on the Illinois River, west of Peoria, Illinois, but in 1848 they pulled up stakes again and moved over nearer the Mississippi - to Hancock County, to be the first of a long list of Ewings who have helped populate that Western Illinois county in the 136 years since.
About that time, 1848 and into 1849, the natives back in Huntington Township, Ohio were getting restless. With the announcement in early 1849 from Fidelia and Phineas MATTHEWS that they were going to Hancock County too, Jonathan and Margaret, then 59 and 53, realized that a good share of their family was or soon would be in Illinois. It is possible that William ALESHIRE had something to do with their final decision to pull up roots after 31 years of married life in Huntington Township and head out with Fidelia and Phineas and their three youngest still at home, Edward, George and Margretta. I have this feeling that Sarah wanted her parents out there with her, and that William, fairly well off, offered them land and a house to come. It must have been hard for them to leave that place, Jonathan had to say goodbye to his aging mother, Mary. He did not know that he would never see her again.
On 10 September 1849 the travelers were off.
The trip to Hancock County was recalled in later years by son George and it was printed in a write-up about him, on two occasion, in a Hancock County newspaper:
"On the 10th day of September, 1849, his parents started the move to Illinois. The journey was made overland in a wagon, for at that time there was only one railroad between the Ohio and Mississippi rivers, that being through Springfield, Illinois. He saw the railroad, but not any cars. He saw lots of deer, prairie chickens and mud holes while crossing the big prairies of Illinois. On the first day of October, 1849, he arrived in Hancock County."
What a happy reunion it must have been. There were children the Ewings had not seen in three years - William and Sarah ALESHIRE and William and Mary Ann MC CUMBER, plus their "other" children, Phoebe and Elisha MATTHEWS and Addison Blair EWING. True, the McCumbers would be returning to Ohio before long and soon after, Fidelia and Phineas likewise, but next year James' Rebecca and her Jonas ROUSH would be coming out to Illinois. John and Electa HOWELL would soon be across the river in Missouri, and eventually, though not until after the war, foster daughter Esther HOLCOMB and her sons would come too.
In 1864, Jonathan's brother, Jacob EWING, and his family would also join them.
There was a big family reunion, the first of many Ewing reunions in Hancock County, and then the newcomers dug in to get settled.
Though the others lived elsewhere, the quad-township area around Middle Creek was mighty important to Jonathan and Margaret and their three still at home. Middle Creek is a little village - it's a creek too, in Carthage Township at the place where the four corners of Carthage, Hancock, Harmony and St. Mary's townships meet. It may not have even existed then. It is unknown when it was laid out, but it was done by the CRAVEN family on their land in Carthage's Section 36.
This area is where Jonathan settled. He was for sure in Harmony Township, and it is believed that Jonathan and Margaret and their three youngest lived on the 25 acres that show up in the 1874 ATLAS as belonging to an Aleshire - the east half of the southeast quarter of the southeast quarter of Harmony's Section 1. It is also believed that son-in-law William Aleshire owned those 25 acres and the house thereon and that he turned them over to Jonathan, or else one of his family did and he made arrangements for the Ewings to live there.
Nothing has come to light to show that Jonathan owned land in Hancock County. But he was listed as the head of a household in the 1850 census, so they were not living with someone. They were definitely on their own.
That they were definitely living in Harmony Township and definitely in the southeast corner of it becomes evident with future events. Perhaps Jonathan had planned to buy land and build a house, but whatever he had hoped to accomplish by the move to Hancock County was not realized. They had been there less than a year when Jonathan died. The date was the 14th of September 1850, when he was 60 years, 1 month and 13 days. As his burial place has not been found, it is assumed that he was buried on a corner of the 25 acres, the grave long since obliterated.
Jonathan did not leave a will. His estate was administered by his eldest son, Edward A. - appointed 7 October 1850, but its disposition is not on record.
Margaret, 53 at the time of his death, had nearly 34 years without him, all of them in Hancock County.
There was another sadness in Margaret's life three years later when son Edward died at the age of 23.
Margaret and the two children left at home, George and Margretta, carried on in the house on the 25 acres. But before long Margretta began looking with increasing eagerness to the north, toward the farm in Carthage Township just west of Middle Creek of Joseph and Mary CRAVEN. There was a son in the family, by the name of Reuben CRAVEN and in 1855 he and Margretta were married. They took up a 40-acre farm a mile or so east, in Hancock Township.
In their little home, Margaret and George were surrounded by holdings of the COX, DICKINSON and ATCHISON families. Important to George was the family of Mastin and Malinda COX, for one of their daughters was Eunice, and George aimed to make Eunice his wife. In 1857, he did, and he brought his bride home to take her place in the Ewing family.
With his marriage George became head of the household, and he was listed as such in the 1860 census. In that census he is recorded as being worth -/$600, meaning he owned no real estate.
In the 1870 census he and Eunice and their five children were still in Harmony Township. This time his worth was given as -/$800, meaning he was still not a property owner. But by that time Margaret had left the household to go live with Margretta and Reuben in Hancock Township.
Eventually George and Eunice moved east a half mile or so into St. Mary's Township.
In the 1870 census, Margaret was listed with the Cravens in Hancock Township as a "retired housekeeper." She was then 73 years old. She was still with them in the 1880 census, when she was 83 years old.
During the war years, Margaret had sent off a son-in-law, William MC CUMBER and several grandsons, two of them, Orlando ALESHIRE and Thomas C. MATTHEWS, and possibly a third, Jonathan Reed MC CUMBER, did not return.
Through the years her own and her foster family had come and gone. She knew many grandchildren and great-grandchildren. In Hancock County and across the Mississippi in Missouri, she was surrounded by her family and Jonathan's and James' and Mary's.
She died among them on the 16th of June 1884, when she was 87 years, 6 months and 20 days. She is buried in Holland Cemetery in St. Mary's Township, Hancock County, Illinois, within a mile of the two farms on which she had spent the last 35 years of her life. Jonathan's was a family really "daughtered out." From Jonathan down, there was only one son in each generation who could produced a son to carry on the Ewing name! Jonathan had only one male descendant alive in 1984 who could produce more Ewings. That was Ronald E. EWING (Edward-Robert-William-George-Jonathan) of Rock Island, Illinois, born in 1951, grandson of 13-7-4-3.
ISSUE:
13-1 1. Sarah EWING, b. 16 Nov 1817, Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio.
13-2 2. Mary Ann EWING, b. 12 Dec 1819, Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio.
3. Electra Jane EWING, b. 24 Jun 1822, Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio. Married: 31 Jan 1848, her second cousin, John Ewing HOWELL, this line in Howell section (4-2).
13-4 4. Fidelia EWING, b. 16 Mar 1825, Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio.
5. William A. EWING, b. 3 Mar 1828, Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio, d. 31 July 1828, unknown where buried.
6. Edward Allen EWING, b. 25 June 1829, Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio, d. 15 Jan 1853, age 23, probably buried with father or in unmarked grave in nearby Holland Cemetery. He was administrator of his father's estate when he died, Robert LINCOLN, probably J.R. LINCOLN, who owned the farm next to Joseph CRAVEN, was appointed administrator of his estate.
13-7 7. George Washington EWING, b. 29 May 1833, Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio.
13-8 8. Margretta Lucetta EWING, b. 23/28 Jan 1837, Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio.
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13-1 SARAH EWING
Ewing Family Lineage: Jonathan-William-James
A lot of times the daughters in this book are just a name and some dates, a husband, some children and that is it.
But Sarah married into an exceptionally fine family and as a consequence she and her descendants have been easier to trace than a lot in these pages, thus we are able to know more about her than some of the others.
Sarah was the first to be born to Jonathan and Margaret in their cabin in Huntington Township's Section 11. She made her appearance on 16 November 1817. It is believed that she was named for Jonathan's grandmother, the wife of James EWING.
Even though separated by a county line, Sarah and William Jasper ALESHIRE managed to get together. William was born in Meigs County, Ohio on the 19th of October 1814, and as far as I know that is where he and his parents, Ephraim and Elizabeth (WILLIAMS) ALESHIRE, lived until their move to Illinois. Other Aleshires were, and are today, in Gallia and Jackson counties, a large family. Actually, Huntington Township's Section 11 is only a mile from the Meigs County line so the meeting of Sarah and William is not surprising.
They were married on 31 December 1837 in Gallia County by Hiram WILLCOX, J.P.
Their first years of marriage were spent in Meigs County. They had four children when they got the itch to go west. When they started making plans they found they were to be joined by William's parents and most of their family, as well as others of the Ewing family, a large contingent.
The wagontrain was off in 1846, its first stop, Fulton County, Illinois on the Illinois River. The Aleshires and others remained there two years, but in 1848 they moved two counties west to settle nearer the Mississippi, in Hancock County, Illinois.
Because there were, according to the 1874 ATLAS, other Aleshires in the area, and because that is where Sarah's parents and younger siblings ended up, it is believed that on their arrival in Hancock County, William and Sarah first settled in Harmony Township, in the Middle Creek neighborhood.
But at some time prior to 1860, William purchased a large tract, 160 acres, 10 or 11 miles north of there, in Pilot Grove Township. His acreage was the entire southwest quarter of Section 10. Aaron MATTHEWS, brother of Elisah and Phineas, who also had gone west with them from Gallia County in 1846, and two of his sons owned the southeast quarter of Section 10.
A daughter had been born to William and Sarah in Fulton County, and five more children came along in Hancock County to make their family of 10 complete. (One died when a baby and a son, Orlando, was killed in the Civil War.)
William was a prosperous farmer. In the 1870 his farm was worth $9,000 and he had $2,000 in chattel goods. But about 1872 he bought a hotel in the village of Burnside, and the family moved into the village so he could be closer to the operation. Though he still owned the farm - which his son Levi ran for him, managing the hotel was his main occupation for the next 18 years.
Burnside is a little village which was laid out in 1868 by James B. MC MILLEN (apparently no relation) on his land in Section 17 of Pilot Grove. In 1879 it contained 300 inhabitants, 10 business houses and one mill. "And far from the least item to its credit," says the 1879 HANCOCK COUNTY HISTORY, "it has no saloon and few who would patronize one."
Ephraim ALESHIRE died in 1864 and the widow Elizabeth thereafter made her home with William and Sarah.
On Saturday, 31 December 1887, there was a grand celebration in Burnside. William and Sarah observed their Golden Wedding Anniversary. An account of the day has been preserved.
"After a most bountiful repast had been duly partaken of by the company (numbering 50), Col. S.W. KING of La Harpe, (Illinois) on behalf of the sons, presented their father with a gold-headed cane, bearing the following inscription: 'From the boys to their father, 50th anniversary, Dec. 31st, 1887."
Other gifts the couple received included gold collar and cuff buttons from Sarah's aunt Electa Howell of Clark County, Missouri, who came for the event; a morocco-bound album from three of the grandchildren; an amber stem pipe and tobacco; a dress pattern and mittens, and a parlor sofa and chairs and gold spectacles for their mother from the four sons and their wives.
There were many other gifts, including $5 gold pieces from several guests.
All of Sarah and William's children then living and their families were able to be present for the grand occasion, and there were other relatives, too, and lots of friends.
The newspaper account concludes: "After the presentation the sons spoke feelingly of the early moral training received by the children from their most honored parents. It was indeed a very happy occasion. Mr. Aleshire is over 73 and his good wife is aged 70. Your correspondent has known them for over 40 years and they richly deserve the many honors thus accorded to them."
Sarah had only 2 1/2 more years. She died July 17, 1890.
William followed her by two months and 17 days. Sarah was five months short of being 73 years old and William was 16 days short of being 76 years old at the time of their deaths.
ISSUE:
13-1-1 1. Sanford ALESHIRE, b. 22 May 1839, Meigs County, Ohio.
13-1-2 2. Levi Virgil ALESHIRE, b. 8 Sept 1840, Meigs County, Ohio.
13-1-3 3. Mary Angeline ALESHIRE, b. 3 July 1842, Meigs County, Ohio.
4. Orlando M. ALESHIRE, b. 27 July 1844, Meigs County, Ohio, d. 26 July 1864, Napoleonville, La., 12th Illinois Cavalry, under Major (later General) John G. FONDA of Pilot Grove, Illinois.
13-1-5 5. Margaret Elizabeth ALESHIRE, b. 11 May 1847, Fulton County, Illinois.
13-1-6 6. William Jasper ALESHIRE JR., b. 15 Feb 1849, Hancock County, Illinois.
13-1-7 7. Edward Ewing ALESHIRE, b. 16 Mar 1951, Hancock County, Illinois.
13-1-8 8. Albert Davis ALESHIRE, b. 13 Dec 1853, Hancock County, Illinois.
9. Henry O. ALESHIRE, b. 18 Oct 1857, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 8 Mar 1859 .
13-1-10 10. Oscar Emmett ALESHIRE, b. 29 Nov 1861, Pilot Grove Township, Illinois.
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13-1-1 SANFORD ALESHIRE
Ewing Family Lineage: Sarah-Jonathan-William-James
Sanford was born 22 May 1839 in Meigs County, Ohio, and was nine when the family arrived in Hancock County, Illinois where he lived until after the war.
Sanford was 22 years old when the war started. On the 15th of August 1862 he went to nearby Fountain Green to enlist in Company A of the 118th Illinois Volunteer Infantry (IVI) under Captain A.W. GEDDES. On his discharge for a disability on the 10th of April 1863, at Homes Plantation, Louisiana, as a corporal - he was 5 feet 10 inches tall, had a fair complexion with blue eyes and dark hair.
In the meantime there were eight months of active service, most of it in Mississippi. This he shared with his brother, Levi, who enlisted in the same company shortly after Sanford.
Sanford's pension papers do not mention much about that service nor tell us what it was that caused his disability and subsequent discharge - except hint at exposure, but it was enough to cause him much grief in the years ahead, and to lead to his death at only 50 years of age.
On return home Sanford resumed a farmers life. It so happened that Company A thought it was going to need a First Lieutenant, and one Robert N. WITHEROW of Fountain Green was named such on 1 October 1865. But Witherow was never mustered, for the company was disbanded, and his services were not required.
Nevertheless, Sanford and Witherow had an acquaintance, and through him, Sanford met Witherow's sister, Rebecca. Rebecca WITHEROW was born in 1843 in Villisca, Montgomery County, Iowa, but for some reason her parents, were for the moment, in Hancock County, Illinois. She and Sanford were married 29 June 1863 by Reverend Thomas M. WALKER.
At first the couple made their home on a farm in Pilot Grove Township but in the 1870s they moved to Coburg, Iowa in Montgomery County, where Rebecca's parents then lived. There Sanford was a merchant, and so was he when they lived in Stanbury, Gentry County, Missouri where they moved in September, shortly after the 1880 census was taken.
Sanford and Rebecca, had no children, were able to make it from Stanbury back to Burnside for his parents' Golden Wedding Anniversary in 1886. But by that time Sanford was going down hill rapidly. He had weak lungs and a bad cough, brought on by his wartime exposure. As he grew worse, Rebecca took him to the home of her brother, Robert, in Imogene, Iowa, near Coburg. There Sanford died 11 June 1889 of tubercular pharyngitis (ulcer of the Pharynx). He had just turned 50 years old.
Rebecca survived him by at least 40 years. In 1929 she notified the Pension Bureau of a change in address, her new address being 924 Sycamore Street, Columbus, Indiana. Other than that notice, nothing is known of her after Sanford's death.
NO ISSUE.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Sarah-Jonathan-William-James
Like his brother, Levi was born in Meigs County on the 8th of September 1840. When the Civil War came on he enlisted in Company A, 118th, Illinois Volunteer Infantry on the 7th of November 1862 at Camp Butler, Illinois, under Captain GEDDES and like his brother he came out of the war a corporal. Levi was discharged on the 13th of October 1865 at Baton Rouge, Louisiana after almost three years of service.
Levi was 22 at the time of his enlistment, 5 feet 11 1/2 inches tall, blue eyes and light hair and complexion.
The regiment was near Vicksburg, Mississippi on 1 May 1863 when Levi received a gunshot wound which left him in much pain and quite lame, and was the cause of his early death at the age of 44 years.
The ball entered his left leg about 2 1/2 inches above the ankle, fracturing the bone and ranging downward and inward into the Achilles tendon.
He was hospitalized with a furlough home on 4 August 1863 until 1 May 1864, a whole year, then he rejoined his company.
On his discharge a year and five months later, Levi returned to Illinois. He lived at home for several years and was in the drug business with the James B. MC MILLEN with whom this family was so closely connected through the years.
Levi did not marry until he was 33 years old. A big landholder in Hancock County was T.B. BRUMBACK. He had holdings all over the place in the 1874 ATLAS, and a H.P. BRUMBACK had a large farm next to one of T.B.'s in St. Mary's Township. No doubt Levi's wife was related in some way to one or both of these. She was Jessie BRUMBACK and she and Levi were married in Schuyler County, Illinois by R.P. DRAKE on 30 October 1873. Jessie was born in Kentucky, as were her parents, in 1851.
On their marriage, Levi took over the operation of his father's 160-acre farm in Pilot Grove Township, Illinois when William moved into Burnside to run the hotel. Levi and Jessie were found in Pilot Grove in the 1880 census. What the June 1 census did not reveal was that Ossie Vivian was due in 19 days - and that Jessie had consumption. The baby was 2 1/2 months old when Jessie died on 4 September 1880.
Levi's sister and brother-in-law, Margaret and Uriah ASHCRAFT, of the little village of La Harpe, in Pilot Grove Township, came to his rescue and took little Ossie to raise and the older two as well, though those two eventually went with an uncle on the Aleshire or Brumback side, Frank REYNOLDS of Hancock Township. Levi himself was in pretty bad shape, and may have also gone to live with Frank Reynolds as well.
On 25 June 1884, a Burlington, Iowa, doctor wrote the pension bureau: "...the foot is coursed with varicose veins. This man is also troubled with hoarseness (bronchial) and is extensively in bad health. He is 6 feet but 130 pounds. We rate him totally disabled."
For Levi the end came, apparently at the Ashcraft home, on 22 March 1885 at the age of 44 years.
On 2 April 1885, Uriah was appointed legal guardian of the three orphans, and through him they continued to receive their father's pension.
There was some financial talk in Levi's pension papers because of the three being their father's heirs and he having received, posthumously, a share in his father's estate, namely the hotel in Burnside.
"The children own $2,400 in money and an interest in a hotel property. Said interest is $125. $2,000 of the money is loaned out at 7 percent, and the income from rent on the hotel interest is $8.75 a year. Total income to said children from all their property would amount to $133.78, after deducting taxes..."
ISSUE:
1. Ione "Onie" ALESHIRE, b. 16 May 1876, Pilot Grove Township, Illinois, d. 20 Apr 1955.
1900: Ione and brother Olan living with Uncle Frank REYNOLDS, Hancock Township. 1913:Lived in Louisville, Kentucky. After death of Olan's wife, Ione went to live with him in San Francisco and after Olan's death in 1953, went to live with Ossie in Erie, PA where she died in 1955. Single.
13-1-2-2 2. Olan Cecil ALESHIRE, b. 25 June 1878, Pilot Grove Township, Illinois.
3. Ossie Vivian ALESHIRE, b. 20 June 1880, Pilot Grove Township, Illinois. Married: 11 Oct 1901, Charles B. WILLIAMSON, at the home of Aunt and Uncle and Foster Parents, Uriah and Margaret (ALESHIRE) ASHCRAFT, by Reverend Ernest EVANS of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Lived: West Plains, Missouri. 1903: Rockford, Illinois 1913 and after: Dixon, Lee County, ILL, until her divorce when she went to Erie, PA, her sister joining her after 1953.
Issue:
2. Son WILLIAMSON
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Ewing Family Lineage: Levi-Sarah-Jonathan-William-James
Being orphaned at the age of 6 years might have been a deterrent to a lot of people but not to Olan Cecil ALESHIRE. He went on to have a long and illustrious career in the military, as a graduate of West Point and a Colonel in the U.S. Army.
Olan was born in Pilot Grove Township, Illinois on the
25th of June 1878. He was two years old when his mother died and 6 years old when his father died. He was raised by his Aunt Margaret ASHCRAFT and her husband, Uriah, of La Harpe, Pilot Grove Township, Illinois, his legal guardians. Later he and his elder sister, Ione, made their home with an uncle on the Aleshire or Brumback side, Frank REYNOLDS of Hancock Township, with whom they were listed in the 1900 census.
Somewhere back of him Olan had an Uncle Oscar ALESHIRE who had also attended West Point Military Academy and had been important in military ranks. At one time he was Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army, stationed in Chicago, and the Army Corps of Engineers named a tugboat for him, "The General Aleshire," which plied the New York City harbor for several years.
With a background like that, Olan had no trouble getting an appointment to West Point. He graduated as No. 4139 in the Class of 1903 as a Second Lieutenant. He was a classmate of General Douglas McARTHUR.
Olan served in the Cavalry of the U.S. Army in the Philippines.
In 1913 he was stationed at Fort Robinson, Nebraska, a historic outpost from Indian war days. While there he met Florence (BYERLY) MITCHELL, who was there on an assignment as a court reporter. Florence was married and had a daughter, Madeline, born 21 November 1900. A friendship developed, and when Florence got her divorce, she and Olan were married.
As Olan's military career continued, he switched to the Air Service, in which he served with the American Expeditionary Forces during World War I.
By 1923 he had been made Colonel. From 1923 to 1927 he served as such on the General Staff of the War Department. He was transferred to San Francisco, California in 1933 to the staff of the Quartermaster Corps, and was there for five years, until his retirement as a Colonel in 1938, at the age of 60 years old.
In all that time, Madeline was like a daughter to him, and in turn he was the only father she had known. When she married William Emund BAROTT, who was also in the Quartermaster Corps, and had two children, this was his family. The children included a son, William Chauncey BAROTT, born 7 September 1928, who was also a graduate of West Point, and who was killed in action during the Vietnam conflict. Olan's "granddaughter" is Barbara BAROTT, born 1931. In 1984 she was the wife of Clark LENTZ and was living in Shawnee Mission, Kansas.
Barbara wrote, "Although he never legally adopted my mother, he was the only father she remembers and they loved each other very much. the same goes for me and my brother - he was the only grandfather we knew and we loved him. He was a marvelous man!"
Florence died about 1951, and Olan's sister Ione - "Onie" went to San Francisco to live with him.
Olan was 74 years, 10 months and 13 days when he died at Letterman Army Hospital in San Francisco, California on the 8th of May 1953. Graveside services were held on Monday the 11th of May 1953 at the National Cemetery, Presidio of San Francisco.
NO ISSUE
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Ewing Family Lineage: Sarah-Jonathan-William-James
Mary's family is one that got away. Born 3 July 1842 in Meigs County, Ohio, she was married about 1861 to Thomas A. SWAN who was born in Illinois in June of 1840.
At first Mary and Thomas lived in Pontoosuc Township, Hancock County, Illinois on a quarter section of Section 22, where they were found in the 1870 census. Thomas was worth $9,000/1,925. But by the 1880 census they had moved to near Burnside, Illinois where Thomas was listed as a farmer. Then they and their children attended her parents' Golden Wedding Anniversary in 1886. They were listed as being from Burnside, but not long after that they moved to Missouri, to Granger, Thompson Township, Scotland County. They were still there in 1896 and in the 1900 census index.
Mary died at Granger on 10 April 1901. No further record of her husband, Thomas or their children, except as noted below, were found.
ISSUE:
1. Warren SWAN, not in the 1870 census, 18 in the 1880 census. 1900: not found in the Missouri index.
2. George A. SWAN, not in the 1870 census, 17 in the 1880 census. 1900: Missouri index, George Swan, born 1862, said born in Missouri.
Issue:
3. Lena SWAN, b. 1868 Married: PALMER. 1913: A.E. EWING, lived RFD, Canton, Illinois
4. Lulu SWAN, b. Apr 1870. 1880 census: 10 years.
5. Freddie SWAN, b. 1875. 1900 census: at home, Granger, Thompson Township, Scotland County, Missouri.
6. Claude E. SWAN - TWIN, b. Oct 1876, Illinois. 1900 census: at home.
7. Maude SWAN - TWIN, b. Oct 1876, Illinois. Married: Jesse HUMMEL, b. Mar 1879, Missouri. 1900 census: both with her parents at Granger, Thompson Township, Scotland County, Missouri.
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13-1-5 MARGARET ELIZABETH ALESHIRE
Ewing Family Lineage: Sarah-Jonathan-William-James
William and Sarah's fifth child was named for her two grandmothers, Margaret (MC MILLIN) EWING and Elizabeth (WILLIAMS) ALESHIRE.
Born when the Aleshires were in Fulton County, Illinois on 11 May 1847, she was a year old when the family moved to Hancock County, Illinois. She grew up on the farm near Burnside, Illinois and moved into Burnside when her father bought the town's hotel.
By the time of her marriage, she was quite experienced in the art of homemaking and probably in taking care of children as reliable "Aunt Margaret." She was 29 when she and Uriah ASHCRAFT were married in 20 May 1876. Uriah was born in October 1847, in West Virginia. In the 1870 census, he was listed as a farmer with Joseph and Elinore PLACE, Section 15, half a mile from the Aleshires in Pilot Grove. No record was found, but it is believed that Uriah was a soldier in the Civil War, as he is buried at La Harpe Cemetery, in La Harpe, Pilot Grove Township, Illinois in a soldier's grave.
If anyone is interested, while researching Uriah ASHCRAFT, a Uriah ASHCRAFT was found giving service in Virginia during the Revolution, and the marriage of a Uriah Ashcraft in Harrison County, Virginia (West Virginia) on 7 October 1788, to Sarah
MC INTIRE was found. Margaret's Uriah, with a name like that, has got to be related to the two somehow.
Margaret and Uriah made their home in La Harpe Township, near the village of La Harpe. In the 1880 census Uriah was a carpenter. By that time they had two children, one of whom had died and one who would die the following year. Shortly after that census was taken, Jessie, the wife of Margaret's brother, Levi, died and Margaret, perhaps to make up for all her years without children, rushed to bring Jessie's three children into her home. By the time of Levi's death in March, 1885, Mary had two more children of her own, but that did not stop her from seeing to it that Uriah became the three orphans' legal guardian. She added two more after that and raised the three with her own, though the two eldest eventually went with another relative. The youngest, Ossie, was married in her home in 1901.
In the 1900 census, the Ashcrafts were in La Harpe and Uriah was a miller. At that time Margaret had six children, three then living.
Margaret died 25 April 1920, a few days short of her 73rd birthday. Uriah's death date was not found.
ISSUE:
1. Merlin L. ASHCRAFT, b. 11 Nov 1877, La Harpe, Illinois, d. 24 Mar 1881.
2. Jettie M. ASHCRAFT, b. 16 Mar 1879, La Harpe, Illinois, d. 20 May 1880.
3. Zoe ASHCRAFT, b. 1880, La Harpe, Illinois. Married: about 1899, HARTQUIST. 1913: A.E. EWING lists Peoria, Illinois. 1966, Long Beach, California.
4. Opheigm ASHCRAFT (daughter), called "Chippie", b. 22 May 1882, La Harpe, Illinois. Married: after 1900 census, before 11 Oct 1901, JACOB. 1913: A.E. EWING lists La Harpe, Illinois.
5. Orville J. ASHCRAFT, b. 24 Apr 1884, d. pre-1887.
6. Fern M. ASHCRAFT, b. Oct 1891. Married: MILLER
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13-1-6 WILLIAM JASPER ALESHIRE JR.
Ewing Family Lineage: Sarah-Jonathan-William-James
William - or "Jap" as he was called by all, is a special favorite of mine. He was one of the first friends I made when I started going through A.E. EWING'S material back in 1945. He was always so there ...in photos and in print, even to the Western Union advising A.E. of his death.
And because he was a fairly important figure I have been able to find out much about him since then.
Unfortunately all of this probably is not going to help any of his descendants, because beyond his two sons, Oscar and Harry, no records could be found of any children the sons might have had.
William Jr. was born in William and Sarah's log cabin on the farm in Pilot Grove Township on 15 February 1849. In early life he worked on a farm, 1870 census shows he was a farm hand with Benjamin LYONBERGER of Pilot Grove. He worked in a brick yard and in a grocery store, before attending Christian College in Abington, Illinois - one of only two of Jonathan's grandchildren to go to college.
After a year in college he taught school, 1880 census shows William at home, a teacher. He visited the Black Hills of South Dakota in search of gold and spent some time in Colorado - same mission. In 1886 when he attended his parents Golden Wedding Anniversary he was living in Hamilton, Illinois.
William settled down to being a married man and a father when he took as his bride Mary E. MC CLUNG (she was also a very special person).
Mary was born 22 April 1860 in Pike County, Illinois. Her parents were George MC CLUNG, a native of Virginia and a veteran of the Civil War, and Nancy WAYFIELD.
For several years William taught school in various places in Illinois. At one spot, in Good Hope, he published a newspaper, the Good Hope Torpedo, for three years and this gave him "good hope" for a new career - the newspaper business.
In 1892, a newspaper in Gibsonburg, Ohio, became available. William bought it in July of 1892 and moved his family to Sandusky County, Ohio.
The Derrick became a family enterprise. William was editor/publisher, and Mary was his assistant, and so it is proclaimed on the masthead of the Derrick - "Mrs. M.E. Aleshire, Assistant" When their two sons were old enough, they too helped out at the paper, mostly in the mechanical end.
According to an 1986 sketch, The Derrick was a "readable, newsy sheet, fully up to the times and an acceptable visitor in homes throughout that section." Another article said that it was one of the best little Democratic papers in the state. It cost 5 cents a copy, and could be had by calling No. 37 in Gibsonburg.
Being now a successful businessman and able to travel freely, William took an interest in his Ewing family and when they began having reunions he gave his support. A.E. EWING and William Jr. developed an instant liking for each other, even though they were a generation apart, and formed a bonded friendship.
William attended the very first reunion of descendants of James Ewing anywhere in Hillsdale, Michigan in 1899, along with his first cousin, William Symmes MATTHEWS of Columbus, Ohio. He attended the 1900 reunion in Hillsdale and the 1904 reunion in Ewington, Ohio. Mary was at the 1903 reunion at Burnside, Illinois.
He was in the 1904 Ewington reunion photo, but what that photo of 1904 does not show is that at that very moment "disease was lurking in his body," as Mary put it in an article following his death. It is believed that she meant he had cancer.
In June, 1905, William went on a trip west with the National Editors Association, "a trip which hastened the end. After arrival home, he went to Mt. Clemens but received no benefit, coming home 6 August 1905, since which time everything that medical skill and loving hands could do, was done but to no avail."
Jap died 18 August 1905 at the age of 56 years.
It was cousin William Symmes MATTHEWS who notified A.E. by night letter from Gibsonburg: "Jap passed away seven o'clock this evening."
On 31 August 1905, Mary announced in the paper that she would be continuing the work her husband had started 13 years before, and in which she had been associated for the past nine.
"In becoming the successor to W.J. ALESHIRE as editor and publisher of The Derrick, I am executing in a weak way, his wishes."
How long Mary remained at the helm, it is hard to say as A.E. lost touch with Mary, Oscar and Harry after William's death.
ISSUE:
1. Oscar Rowland ALESHIRE, b. 20 May 1887. 1913: per A.E. EWING, Ashland, Ohio
2. Harry Doane ALESHIRE, b. 12 Feb 1889. 1913: per A.E. EWING, Gibsonburg, Ohio.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Sarah-Jonathan-William-James
Edward followed "Jap" into the world by two years, one month and one day, 16 March 1851. He was given the Ewing middle name.
Edward stayed at home for at least 19 years, but during the 70s he was off to teach school, trade in grain and study to be a lawyer. Apparently that study was reading law with an established attorney, for there is no mention of his having gone to college. He was admitted to the bar in Keokuk, Iowa in 1879.
He went to live with his eldest brother, Sanford, and his wife, Rebecca, in Coburg, Iowa. In December of 1879, he took up residence in the newly created town of Stanbury, over in Missouri, in Cooper Township, Gentry County, where Sanford and Rebecca joined him the following year.
In the 1880 census he was in Stanbury, Missouri - an attorney and single. Within three months of that census he changed his status regarding that last entry, he went back to Hancock County, Illinois to marry a friend of long standing, Miss Addie S. POLING. Their wedding day was 20 September 1880.
They made their home in Stanbury for at least 21 years and Edward was very influential in getting the infant town off to a good start, in fact he was one of its earliest mayors, having been elected in 1882. He was at that time the local attorney for the Wabash Railroad and agent for lands of the Western Improvement Company in Gentry County, Missouri.
In 1886 Edward, Addie and their daughter, Jean, went back to Burnside, Illinois for the Aleshire Golden Wedding Anniversary. The following year Grace was born and with her arrival their family was complete.
In August of 1899, Edward joined his brother "Jap" and their first cousin, William Symmes MATTHEWS of Columbus, Ohio, and their Aunt Electa Ewing HOWELL, of Medill, Missouri in attending the first reunion ever of descendants of James EWING.
That first reunion was held at the farm in Hillsdale County, Michigan of the late Enoch EWING, Jonathan's brother.
At some time between 1901 and 1913, Attorney Edward moved his family into Kansas City, Missouri where his address in 1913, according to A.E., was 3106 Park Avenue. It is assumed that is where he died 24 January 1932 at the age of 80 years, 10 months and 8 days.
ISSUE:
1. Jean Edna ALESHIRE, b. 1882 Married: MASON or MORRIS. 1913: Kansas City, Missouri.
2. Grace Alice ALESHIRE, b. 1888 Married: DYERE. 1913: Brooklyn, New York
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Ewing Family Lineage: Sarah-Jonathan-William-James
Albert was born on the 13th of December 1853, near Burnside, Illinois. He took over the operation of the little hotel in Burnside on his father's death in 1890. Apparently all the children, or the sons at least, shared in the hotel, but Albert was the active partner in the venture. The operation included a livery stable, which Albert also ran.
Albert was 30 years old when he was married, in 1883, to Rachel Catherine GLASS. Rachel was born on the 16th of October 1856 in Illinois and was recorded as being the daughter of Albert and Rachel GLASS.
The Aleshires, Albert and Rachel, had five children, but only two survived infancy.
At some time between 1901 and 1913, Albert and family left Burnside in favor of West Point, in St. Albaus Township, in the south of Hancock County, Illinois. That was their address in 1913 and is where Albert died 13 June 1919 after 36 years of marriage and at the age of 65 years. Rachel survived him by 15 years. She died either the 23 or 27 of December 1934 at the age of 78 years. Both are buried at West Point, St. Albaus Township, Hancock County, Illinois.
ISSUE:
1. Maude ALESHIRE -TWIN, b&d at birth
2. Myrtle ALESHIRE -TWIN, b&d at birth
3. ALESHIRE
4. Kenneth ALESHIRE, b. 2 June 1893, d. 3 Apr 1969, 75 years. Buried: West Point, St. Albaus Township, Hancock County, Illinois . 1966: Meridian, Mississippi
13-1-8-5 5. Jessie G. ALESHIRE, b. 8 Jan 1896
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Ewing Family Lineage: Albert-Sarah-Jonathan-William-James
Jessie was born on the 8th of January 1896 in Burnside, Illinois. It is possible it was there in the hotel her father ran. She attended West Point High School and graduated about 1914, after which she taught school for a bit.
Jessie married on 31 May 1916 to E. Ralph HINKLE who lived just outside West Point on the large Henry HINKLE farm.
Fifty years later she and Ralph celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary - on Monday, 30 May 1966 at their home in Glendale, Arizona.
Jessie wrote up a first-hand account of the big day for posterity. Their only daughter, Marjorie DE VORE and her husband, James, and their two children, Michael, 18 and Nancy, 11, drove to Glendale from their home in Pasadena, California and spent three days there and handled all the details for the occasion.
There were 80 guests in all - many of them relatives who had come all the way from Hancock County to take part. Other friends and relatives, back in their old home county, sent gifts and cards and green things for the money tree.
Jessie described every little detail of the momentous occasion in her account, and listed every gift and giver. Among these were the gold pendant watch, set with garnets, her birthstone, from her life-mate. Marjorie and James gave them an eight piece place setting of dishes. Nancy gave them a charm bracelet and gold cuff links and Michael made the floral presentations - a white orchid corsage for Grandmother and a gold-sprayed carnation for Grandfather.
Jessie wrote "This was a memorable occasion for us, and a day we will always remember."
Jessie and Ralph had 10 more years together. Ralph died in 1976 and Jessie in 1978. They are buried at Resthaven Park in Glendale, Arizona.
ISSUE:
1. (only). Marjorie Phyllis HINKLE, b. 6 Dec 1917. Married: 31 August 1944, James DE VORE, b. 5 May 1918, divorced by 1979. 1966: resided in Pasadena, California. 1979: Marjorie lived in Glendale, Arizona.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Sarah-Jonathan-William-James
Oscar, born 29 November 1861, may have brought up the rear, but that is not to say that he was the runt of the litter. Fact is, he was rather an important VIP, and a sketch on him in "WHO'S WHO IN CHICAGO, 1946" testifies to that.
Not many of Burnside, Illinois' sons - or daughters either, turned out to be an attorney, author, head of an insurance company and national treasurer and president of Modern Woodmen of America.
But Oscar did!
When Oscar was 21 in 1882, he received his Bachelor of Arts Degree from Carthage College, in Hancock's County seat. At the time of his parents' Golden Wedding Anniversary in 1886 he was living in Buchanan, Michigan. He attended the anniversary with his intended, Mary Margaret STEPP. They were not married until 31 August 1887, but the newspaper account of the anniversary celebration on 31 December 1886 has them as "Prof. and Mrs. O.E. ALESHIRE!"
In Michigan, Oscar was in charge of a newspaper at Buchanan, superintendent of schools and in the Michigan Legislature - in 1889, about the same time A.E. EWING was. He was admitted to the Michigan bar in 1889, but he did not practice.
In 1890 he became connected with the Royal Insurance Company, Ltd., in Chicago as clerk, and after that insurance was it for him. From 1910 to 1938 Oscar was head of Parker, Aleshire & Company in Chicago, an insurance firm, headed in 1984 by his grandson, Donald William ALESHIRE JR. of Winnetka, Illinois. Oscar was national treasurer of Woodmen of America from 1917 to 1938, and president of the nationwide insurance fraternity from 1938 to at least 1946.
From his home, The Lindens, in Rock Island, Illinois, Oscar authored several books and articles, among them "PERSONAL
EXPERIENCES" (1929) and "A CENTURY OF PROGRESS" (1932. He was a Republican (unlike Jap), Presbyterian, and a member of the Lake Shore Club in Chicago and of the Chicago Board of Underwriters - president 1917-1918.
Michigan's Woodmen of America's head office in 1946 was in Rock Island, Illinois.
Oscar's Mary Margaret was born 10 September 1864 and died in childbirth, 23 January 1901, the child died too. There were four children living. On 28 July 1903, Oscar married Mabel Iona STACKHOUSE, by whom he had two more children.
Oscar achieved something none of the other Aleshires did - a 97th birthday. He died one month and nine days after that big event, on 8 January 1958.
(Thanks to a non-cousin, Richard ALESHIRE in 1978 living at 503 Roland Avenue in Rockford, Illinois, 61107 - Oscar's line was able to be carried down to that time.)
ISSUE by Mary Margaret:
1. Merlin C. ALESHIRE, b. about 1889
2. Sarah Louise ALESHIRE, b. 29 Nov 1891, d. 12 May 1964. Married: 24 June 1920, Forest P. COPELAND.
Issue:
1. Peggy COPELAND, b. 9 Nov 1928. Married: 28 Mar 1948, W.B. THAWLEY
3. Donald William ALESHIRE, b. 2 or 25 Apr 1895, d. 1962. Married: 1st 9 Mar 1922, Ethel HAYES, b. 3 July 1898. Married 2nd 7 Mar 1942, Wilhemina "Bettie" MAKIN, b. 17 May 1908.
Issue by Ethel:
1. Donna ALESHIRE, b. 24 Oct 1924 ?. Married: 24 June 1950, William H. REIMERS.
2. Mary ALESHIRE, b. 26 Jan 1925 ?. Married: 12 Feb 1949, Ray D. VILAS.
Issue by Wilhemina:
3. Donald William ALESHIRE, JR.,
4. Margaret A. ALESHIRE, b. 25 Apr 1897. Married: 14 June 1921, Harry Stewart GORGAS, b. 16 Jan 1894, d. 23 Sept 1954. 1978: Helena, Montana.
5. Mary S. ALESHIRE, b. 31 Dec 1900, d. 1901
ISSUE by Mabel:
6. Mary Elizabeth ALESHIRE, b. 2 Dec 1904. Married: 14 Sept 1929, Dr. Otto Gustav KLEIN, b. 29 Nov 1903, d. 3 Feb 1964. 1978: Mary living in Helena, Montana.
7. Edward Maurice ALESHIRE, b. 22 Feb 1907, d. 28 Jan 1967. Married: 1st 7 Sept 1929, Beatrice COWEN, div. 20 June, 1940 . Married 2nd Rosemary CRAIG
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Ewing Family Lineage: Jonathan-William-James
Actually more is known about Mary Ann's husband and her family than about Mary Ann herself. She did not leave much in the way of story material for us to go on in her 54 years.
Her husband was William Henry Harrison MC CUMBER. This McCumber family do not seem to be one of the Macombers who are so prevalent in this book, where the Macomber progenitors, Alexander and Esther were from Massachusetts, William's parents, so the 1900 census tells us, were born in New York and Ohio respectively. Also there were no Williams to be found in Alexander's will.
William was born in Ohio in October 1819, beating Mary Ann into the world by two months. Mary Ann was born in Huntington Township, 12 December 1819. They were married just two days short of her 24th birthday, on 10 December 1843 in Gallia County by David SMITH.
Their first two children were born in Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio, but in 1846, with Mary Ann's sister, Sarah, and her Aleshire family talking about Illinois, the McCumbers decided to join the migration too. William was a blacksmith - and blacksmiths had jobs everywhere. Mary Ann and William did go to Illinois - Fulton County first, then Hancock County - but they did not stay put, and they are hard to keep up with. They were never found in the 1850 or 1860 census.
They were found back in Ohio about 1850 but returned to Hancock county in 1858.
In 1862 they were living across the Mississippi in Keokuk, Iowa, when 43 year old William enlisted in Keokuk on the 28th of February 1862, as a private in Company C of the 17th Iowa Volunteer Infantry. He re-enlisted 22 April 1864 and eventually made Second Corporal. He served until 25 July 1865 when the company was mustered out at Louisville, Kentucky.
After that the McCumbers seem to have settled down for awhile. In 1870, William was a farmer, according to the census -not a blacksmith, in Pilot Grove Township, worth $800/$200.
At that time they had seven children, the youngest age 6. Their eldest daughter Antoinette had married William J. PATTERSON and there were three grandchildren. In the next four years Mary Ann saw her second daughter, Alice married. She saw another grandson - Antoinette's, come into the world and she knew that daughter Florence and Pardon HOBART were engaged to wed.
That is the way it was when Mary Ann departed this life on 23 January 1874, five weeks after her 54th birthday.
After 31 years of marriage, 53 year old William was devastated. Mary Ann's cousin, Charles EWING - a Jacob, 19-2, had died on 2 July 1870 in Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois, and his widow Angeline (BACCUS) EWING, only 37 at the time with six children, was looking lost and forlorn. It seems only natural that the two would get together. They were married the following year - 1875 and had a daughter, Verdi MC CUMBER, born 1876, who is said to have married a BEAN and moved to Oklahoma.
Angeline was in the 1880 Hancock County census but there was no sign of William. Maybe he had gone on to southern Missouri to prepare a home, for that is where the two headed about 1884 - to Dora, Richland Township, Ozark County, Missouri, down on the Arkansas border. They were there in the 1890, when the special veterans census was taken and again in 1900 in the federal census - just the two of them.
By the time of their relocation, most of their respective children were married and fairly settled in Illinois. Only Angeline's Alice Ellen, still single, and her Mary, who had married Horace WYMAN, and of course 8 year old Verdi MC CUMBER, appear to have made the move with them.
William was 87 years old when he died 8 August 1907. Angeline's death was not found.
ISSUE:
1. Jonathan Reed MC CUMBER, b. about Dec 1844, Ewington, Gallia County, Ohio. Served in Civil War, unassigned recruit, 118th IVI, from Pilot Grove, Hancock County, Illinois. May have been killed, there is nothing more on him.
13-2-2 2. Antoinette Virginia MC CUMBER, b. 10 Mar 1846, Ewington, Gallia County, Ohio.
13-2-3 3. Alice L. MC CUMBER, b. 27 May 1849, Pilot Grove, Hancock County, Illinois.
13-2-4 4. Florence M. MC CUMBER, b. 21 June 1853, Ohio.
13-2-5 5. George I. MC CUMBER, b. 25 Apr 1856, Ohio.
13-2-6 6. Margaret MC CUMBER, b. Feb 1859, Illinois.
7. William A. MC CUMBER, b. 21 Nov 1863, Illinois. Not in 1880 census. 1900 census: 37, single, living with nephew, Charles C. PATTERSON, Pilot Grove, Hancock County, Illinois. 1910: Unionville, Iowa 1913: LaCrosse, Illinois, apparently never married.
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13-2-2 ANTOINETTE VIRGINIA MC CUMBER
Ewing Family Lineage: Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Antoinette was born 10 March 1846 at Ewington, Gallia County, Ohio and was just an infant when the move to Illinois was made. Growing up in Pilot Grove Township of Hancock County, Illinois, she was married there on 31 March 1861 to William J. PATTERSON, a native of Tennessee, as his parents were. William was born in July of 1840.
The Pattersons purchased their 80 acre farm on 1/2 section of Section 13 from E. PATTERSON in 1874. Their land was near LaCrosse, another little village in Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois and that is where they lived all their lives and that is where they died. They had 12 children but only five made it to maturity.
The exact dates of Antoinette's and William's death is unsure, but it was after 1913 when A.E. EWING listed them as living in La Crosse.
ISSUE:
1. Thomas Harrison PATTERSON, b. 1861, Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois, died young.
2. William Edward PATTERSON, b. 1865/67, Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois.
3. Minnie PATTERSON, b. 1869, Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois, died young.
4. George PATTERSON, b. 1872, Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois, died young.
5. Charles PATTERSON, b. 1874, Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois. 1900 census: two away from his parents, his uncle William A. MC CUMBER with him.
6. James L. PATTERSON, b. Oct 1876, 1900 census: at home.
7. Jonathan Reed PATTERSON, b. Dec 1877. 1900 census: at home, died soon after 1900 census.
8. Rosa PATTERSON, b. Feb 1880, died young.
9. Oscar Cleveland PATTERSON, b. 1884, lived at Pilot Grove Township, Hancock Co., ILL.
10. Alice PATTERSON, died young.
11. Mary PATTERSON, died young.
12. Lillie PATTERSON, Married: James FORTNEY of La Harpe, Illinois.
(NOTE; Iris and Ila PATTERSON sang at the 1933 Burnside reunion)
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Ewing Family Lineage: Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Alice was born in Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois on 27 May 1849. In the 1870 census she is listed twice - with her parents, and as a domestic servant in the household of James B. MC MILLEN, the founder of Burnside, Illinois
Three years after that census she was married to John Elmer SULLIVAN. John, the son of James and Mary SULLIVAN, was born 5 July 1843 in Trumbull, Ohio. He was orphaned at 9 years of age and went to live with the WILSON family in Lawrence County, Pennsylvania. At the age of 19 he enlisted for Civil War service and served with the Army of the Potomac. After the war he headed west, arriving in Carthage, Illinois in 1865.
John and Alice were married 21 August 1873 and 50 years later in 1923, observed their Golden Wedding Anniversary.
The two were among those at the Ewing reunions in Burnside, Illinois through the years. Of Alice it is said that one year she knitted and sold 28 pairs of woolen socks, although almost blind with a condition similar to a cataract.
John died 24 April 1928 and is buried in a Soldier's Grave at Rosemont Cemetery, Plymouth, Illinois
ISSUE:
1. Cora E. SULLIVAN, b. 26 May 1874, Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois.. Single, was a teacher and lived at home.
2. Perna SULLIVAN, daughter, b. 1876, Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois. Married: WILSON.
3. Mary Mayme SULLIVAN, b. Mar 1878, Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois. Married: 1899, STIDUM - no issue.
5. Emma SULLIVAN, b. June 1886, Pilot Grove Township, Hancock County, Illinois.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Florence produced far and away the largest family in the MC CUMBER line. Through her marriage 1 February 1874, to Pardon HOBART, she was ancestor in 1984 to nine children, 30 grandchildren, 32 great-grandchildren, 51 great-great-grandchildren and 12 great-great-great-grandchildren. One of these families is a five-generation family, from Howard HOBART, 94, Dothan, Alabama down to Amber Dawn FERRY, 8, of Hancock County, Illinois.
Florence was born 21 June 1853 in Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio and Pardon was born in November of 1849 in Hancock County, Illinois. Pardon's parents were Jonas and Polly Marie HOBART. Polly was born in Vermont in 1809 and Jonas, until his death in the 1870s, was a gardener in Hancock's Fountain Green Township, just outside of Webster, Illinois.
After their marriage, Pardon and Florence settled at Webster, probably taking over his father's operation, where Pardon was a farmer. In the 1880 census, his widowed mother, then 71, was living with them.
In the same year as their Silver Wedding Anniversary,
1 February 1899, Florence died at the age of 46 years. Florence's death date was 27 September 1899. In the 1900 census the widower Pardon, still in Fountain Green, had with him, his mother, then 91 and his sister, Carraline HOBART, born in November 1833, in Vermont. All nine children, except the two eldest, were at home. Pardon's death is unknown.
ISSUE:
1. William Clarence HOBART, b. 6 Dec 1874, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 8 Oct 1898, killed in a boiler explosion at Fort Jones, Siskiyou County, California, 23 years, single.
2. Frank W. HOBART, 4 Apr 1876, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 16 Dec 1949 in hospital in Keokuk, Illinois, buried: Webster, single.
3. Ida Marie HOBART, b. 11 Apr 1878, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 10 Oct 1955, Carthage, Illinois. Married: 30 Dec 1906, Luther MOSLEY.
Issue:
1. Leota Hala MOSLEY, b&d, 10 Dec 1910.
2. Florence Clarine MOSLEY, b. 6 Aug 1912, d. about 1930s, single.
4. Leland Stanford HOBART, b. 1 Jan 1880, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 16 June 1964. Married: 16 June 1907, Rubie M. DAY, d. 14 Aug 1948. Both buried: Majorville Cemetery, south of Fountain Green, Hancock County, Illinois. No issue.
13-2-4-5 5. Orin Leslie HOBART, b. 27 Mar 1882, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois.
13-2-4-6 6. Frances Electa HOBART, 10 Mar 1884, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois.
13-2-4-7 7. Hiram Harrison HOBART, b. 11 Sept 1886, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois.Top of page
13-2-4-8 8. Howard Hopkins HOBART, b. 6 June 1889, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois.
13-2-4-9 9. Anna Ruth HOBART, b. 9 June 1892, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois
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Ewing Family Lineage: Florence-Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Orin was born, lived most of his life and died at Webster, Hancock County, Illinois. He put in his appearance on 27 March 1882 and died 22 November 1956. Both he and his wife, Effie May ALLEN, who died about 2 April 1967, are buried at Webster. They were married 10 November 1912.
ISSUE:
1. Arthur Lamoine HOBART, b. 26 Dec 1913, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 3 Mar 1944, Anzio BEACHHEAD, Italy, World War II, Buried: Webster, single.
13-2-4-5-2 2. Floyd Emil HOBART, b. 19 Sept 1915, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois.
13-2-4-5-3 3. Reva Mary HOBART, b. 23 Jan 1917, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois.
4. Delta June HOBART, b. 22 June 1918, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois. Married: 1st 4 May 1944, Louis BUNZIK, div. Married 2nd 13 July 1953, Francis Thomas NOLAN, Prince George County, Maryland, d. 19 Jan 1979, Buried: Albany, New York.
Issue:
1. (only). Mary Irene NOLAN, b. 11 Jun 1954, Arlington, Virginia. Married: 1st 25 Aug 1973, Eric Michael CHRISTENSON, div. Married 2nd 29 Aug 1980, Douglas MORRIS.
5. Laveta Ruth HOBART, b. 25 Dec 1919, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 17 May 1933, killed in a farm accident. Buried: Webster, Hancock County, Illinois.
6. Lewis Pardon HOBART, b. 30 July 1921, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois. Married: 28 June 1947, Dorotha Lee WAGNER, Served in World War II, from Pilot Grove, Ill. 1981: Dallas City, Hancock County, Illinois.
7. Lyle Franklin HOBART, b. 21 Jan 1924, d. 23 Feb 1924, pneumonia.
13-2-4-5-8 8. Willis Albert HOBART, b. 22 Mar 1928.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Orin-Florence-Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Floyd was born 19 September 1915. On 27 November 1936, he and Mary Virginia RAINEY of Petersburg, Illinois and were married. In 1981 Floyd and Mary were living at Mountain Top, Pennsylvania.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Orin-Florence-Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
It was Reva, bless her heart, who took the time and trouble to write down all this data you are reading on the Hobarts, no little task, as you can see. Reva and her husband, Lyle Ellsworth WOODSIDE, had as their address in 1984, P.O. Box 305, Blandinsville, Illinois 61420. Blandinsville is in McDonough County, next county east of Hancock County, and is about 7 miles from La Harpe, Illinois.
Reva was born at Webster, Hancock County, Illinois on the 23rd of January 1917 and was married on the 20th of May 1934.
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13-2-4-5-8 WILLIS ALBERT HOBART
Ewing Family Lineage: Orin-Florence-Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Willis was born 22 March 1928 at Adrian, Illinois and was married at Colusa, Hancock County, Illinois on 25 August 1946 to Phyllis Jean HANLEY.
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13-2-4-6 FRANCES ELECTA HOBART
Ewing Family Lineage: Florence-Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Frances who was born 10 March 1884 at Webster, Hancock County, Illinois was married the 12th of August 1906 to Harry Calvin TUCKER. Harry was born 5 June 1886 at Elvaston in Hancock County's Prairie Township and died after 11 years of marriage, on 18 January 1918 at Omak, Washington. Frances, 33 and with five children at the time, then married on 3 June 1920, at Omak, William E. WRIGHT. William was born 19 January 1875 in Fountain Green, Hancock County, Illinois. Frances and William had 29 years of marriage and three children when William died in Omak in 1949.
Frances was 68 years old when she married 71 year old, Joseph CROMWELL on 26 June 1952. Joseph was born on the 25th October 1880. Frances and Joseph had 20 years together when Joseph died 11 August 1972. Frances was 19 days past her 89th birthday when she died 29 March 1973 at Seattle, Washington.
ISSUE:
1. Jesse Pardon TUCKER, b. 18 Apr 1908, d. March 1965, Single.
2. Arthur LeRoy TUCKER, b. 4 Feb 1910, Wenatchee, Washington. Married: 19 June 1931, Sanger, California, Thelma Rose SPEED, b. 12 Aug 1932, San Francisco, California.
Issue:
3. William Howard TUCKER, b. 18 Jan 1912, Wenatchee, Wash. Married: 26 Mar 1931?, Dixie, Oregon, Myrtle (REIBER) PURYEAR. No issue, but four stepchildren by Myrtle's previous marriage.
13-2-4-6-4 4. Nellie Frances TUCKER, b. 1 Mar 1914, Wenatchee, Washington.
13-2-4-6-5 5. Florence E. TUCKER, b. 13 Feb 1917, Wenatchee, Washington.
6. Mildred May WRIGHT, b. 14 May 1922, Wenatchee, Washington. Married: 17 Oct 1942, R. Elton LEITH, b. 14 Dec 1917, Seattle, Washington.
Issue:
7. Sarah Katherine WRIGHT, b. 28 Jan 1925, Wenatchee, Washington. Married: 28 Feb 1948, John Wesley BABCOCK, b. 30 Mar 1923.
8. Alma Louise WRIGHT, b. 23 Mar 1927. Married: 19 July 1947(?), Omak, Washington. Gerald Raymond CARLTON, b. 22 Feb 1927, Malott, Washington. No issue.
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13-2-4-6-4 NELLIE FRANCES TUCKER
Ewing Family Lineage: Frances-Florence-Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Nellie was born 1 March 1914 at Omak, Washington. Nellie and Jesse Velmer TRESEDDER were married 15 June 1929 but were later divorced and Nellie was married a second time in November of 1958 to John Benjamin SCHNEIDER.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Frances-Florence-Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Florence was born 13 February 1917 in Omak, Washington and she married James B. ARCHER in Omak on 27 June 1936. James was born 15 June 1915 at Leloa, Arkansas.
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13-2-4-7 HIRAM HARRISON HOBART
Ewing Family Lineage: Florence-Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Born 11 September 1886 at Webster, Hancock County, Illinois, Hiram was married in Pueblo, Colorado on 24 September 1913 to Edna Lee Louise KLEINSCHMIDT. Hiram was deceased by 1983, but Edna, who was born 4 April 1894 in Quincy, Illinois was approaching 90 years of age and living in Denver, Colorado.
ISSUE:
1. Florence Carlene HOBART, b. 19 Dec 1917, Pueblo, Colorado. Married: 5 April 1939, Golden, Colorado , Ben Barry ALEXANDER, b. 26 Oct (WOODSIDE gives 1994 - is it 1894, 1904 or 1914?) , Weatherford, Texas.
13-2-4-7-2 2. Dorothy Eileen HOBART, b. 18 Aug 1920, Denver, Colorado.
13-2-4-7-3 3. Virginia Lee HOBART, b. 14 Mar 1923, Denver, Colorado.
4. Marjorie J. HOBART, b. 30 Mar 1925, Denver, Colorado. Married: 14 June 1949, Richard D. NICHOLS, b. 21 Sept 1923.
5. Edwina Louise HOBART, b. 25 Apr 1927, Denver, Colorado. Married: 6 July 1947, Denver, Colorado, Donald Allison WORDEN, b. 27 Sept 1926, Pompton Plains, New Jersey.
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13-2-4-7-2 DOROTHY EILEEN HOBART
Ewing Family Lineage: Hiram-Florence-Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Dorothy, born 18 August 1920 in Denver, Colorado, was married 3 July 1942 to Marcel Jean FISCHER. The wedding took place in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. Marcel was born 23 February 19? in Denver, Colorado.
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13-2-4-7-3 VIRGINIA LEE HOBART
Ewing Family Lineage: Hiram-Florence-Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Virginia was born the 14th of March 1923 in Denver, Colorado and Warren Harrison LOCKYEAR was born on the 20th of March 1921, in Englewood, Colorado. They were married in Denver, Coloradp on the 1st of February in 1942.
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13-2-4-8 HOWARD HOPKINS HOBART
Ewing Family Lineage: Florence-Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Howard came along on 6 June 1889 at the "Hobart Place" in Webster, Hancock County, Illinois. He was married 14 March 1912 at Macomb, Hancock County, Illinois to Marguerite Helen MC CONNELL. Marguerite was also a native of Webster being born there on the 4th of July 1893. At some time during the years of their married life together, they moved to Dothan, Alabama. It was in Dothan, that Marguerite died 31 March 1976. In 1983 Howard was at Dothan, approaching the age of 94. At that time he headed five generations of Hobarts, his son John, born 1913, Donald born 1937, his daughter, Marilyn HOBART FERRY, born 1957 and her daughter Amber Dawn FERRY born 1975.
ISSUE:
1. John McConnell HOBART, b. 24 Aug 1913, La Harpe, Illinois. Married: Mt. Sterling, IL Mildred Carolyn KLATTENBERG, b. 22 Sept 1912, Carthage, Illinois.
2. Edwin Lucius HOBART, b. 17 Jan 1917, La Harpe, IL, d. Oct 1918, Carthage, Illinois.
3. Kathleen Louise HOBART, b. 3 Nov 1919, La Harpe, IL. Married: 4 June 1941, Edward H. MONROE, b. 11 Feb 1919.
4. Marilyn Ann HOBART, b. 10 Dec 1923, La Harpe, Illinois. Married: 1st BILDERBACK. Married 2nd 24 Mar 1949, Russell Calvin STEINMETZ. No issue.
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13-2-4-9 ANNA RUTH HOBART
Ewing Family Lineage: Florence-Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Anna Ruth brought up the rear in the Hobart family. She was born 9 June 1892 at Webster, Hancock County, Illinois and was married there on the 14th of March 1915 to Roy RINGS. Roy was born 6 November 1889 at Macomb, Illinois.
The two did not have a very long time together. Anna died 26 April 1923 when she was 30 years old. Roy survived her by 41 years, dying 2 December 1964.
ISSUE:
1. Clifford Leroy RINGS, b. 16 Feb 1916, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois. Married: 7 Sept 1939, Keokuk, Illinois, Bertha Elizabeth DE GARMO, b. 30 Dec 1920, Colchester, Illinois.
2. Glen Hobart RINGS, b. 22 July 1917, Webster, Hancock County, Illinois. Married: 20 June 1940, Keokuk, Illinois, Evelyn Marie ALLTON.
3. Ivan Clarence RINGS, b. 28 Jan 1921; Single
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Ewing Family Lineage: Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
George and his wife, Barbara WINKLEMAN, left Illinois in favor of Moravia, Iowa, soon after their marriage in March of 1882 - that would have been sometime between November 1887 and September 1890. Moravia is in Union Township, Appanoose County, Iowa - but their post office was Foster, which is in Monroe County, Iowa, just over the county line from Moravia.
George was born 25 April 1856 in Hancock County, Illinois and Barbara was born in February 1864 in Pennsylvania.
Except,that a daughter was at the 1905 family reunion in Burnside, Ilinois, and that A.E.'s 1913 address from them was Foster, nothing is known of the family after the 1900 census. Others of that family lost touch and they were unable to be found in 1984.
ISSUE:
(A.E.'s notes said there were nine children, but only the following children showed up in the 1900 census)
1. Lillie M. MC CUMBER, b. Nov 1882, Illinois
2. Pearl MC CUMBER, b. April 1885, Illinois
3. Mary E. MC CUMBER, b. Nov 1887, Illinois
4. Alice Maude MC CUMBER, b. Sept 1890, Moravia, Iowa. Alice was at the 1905 reunion in Burnside, Illinois.
5. Effie MC CUMBER, b. Oct 1892, Iowa
6. John K. MC CUMBER, b. Jan 1895, Iowa
7. Harvey S. MC CUMBER, b. March 1897, Iowa
8. Verdie MC CUMBER (daughter) , b. Oct 1899, Iowa
9. MC CUMBER, b. after 1900
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Ewing Family Lineage: Mary Ann-Jonathan-William-James
Margaret was born in February 1859, the last of the children of Mary Ann and William. She was married on 4 April 1876 to John E. SHARPE who was born in Illinois in March of 1856. In 1880, Margaret and John were in Pinola Township, Woodford County, Illinois living with Dennis SHARPE. In the 1900 census they were in the same place, but a family group themselves. With them in that 1900 census was Charles EVANS a son-in-law who was born in May of 1876 in Texas, but no Evans daughter was shown.
A.E. records the Sharpes with 10 children, but only seven were listed in the two above censuses.
ISSUE:
1. Lilly SHARPE, b. 1876, Illinois, not with them in the 1900 census.
2. Laura SHARPE, b. March 1880, Illinois, not with them in the 1900 census.
3. Willie SHARPE, Aug 1885, Illinois
4. Frank SHARPE, b. Oct 1887, Illinois
5. Ethel SHARPE, b. May 1890, Illinois
6. Bernice SHARPE, b. Oct 1894, Illinois
7. Alma SHARPE, b. Aug 1897, Illinois
8. SHARPE
9. SHARPE
10. SHARPE
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Ewing Family Lineage: Jonathan-William-James
For some reason I have always thought Fidelia was special. I am not sure why, unless it is because she married a MATTHEWS, and because she was the only one of Jonathan's children who remained in - or rather, returned to - Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio to live and to die.
Fidelia really was not special and certainly neither was Phineas MATTHEWS JR., her husband, nothing like his illustrious father. Phineas and Fidelia were the norm of the time - plain, everyday farmers.
But they did produce two very noteworthy sons, one of whom had a family that ranks way up there on the achievement scale.
Fidelia was born to Jonathan and Margaret in Huntington Township on the 15 of March of 1825. She had just passed her 19th birthday when she and Phineas were married on 7 April 1844 by Moses R. MATTHEWS, J.P., Phineas' half-brother.
Phineas, it will be remembered from Chapter 5, was the son of the Phineas MATTHEWS, who was so large on the Gallia County scene in its earliest days. Phineas Sr. had three wives and 16 children, most of whom ended up being mates or in some way ancestors of people in this book.
Phineas Jr., was the son of Phineas Sr. and his second wife, Abigail NOBLES. He was born 26 September 1822 in Gallia County's Cheshire Township.
After their marriage Fidelia and Phineas settled near Vinton in Huntington Township, but there were among those who heeded the call of the west when Fidelia's parents and others of the family left for Hancock County, Illinois.
In October of 1848, soon after the birth of their third child, Sarah, Phineas and Fidelia were off to the Prairie State.
But they did not stay long.
Very few of those who left Ohio for the west in those days returned to the scene of their origin to stay, and the Matthews case is a most unusual one. We will never know, of course, what made them give up on Illinois and return to their native Gallia County, but come back they did - to stay the rest of their lives.
The return was somewhere in the early 1850s. While in the 1850 census they were recorded in Hancock County, Illinois - he a farmer worth $300, in the 1860 census they were recorded in Huntington Township in Ohio, apparently near Vinton, although nothing else - no occupation, worth, age, etc. - was recorded after Phineas' name. In the 1870 census Phineas was a Huntington Township farmer worth $2050/$300. No land was found recorded in his name in the 1874 ATLAS.
Fidelia lived only 50 years - she was recorded as having consumption (TB) as so many did then, and died the 24th of September 1875.
Apparently Phinas did not think much of being alone, for a year and half later, on 22 February 1877, he married Sarah TERRELL. Nothing was found about Sarah - where she came from or
where she disappeared to after their brief marriage. It was a brief marriage, as Phineas died 12 July 1878 at the age of 56 of Apoplexy. Phineas is buried with Fidelia at the Old Holcomb Cemetery, Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio.
ISSUE:
1. Thomas Corwin MATTHEWS, b. 5 May 1845, Vinton, Gallia County, Ohio, d. 6 Feb 1864, Covington, Kentucky. Buried: Old Holcomb Cemetery, Gallia County, Ohio (an elaborate stone and lengthy inscription to the effect that he gave his life for his country. He was a private in Company K, 60th Ohio Volunteer Infantry. He enlisted 8 Aug 1862, mustered out with his company 10 Nov 1862, then went into company G. 1st Regiment, Ohio Heavy Artillery.
13-4-2 2. William Symmes MATTHEWS, b. 1 Jan 1847, Vinton, Gallia County, Ohio.
13-4-3 3. Sarah Abilgail MATTHEWS, b. 24 June 1949, Vinton, Gallia County, Ohio.
4. E. Nobles MATTHEWS, b. June 1857, Illinois or Ohio, d. 20 July 1858. Buried: Old Holcomb Cemetery, Gallia County, Oh.
5. Horace Greeley MATTHEWS, b. 25 May 1858, Illinois or Ohio, d. 7 Jan 1934, Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn, 75 years, 7 months, 12 days. Buried: Minneapolis, Minnesota. Married: Kate , pre-deceased him (according to Wesson, went to Minnesota about 1885, but not in 1900 Minnesota census index. Living at 209 N. Second Street, Mankato, a retired salesman).
13-4-6 6. Edward Baker MATTHEWS, b. 8 Sept 1861, Vinton, Gallia County, Ohio.
7. Luther E. MATTHEWS, b. 1866, Vinton, Gallia County, Ohio, d. 1891. Buried: Old Holcomb Cemetery, Gallia County, Ohio. (1880: living with his sister Sarah and her SHANNON family) . Married: Ewington, Gallia County, Ohio (Wesson: "Frail of health, a brilliant musician"
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13-4-2 WILLIAM SYMMES MATTHEWS
Ewing Family Lineage: Fidelia-Jonathan-William-James
Phineas' next oldest sibling, his sister, Eliza, was married in 1838 to one William SYMMES, who was a pretty important person in early Gallia County history. No doubt that is where Phineas and Fidelia's second, born 1 January 1847 at Vinton, got his name. It was not the first Symmes in Ewing history. Phineas' half sister, Mary MATTHEWS, who married John Ewing HOLCOMB (5-8) named a daughter who was born in 1848, after that very sister Eliza - Eliza Symmes HOLCOMB.
Fidelia's William became a pretty important person too. His outstanding abilities became noticed during Civil War service. That service started when he was only 16 years old. He enlisted on the 1st of June 1863 in the outfit his elder brother, Thomas, was in - 1st Regiment, Ohio Heavy Artillery. Thomas was killed in action at Covington, Kentucky on the 6th of February 1864.
On 25 February 1864 when William was only 17 years old, he was transferred to Company K of the 60th Ohio Volunteer Infantry - and was made a First Lieutenant!
The 60th was the one so many of the Huntington Township men, including brother Thomas, were in when it was formed in 1862. They were among the 12,000 Union troops who were surrendered to General Thomas J. "Stonewall" JACKSON on the 15th of September 1862, and paroled to and mustered out at Camp Douglas, Chicago, Illinois on the 10th of November in 1862.
According to the "Roster of Ohio Troops" the 60th Ohio Volunteer Infantry during 1864 and early 1865 was in the march through Virginia - which included the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylania Court House, Cold Harbor - to Petersburg where Union forces besieged the little town south of Richmond on the 2nd of April 1865, which eventually caused the fall of Petersburg and the fall of Richmond and the entire Southern Army, ending in Lee's surrender a week later on the 9th of April 1865.
William, apparently unscratched, was mustered out with his company on the 28th of July 1865 and he went home.
After the war he taught school for a time, then went to Ohio University in 1868. In the 1870 census, William was 23 living at home, studying medicine. In the 1880 census, his parent having died, he was boarding at Vinton with Samuel and Rebecca WELKER (no relation), 33 and still single.
But a few months after that 1880 census, on 6 December 1880, he and Alice MARTIN who was born in 1853, were married in Gallia County by the Reverend Robinson BREARE, pastor of the Universalist Church in Ewington, Gallia County, Ohio.
William was elected to the Ohio Legislature from Gallia County in 1883. He served until 1887. Active in politics, William became Secretary of the Ohio Republican State Central Committee and through that was appointed Superintendent of Insurance for the state at Columbus, Ohio.
William was interested in helping A.E. EWING with the Ewing reunions in Michigan and Ewington, Ohio and he and Alice were frequent attenders at the annual gatherings in both places.
William was very involved with the Grand Army of the Republic, Headquarters Department of Ohio and for 20 years - 1906 until his death - was its Assistant Adjutant General. As such he was a much sought after speaker at veterans gatherings throughout Ohio and elsewhere.
In 1925 he and A.E. had their last visit together. The Grand Army of the Republic's National Encampment that year was at Grand Rapids, Michigan where A.E. lived. William, along with 600 other Ohio ex-soldiers attended. When the next Ohio Department's General Orders went out to the Grand Army members, William sent A.E. a copy, because in it John AMBLER, Department Commander, praised Grand Rapids and the people therein for their hospitality.
- This had nothing to do with Ewing history, but it seems important to repeat these three paragraphs from that club bulletin - at this present time it is priceless, but it was pretty serious business at the time it was written.
"We call specific attention to the Resolutions adopted at the National Encampment, especially Resolution No. 7:
"You will notice that this Resolution protests against a movement already begun in Congress to restore the Lee mansion at Arlington, and convert it into a Confederate museum.
"This is an insolent challenge to the patriotic sentiment of the country and should be met with a vehement protest from every patriotic society from one end of the land to the other. Your congressman should be interviewed at once by letter, resolution, or in person, demanding his support to repeal the law already passed providing for the use of United States property at government expense, to house the relics of treason and rebellion. Immediate action should be taken on this matter before the convening of Congress in December next."
At the time of this writing the Civil War had been over for 60 years - but remember these were soldiers of one of the bloodiest wars this nation has ever seen speaking out. The Lee Mansion at Arlington, Virginia became a monument - not to the Confederacy, but to the United States of America, in whose history the Civil War is but a tragic page.
Less than three months after the above General Orders went out on 5 November 1925, William breathed his last. William died at the age of 70 years on 7 February 1926. He is buried at Greenlawn Cemetery in Columbus, Ohio. No death record of Alice's was found, but she is buried beside him at the Greenlawn Cemetery.
NO ISSUE
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Ewing Family Lineage: Fidelia-Jonathan-William-James
Phinas and Fidelia's third was given that name of Phineas' little sister, half-sister really. That Sarah Abigail was born in 1841. Ours was born 24 June 1849. She was a babe in arms when her family moved to Hancock County, Illinois. But they were back in Huntington Township before long and that is where Sarah - who always went by the name Abigail, grew up.
In the 1870 census she was 21 and living at home. "Works at millinery." In 1874 she was married to Thomas SHANNON, but no record was found in Gallia County records. Three places were found as possible locations of Thomas' birth - Ohio, Virginia and West Virginia. The date was 28 February 1851 and his parents were Henry and Providence (JONES?) SHANNON.
At some time after their marriage, the Shannons moved up the road into Wilkesville Township, Vinton County, Ohio. At least they were there in the 1880 census, Thomas a farmer. They were back at Ewington, Gallia County by the time of the 1900 census, but not to stay. Of their five children, one, William, died in 1894 at the age of 15 years. Two other sons headed out for Texas. Their daughter, Clara, married and moved to Columbus, Ohio. Sarah and Thomas and their young son, Edward, went with them.
Thomas died 10 June 1909 at Grant Hospital in Columbus, Ohio of intestinal cancer at the age of 58 years, 3 months and 10 days. He was buried back at Vinton, Gallia County, Ohio in the Holcomb Cemetery.
Thereafter Sarah lived with Clara and her husband, Harley W. WOODRUFF at 312 Wilbur Avenue, Columbus, Ohio. Sarah died there 20 December 1926 of arteriosclerosis, age 78 years, 5 months and 26 days and was buried next to Thomas in the Holcomb Cemetery.
When Thomas and Sarah were back at Ewington, the Shannons always made a point of attending the Ewing reunions there, and one year "Abby" even journeyed out to Illinois to attend a reunion at Burnside, Illinois.
ISSUE;
13-4-3-1 1. Clara SHANNON, b. June 1875, Ewington or Wilkesville, Ohio.
2. Corwin Matthew SHANNON, b. 1876, Ewington or Wilkesville, Ohio. (The C.M. SHANNON of Dalles, Texas, who was the informant on his father's death certificate, 1909; survived his mother; no Corwin in 1900 Texas index)
3. William Burdett SHANNON, b. 7 Mar 1879, Ewington or Wilkesville, Ohio, d. 7 Nov 1894 - per tombstone, 16 Oct 1894, per death records, of septic infection, age 15. Buried: with parents in Holcomb Cemetery , Gallia County, Ohio.
4. Theodore SHANNON, b. Jan 1884, Ewington or Wilkesville, Ohio. 1900 census: 16, at home, Huntington Township. 1913 census: A.E. gives Sequin, Texas. Survived mother.
5. Edward SHANNON, b. Dec 1888, Ewington or Wilkesville, Ohio. 1900 census: 12, at home, Huntington Township, did not survive mother .
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Ewing Family Lineage: Sarah-Fidelia-Jonathan-William-James
Clara was born in June of 1875 in either Ewington or Wilkesville Township, and became the wife of Harley W. WOODRUFF. Harley was born near Ewington, Gallia County, Ohio on 17 June 1868 or 15 July of 1869 - his birth record could not be found in Gallia County. His father was Anselm WOODRUFF and his mother was Annie Belle MC LEISH, whom we have met before as the half-sister of Mary MC LEISH, wife of John Smith EWING in the story about Mary back in Chapter 7.
Harley was a teacher. At first he taught in the little one-room schoolhouse at Alice near Ewington in Gallia County, which several of his nieces and nephews attended. They told in later years of Harley being overly harsh with them so that he would not be accused of favoritism.
By 1900 Harley's job had taken them to Clinton Township, Shelby County, but they were back in the Ewington area by 1903. Between 1904 and 1909 they moved to Columbus, Ohio - Clara's parents moving with them. In 1926, when Sarah died at their home, they were at 312 Wilbur Avenue in Columbus.
KNOWN ISSUE:
1. Harland B. WOODRUFF, b. 20 May 1901, Gallia County records, Ohio.
2. Doris WOODRUFF, b. 31 May 1903, Gallia County records, Ohio, d. 24 April 1904, Buried: Old Holcomb Cemetery, Gallia County, Ohio.
3. Esther WOODRUFF, (birth date unkown) (Esther is the only one of this family that Wesson remembers. "She was a cashier in a restaurant in Columbus, Ohio at one time and her Uncle Edward. Wesson's father, helped her financially on occasions.)
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Ewing Family Lineage: Fidelia-Jonathan-William-James
By the time Edward came into the world on the 8th of September 1861, Phineas and Fidelia, who had a brief sojourn in Hancock County, Illinois were back at Vinton, Ohio. Edward struck out on his own at an early age, and thus he was not with the family in the census of 1880, when he was 18 years old.
Edward's daughter, Elizabeth MATTHEWS WESSON, tells it this way:
"My father was a business man, had only a part high school education. He was a poor boy and had never received anything except what he earned, yet he made a highly successful career for himself by going into the sand business - mining sand. At one time he organized and operated an augar bit factory, which he sold at a good profit. He was a very civic minded man, served on the city council for many years, was named an honorary member of the council in his old age and was always one of Jackson's most outstanding citizens. He was a man of his integrity. He said that he received 'his values of life' from his family."
Edward and Ida JONES were married 17 September 1864 at Jackson and raised five children there. They were very desirous in seeing to it their children had good educations, and at least, four of their children attended college, two graduating.
Ida had been a teacher in Jackson's public school prior to her marriage and afterwards was a long-time devoted clubwoman. She was a popular speaker, giving dramatic recitations.
Edward and Ida attended early Ewing reunions in Hillsdale, Michigan and Ewington, Ohio.
In June of 1939 there were items in the Jackson, Ohio paper to the effect that Edward "an active Jackson businessman" was at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland for treatment. Whatever it was, the treatment must have worked for Edward lived 10 more years. He died on 17 October 1949 at the age of 88 years and was buried at the Jackson Cemetery, Jackson, Ohio. Ida was 93 when she died 22 October 1957, and was buried with Edward.
ISSUE:
13-4-6-1 1. Corwin MATTHEWS, b. 5 May 1891, Jackson, Ohio.
13-4-6-2 2. Elizabeth Davis MATTHEWS, b. 1 Jan 1894, Jackson, Ohio.
3. Edward Baker MATTHEWS, JR., b. 28 Feb 1896 . Married: Mildred Elizabeth DUNCAN, Athens, Ohio, b. 1898. 1982: he was 86 years old and living at 247 N. LaPeer Drive, Beverly Hills, CA.
Issue:
1. Martha Jean MATTHEWS. Married: Dr. Albert J. SHELDON, a pediatrician and teacher at the University of California-Irvine. 1982: 2011 Louise Ave., Santa Anna, Calif.
2. Edward Baker MATTHEWS III, resided 1982: Ontario, Canada.
13-4-6-4 4. Blaine Ewing MATTHEWS, b. 16 Mar 1898, Jackson, Ohio.
13-4-6-5 5. Orus Jones MATTHEWS, b. 23 Jan 1900, Jackson, Ohio.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Edward-Fidelia-Jonathan-Willima-James
Corwin was born in Jackson, Ohio on 5 May 1891. He was a 1914 graduate of Dennison University.
When World War I came along, Corwin enlisted in the fray. At the time of that enlistment, 27 November 1917, he was living at 7 Church Street, Jackson, Ohio. He entered as a Second Lieutenant in the Cavalry. On 18 September 1918 he made First Lieutenant. Corwin served all that time at Fort Benjamin Harrison in Indiana in the 5th Cavalry until 15 February 1919, when he was sent to the Cavalry Officers Training School as an instructor. He was discharged 15 September 1919.
Following the war he became foreign representative of the International Harvester Company in Brussels, Belgium. After several years he returned to the United States and was employed in the Toledo, Ohio office of the George M. JONES Coal Company.
About 1930 his father needed some help with his sand mining business in Jackson and Corwin returned home living with the family at 7 Church Street. But after 10 years of working together, the two had a "falling out" and there was a parting of the ways. Corwin took a position with the Ohio Liquor Control Board in Columbus, Ohio.
Corwin was married and divorced three times. His third wife was Iva STEELE of Jackson, Ohio by whom he had his only child, William, born in 1935 at Jackson, Ohio.
At the time of his death, Corwin was retired from the Ohio Liquor Control Board and was living at 1319 Smith Road in Columbus, Ohio with Granett Marshall HENSLEY, who was the informant on his death certificate. Corwin died 19 August 1975 at Mercy Hospital, Columbus, Ohio at the age of 84 years. He is buried next to his father in the Jackson Cemetery, Jackson, Ohio.
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13-4-6-2 ELIZABETH DAVIS MATTHEWS
Ewing Family Lineage: Edward-Fidelia-Jonathan-William-James
Now here is a lovely lady, and a lady I love. I first met her when going through A.E. EWING'S correspondence. She had written to him, on her father's advice, back in 1938, with some questions on her ancestry, and A.E. replied. In 1978 I wanted to follow up on what A.E. had on the Edward BAKERS, and hoped and prayed Elizabeth was still in the Boston area where she had been in 1938. Well, she was - at 984 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02138 - and we started corresponding.
Elizabeth was still alive in April of 1984 at the age of 90 years. Elizabeth was so interested in family that she got out a little typescript booklet about the Edward BAKERS. In 1984 I had not seen the finished product, but she sent me several pages from the draft. It is something every person should do!
Elizabeth was born in Jackson, Ohio on the 1st of January 1894. She attended Dennison University and then Lake Erie College, but she did not graduate. She began the study of the violin at an early age and studied for years under the best teacher in Cleveland, Ohio. She was in local concerts where-ever she lived.
Elizabeth was married in Jackson, Ohio on 31 August 1916 to Laurence Goddard WESSON. Laurence was born 17 July 1888 in Worchester, Massachusetts. He was a graduate of Worchester Polytechnic Institute and got his Ph.D. from Harvard. He was a chemist and was with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for 18 years prior to his death. He was a member of several scientific societies.
Laurence died at Cambridge, Ohio on 23 December 1963 at the age of 75 years.
ISSUE:
13-4-6-2-1 1. Laurence Goddard WESSON JR., b. 18 Oct 1917, Midland, Michigan.
13-4-6-2-2 2. Robert G. WESSON, b. 11 Mar 1920, Washington, D.C.
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13-4-6-2-1 LAURENCE GODDARD WESSON JR.
Ewing Family Lineage: Elizabeth-Edward-Fidelia-Jonathan-William-James
Laurence was born 18 October 1917 in Midland, Michigan and was graduated from Haverford College in Haverford, Pennsylvania and from Harvard Medical School in 1942. During World War II he served as a battalion surgeon in Europe under General PATTON and then General PATCH.
Laurence is an authority on the kidney, and has published the foremost text on the kidney for medical school use. In 1978 Laurence was on the staff of Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Laurence was married on 4 June 1948 at Montclair, New Jersey to Eleanor ROELSE. Eleanor is the daughter of Harold and Kathryn (SARTELLE) ROELSE and was born 17 January 1923 in Albany.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Elizabeth-Edward-Fidelia-Jonathan-William-James
Robert was born 11 March 1920 in Washington, D.C., and is a graduate of the University of Arizona and from Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, where he got his Master's. After several years of service as a vice-consul in Venezuela and Columbia, he returned to school to get his Ph.D. at Columbia University. In 1978 he was professor of Political Science at the University of California - Santa Barbara. He is the author of many books dealing with the Soviet Union and Communism.
Robert was married on 31 May 1958 in Porte Alegre, Brazil to Deborah TARSIER, daughter of Pedro and Amelia TARSIER. Deborah was born 17 August 1937 in Brazil.
ISSUE:
1. Laura Helen WESSON, b. 16 Sept 1959, Princeton, New Jersey. 1978: student at California Institute of Technology.
2. Carol Ann WESSON, b. 2 June 1961, Lewiston, Maine.
3. Richard Matthews WESSON, b. 8 Dec 1962, Oxford, England.
4. Eric Alexander WESSON, b. 25 Mar 1965, Goleta, California.
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13-4-6-4 BLAINE EWING MATTHEWS
Ewing Family Lineage: Edward-Fidelia-Jonathan-William-James
Blaine was born 16 March 1898 in Jackson, Ohio. He too attended Denison University, but did not graduate. Blaine served only briefly during World War I. He enlisted 3 September 1918 and was sent to Officers Training School, but was discharged as a private 30 November 1918.
Elizabeth Wesson writes of her brother, "Blaine was a successful show manufacturer, and at the time of his death was part owner and president of Williams Manufacturing Company of Portsmouth, Ohio. Blaine died April 7, 1969, at Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota and his wife a few years later."
ISSUE:
2. Lida Fee MATTHEWS, Married: Lincoln KINNICUTT. 1978: resided Bloomfield, Conn.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Edward-Fidelia-Jonathan-William-James
Edward and Ida's fifth and last child, Orus, was an important person on the financial scene as an investment banker. He was in the 1955 issue of "WHO'S WHO IN AMERICA" - and most likely was in other issues as well.
Orus was young - 18 years at the time and living at 7 Church Street, Jackson, Ohio in his parents' home, when he enlisted on 9 October 1918, for World War I service. He was put into the Student Army Training Corps and sent to the University of Pennsylvania at Philadelphia. But he was not in long as he was discharged as a private 12 December 1918.
However, that two months at the University of Pennsylvania gave him the desire to want to attend the university as a full-time student and he enrolled, and received his Bachelor of Science Degree from there about 1922. Upon graduation he went with the Guaranty Company of New York, Philadelphia office.
In 1929 he was named vice-president. He was with that firm until June 1934, when the company dissolved and he went to Kidder, Peabody and Company of Philadelphia. A year later he was promoted, and that promotion prompted a story and picture on the front page of his hometown newspaper, The Jackson News-Advertiser, on 17 October 1935. The article said, in part:
"Orus was recently made a general partner in the investment banking firm of Kidder, Peabody and Co. of Philadelphia, New York and Boston. Matthews will be in charge of the Philadelphia offices where he has been located since June 1934, upon the dissolution of the Philadelphia National Co., of which he had been president.
"Though quite young (35) Matthews has been making rapid strides forward in the business world and his parents are well-pleased with his newest connection, it being one of the most outstanding and oldest investment firms in the country.
"In 1929 Matthews was active in organizing the Philadelphia National Co., securities affiliate of the Philadelphia National Bank, and later became president of the firm."
On 17 February 1937, Orus and Suzanne ARMSTRONG were united in marriage in New York City. Suzanne's parents were Frederick and Susan (BRAINERD) ARMSTRONG. The two established a home on Dodds Lane in Ardmore, outside Philadelphia, and raised their three children there.
Orus became very active in all sorts of organizations - historical (Sons of the American Revolution) fraternal (Phi Gamma Delta and Beta Gamma Sigma) and political (state and national GOP committees).
Orus was 64 years old when he died at Ardmore, Pennsylvania on 24 July 1964. As of 1978 Susanne was still living.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Jonathan-William-James
George Washington Ewing! With a name like that he had to be a fine man - and he was. Highly respected by all who knew him. Uncle Wash to most. The only son of Jonathan and Margaret to have progeny, he was the patriarch of a fine Hancock County, Illinois (and later points west) family - though again, mostly daughters, only one son who produced more Ewings.
He was of course a prominent figure at the early Hancock County reunions. He was president in at least 1907. He also attended the 1901 Ewing reunion in Hillsdale, Michigan and the one the same year in Ewington, Ohio. Of those two occasions A.E. later wrote:
"Everyone fell in love with Uncle Wash, and he seemed to be in love with every one of his relatives. He was very proud, and justly so, of his family and furnished me with their names."
George was born 29 May 1833 near Ewington. He grew up there and was 16 when the family made the journey (described earlier) across Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois to Hancock County in September 1849.
They had been in Illinois less than a year and George was only 17 when his father died. His brother Edward became the man of the house, but then in 1853, Edward too was gone and it fell to George, only 20, to assume the responsibility of the farm, his mother and his sister Margretta. And then in 1855 when Margretta married Reuben CRAVEN there was just George and Margaret.
The large landholders surrounding the 25 acres in Harmony Township play a large part in the story unfolding, as mentioned previously. Mastin COX was one of them.
Mastin and his wife, Malinda, arrived in Hancock County about 1834, to be among the earliest settlers. They took up land in Harmony Township and by 1874, the year of the atlas, Mastin and his sons owned many acres in the northeast corner of Harmony Township and in adjoining townships as well. The home place was in Harmony's Section 1, less than 1/2 mile from where it is believed George and Margaret lived.
Mastin and Malinda had a daughter, Eunice, born right there on the COX farm on 25 June 1836.
Eunice COX was only 13 when the Ewings came on the scene, but as time went on the "near-neighbor" young people became more and more aware of each other, and before long it was announced that a great day was coming at the Cox farm. A wedding was to take place on 11 January 1857. All the neighbors gathered round to hear Justice of the Peace, Reuben CRAVEN, George's brother-in-law, say the magic words that made George and Eunice one.
And the newlyweds had only a few yards to go and they were home!
George and Eunice spent the next 14 years there, on the farm "at the corner" (as Mabel BARBER puts it), the 25 acres so far east in Harmony Township they were almost in St. Mary's Township. they were there in the 1860 census, his mother with them, and in the 1870 census, just George and Eunice and the first five of their six children, Mother Margaret having by then gone to make her home with Margretta and Reuben CRAVEN. The children were Pearliette, Juliette, Edward, William and Sarah. Myrtle came along in 1873.
In 1871 Eunice's father, Mastin Cox, made available to George a 60 acre tract he owned in St. Mary's Township, a half mile east - down the road. The Ewings moved there in 1871 and that was their home for the rest of their lives. After 1874, George acquired from J. PRESTON an adjoining 20 acre plot to the north - the north half of the southeast section of the southwest section of Section 7, the only property he ever really owned. forty of his total 80 acres were in Section 18 and the other half in Section 7. George's farm was adjacent to J. ALESHIRE and D. ALESHIRE in 1874.
As for the little 25 acre plot at the edge of Harmony Township that they left, it eventually was acquired by Samuel and Nancy DICKINSON. Around the turn of the century Nancy built a house on it for their son, John, who had married Juliette EWING. John and Juliette's youngest child is Mabel BARBER of West Point, St. Alban's Township, Illinois. Mabel acquired through purchase and inheritance that 25 acres plus some 150 acres of family (COX and ATCHISON) land adjoining.
Thus in approximately 1984, some 134 years later, the land Jonathan EWING lived on during his brief time in Hancock County, Illinois, is in the possession of his great-great granddaughter, Mabel.
Whatever housing was on his St. Mary's farm at the time, George soon replaced it with a comfortable frame house, small but neat and suitable to their needs. The house was only a mile from Shiloh School and it is assumed that is where their children attended.
It was in that house on 4 January 1908, after 50 years of marriage and six children, that George and Eunice celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary. The occasion meant a long and flowery piece in the local paper. Excerpts from it include the following:
"On the first of October, 1849, he arrived in Hancock County and has been a resident ever since. He married Miss Eunice COX who has lived in this county all her life and has never ridden on a train or trolley car. They have lived on the same farm for the last 36 years.
"Only two, Floyd and Warren COX, who congratulated those young people on their wedding day, are left to greet them at this 50th milestone in the journey of their wedded life. Many are the changes that have fallen under the eyes of these dear ones since they were married 50 years ago. The country in which they have spent all those years was then a prairie, save for the homes of a few courageous settlers scattered here and there. In the past half century they have seen Hancock County develop into a great farm garden, rich in everything that makes a farmer paradise, thickly dotted with comfortable homes."
Only immediate family, numbering 14, plus young grandchildren, were present for the anniversary celebration at the Ewing home. Dinner was served at noon ("a bountiful and elegant dinner") and in the evening peanuts, candies and oysters were served. Among their gifts were a gold fountain pen, a gold-headed cane, gold-rimmed glasses and a Morris chair.
George was 73 at the time. Two years later he went into a decline and died 28 April 1910. Again, an article in the local paper:
"For a year he had been in failing health. In the early fall, his granddaughter, Miss Olive EWING, gave up her parents, brother and sisters, home, young friends and associates at East Lynn, Missouri, to come and wait on Grandpa. As cold winter came on, another grandchild, Thane DICKINSON, came too and during all the long, cold winter those two faithful grandchildren did their duty until the departing of his life which occurred Thursday, April 28, at 8 a.m.
"There was no funeral. The Masonic order of which he had been a faithful member for over 53 years took charge of the body from the residence and performed their funeral ceremony at the Holland Cemetery, St. Mary's Township, where the remains were laid to rest on Friday at 3 p.m., April 29, 1910."
There were eighty-six wagons and nine buggies in the procession to the cemetery.
Myrtle was the executrix of his estate.
Eunice lived 3 1/2 more years. She died 4 November 1913 at the age of 77 years and is buried beside George in the Holland Cemetery, St. Mary's Township, Illinois.
ISSUE:
13-7-1 1. Pearliette Alvina EWING, b. 25 Dec 1857, Hancock County, Illinois.
13-7-2 2. Juliette Melvina EWING, b. 10 May 1859, Hancock County, Illinois.
13-7-3 3. Edward Ettore EWING, b. 19 Mar 1862, Hancock County, Illinois.
13-7-4 4. William Lafayette EWING, b. 10 May 1865, Hancock County, Illinois.
13-7-5 5. Sarah Emmaline EWING, b. 8 Aug 1867, Hancock County, Illinois.
6. Myrtle EWING, b. 8 Apr 1873, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 12 Oct 1943, single. Lived at home, after her parents' deaths lived in Denver, the southern part of Harmony Township, Hancock County, Illinois.
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13-7-1 PEARLIETTE ALVINA EWING
Ewing Family Lineage: George-Jonathan-William-James
It was Christmas Day, 1857 and the little log house in Harmony Township's Section 1, where George and Eunice and Grandmother Margaret lived, was bustling with activity - not holiday activity on this particular December 25, though...on this date a Ewing was about to be born.
That baby turned out to be Pearliette, first of six for George and Eunice.
Pearliette grew up in that home and in the one her parents moved to when she was 13 years old, the 80 acre farm over in St. Mary's Township, Hancock County, Illinois. She attended school nearby and later taught school herself.
Adjoining their new farm was the 160 acre farm of James and Pamelia (BOYD) WHITE. They owned the southeast quarter of Section 7. In the household was Morris Armstrong WHITE, born on the 27th of June 1858, in McDonough County, next door to Hancock County, Illinois. Also in the family was little Mary Jane who eight years hence would marry Pearliette's younger brother, William.
Spending their teen years on adjoining farms, Morris and Pearliette got to know each other well and before too many years went by they decided this was it. Their wedding was set for the 26th of September 1880.
After their marriage the two made their home close to the farms of both the Whites and Ewings. Morris was engaged in farming and stock-raising until 1905. He was on the local school board 15 years and was road commissioner two years.
Morris and Pearliette had five children, two of whom died young. The fifth, Susie Pearl, was born 21 August 1897. Six months later, on 25 February 1898, Pearliette died, at only 41 years of age.
Morris with three children, 16, 14 and 6 months, married a second time on the 5th of January 1899 to Mary (FALDER) ANDERSON, widow of Ellard ANDERSON and mother of Clifford ANDERSON, 6. Pearliette's three were raised with Clifford, and with Grace Mae WHITE who was born to Morris and Mary on the 26th of January 1903.
The Whites moved to a 126 acre farm in Hancock Township in 1905. In 1907 they moved back to the St. Mary's Township farm, but after three years were back on the Hancock Township farm, where they spent the rest of their lives. Morris had a stroke in March of 1944 and he died 19 April 1945. Mary, ill with cancer, died 5 July 1945.
ISSUE:
13-7-1-1 1. Burton Oliver WHITE, b. 27 June 1881, St. Mary's Township, Hancock County, Illinois.
13-7-1-2 2. Frederick WHITE, b. 14 Dec 1883, St. Mary's Township, Hancock County, Illinois.
3. Frank WHITE, b. 6 Nov 1886, St. Mary's Township, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 10 March 1888.
4. Son WHITE, b. 15 June 1890, St. Mary's Township, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 18 June 1890.
13-7-1-5 5. Susie Pearl WHITE, b. 21 Aug 1897, St. Mary's Township, Hancock County, Illinois.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Pearliette-George-Jonathan-William-James
The date of Burton's birth was 22 June 1881, and the place was the White farm in St. Mary's Township, Hancock County, Illinois. Burton spent a few of his early years in the West but returned to Hancock County to marry Blanche (KIMBROUGH) WILCOX on the 27th of April 1915. Blanche was born 8 January 1887, at Middle Creek to Thomas J. and Amelia (COX) KIMBROUGH, who had 80 acres in Section 23, Carthage Township, Illinois. Blanche had three children by her previous marriage.
Burton had a heart condition and died 11 August 1951 at the age of 70 years. No record of Blanche's death was located.
ISSUE:
1. (only). Maria Perlia WHITE, b. 6 Sept 1916, Hancock County, Illinois. Married: 15 Jan 1936, Willard Eugene CARLE, b. 23 Mar 1916, Hancock County, Illinois son of Clifford and Elva (SMITH) CARLE. Willard was plant manager for Minute Maid Corp. in California.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Pearliette-George-Jonathan-William-James
Frederick and his wife, Grace JUDY, celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary on Valentine's Day, 1956, 50 years after their marriage the 14 February 1906. Frederick was born on the 14th of December 1883, on the White farm. Frederick died of a stroke 3 January 1960, age 76 years. Grace was born on the 6th of July 1884 at Plymouth, Illinois to Lewis and Sarah (CALDWELL) JUDY and lived to be 92 years old, dying on the 15th of January 1977.
Except for 2 1/2 years at Hope, Arkansas, near Fayetteville, and a short time in Kansas, the Whites lived all their married life in Hancock County, Illinois.
ISSUE:
1. Donald Francis WHITE, b. 30 Jan 1912, Tennessee, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 1977, of cancer. Married: 31 Dec 1933, Quincy, Illinois, Thelma BLINES, b. 15 Sept 1913 daughter of Charles and Florence (WALKER) BLINES. Donald was a carpenter.
Issue:
2. Floyd Ettore WHITE, b. 14 Aug 1914, Fayetteville, Arkansas. Married: 1 Sept 1936, Alexandria, Virginia, Elsie Victoria VICKERS, b. 9 Apr 1914, daughter of Charles and Ann VICKERS. Floyd in ministry 14 years, then became a millwright, employed by American Motors, Kenosha, Wisconsin.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Pearliette-George-Jonathan-William-James
Susie was born 2 August 1897 and six months later her mother died, her father's second wife, Mary, was the only mother she ever knew. She was a 1917 graduate of Western Illinois State Normal Academy, and in 1925 was graduated from Illinois State Teacher's Junior College. She taught in public schools for seven years and at the Adventure School (private) in Geneva, Illinois, one year.
On 7 August 1928, Susie married John Martin SWAN. John was born in Chicago on 4 December 1899, to John and Ida (CARLSON) SWANSON. John dropped the "son" from his name when in his teens. At the time of his death 27 August 1963 in Edmonds, Washington, from a heart attack, he had been a sales executive with Shell Oil for 30 years.
ISSUE:
1. (only). Morris Martin SWAN, b. 1 May 1930, Seattle, Washington, d. 28 Sept 1958, Yreka, Siskoyou County, California. Plane crash, he was a First Lieutenant in the Air Force, and active in the Air Force Reserve; at the time of his death he was a claims adjuster for Travelers Insurance Company, Riverside, California.
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Ewing Family Lineage: George-Jonathan-William-James
When we get to Juliette, we get back to the Dickinsons and Atchisons referred to previously along with the Coxes, who were all large landholders in the northeast corner of Harmony Township, Hancock County, Illinois - almost surrounding the 25 acre plot where it is believed, George, Eunice, Margaret and Jonathan Ewing lived.
Juliette married into the DICKINSON and ATCHISON families and through that union her progeny can claim relationship to the owners of a good portion of Section 1, 2 and 12 of Harmony Township, plus land in adjoining townships as well, as noted in the 1874 ATLAS.
Juliette was born 10 May 1859 in the Ewing cabin in
Section 1. She was about 12 years old when her parents moved over into St. Mary's Township, onto property owned by her grandfather Mastin COX. They were still in the Middle Creek community, and Juliette spent as much time back in Harmony Township with her grandparents as in St. Mary's Township. When her grandmother, Malinda COX, died and her grandfather Mastin Cox was left alone, Juliette went to live with him, to keep house for him and tend to his needs. She was listed with him in the 1880 census. He was then 66, a retired farmer, born in Virginia.
A near neighbor to Mastin Cox was Samuel DICKINSON. Samuel was born in Queen County, Ireland in 1819 and came to America and to Hancock County, Illinois with his parents in 1832. He married Martha JOHNSON, who died in 1851, and then he formed a union with another old Hancock County family headed by John ATCHISON when he married Nancy ATCHISON in 1855. John Atchison had also come from Ireland and a few years after his arrival in Hancock County he had some 700 or so acres of land, most of it in the northeast corner of Harmony Township, spilling over into St. Mary's Township.
John had two daughters, one by each wife. The first married Thomas I. WALKER and they had 200 acres of land in Section 11 of Harmony Township in the 1874 ATLAS. The other daughter, Nancy, married Samuel DICKISON, and they had a 100 acre farm in Harmony Township's sections 2 and 11, plus a 40 acre parcel in Section 2, close by. It is understood that the two daughters fell heir to most of John Atchison's property on his death.
Into the home of Samuel and Nancy Dickinson came a son John on 12 June 1861. He and Juliette grew up in close proximity to one another, and in time the friendship became romance and the two set the day - the wedding took place 18 March 1886, when John was 24 and Juliette 26.
Soon after their marriage John and Juliette and others in the family, Juliette's younger brother Edward, and their cousin Clara CRAVEN and her husband Andrew Jackson REED, went out to Kansas. The Dickinsons took up a government claim, and later a "tree" (?) claim near Dighton, Lane County, Kansas. The homesteaders lived in a two-room sod house and there their first child, a daughter, was born the 21st of August 1888, only to die two weeks later. She was buried in a cemetery nearby. Years later their youngest daughter, Mabel, wrote:
"In 1929, when I took my parents to Denver, we stopped at the cemetery where their baby was buried. The walnut slab that was the headmarker was still there. Dad had driven 15 miles to get it. While there they had a small stone put up."
Life on the prairie was hard. Think of hauling every drop of water you had 10 miles in a wooden barrel, for instance!
It was necessary to stay three years. When that time was up, the Dickinsons made a beeline for home, Clara and Andrew Reed with them. Brother Edward remained in Kansas.
On their return to Hancock County, widow Nancy DICKINSON had a two-room house and a small barn built and a shallow well dug for John and his family on the 25 acre plot in Harmony Township's Section 1, where the Ewings had lived prior to their move to St. Mary's Township, and in fact, land on which Juliette had been born.
John and Juliette had no sooner moved in than Thane Edward DICKINSON was born 11 November 1889. Seven children followed, two of them to die in infancy. The family was complete with the arrival of Mabel on the 29th of December 1904.
"We didn't realize we were crowded and poor" Mabel wrote, "for there was a lot of love in that little house. We each had our own chores, and there wasn't any arguing. The greatest punishment our mother ever gave was, 'I'll tell your poppy on you.' Wow, we knew what to expect!"
Through the years, improvements to the "home place" as Mabel calls it, included the addition of a big kitchen and a walk-in closet in 1910. "Then we thought we were really living!" Mabel remembers. By 1924 John was able to have a big barn built, and in 1926 he added on three bedrooms and two porches.
Through the years all of the children, the three sons and two of the daughters, except Rhoda, went out on their own. Rhoda had meningitis when she was 18 months old, and as a result was physically handicapped. She remained at home with her parents. Rhoda's greatest enjoyment, to fill the hours, was to keep a diary and to make scrapbooks - for everyone who would take them. She attended the 1937 Ewing reunion near Burnside, Illinois with her father.
Juliette was the first to leave. She died on the 11th of October 1932, at the age of 73 years in the home she and John had shared for 42 years. John lived 9 more years, he died the 14th of February 1942. Buried: Holland Cemetery, St. Mary's Township, Hancock County, Illinois.
ISSUE:
1. Daughter DICKINSON, b. 21 Aug 1888, Lane County, Kansas, d. 3 Sept 1888, Buried: Lane Co. Kansas.
2. Thane Edward DICKINSON, b. 11 Nov 1889, Section 1, Harmony Township, Hancock Co., IL, d. 27 Sept 1945. Married: 8 Sept 1930, Eulah COUCHMAN, Granddaughter of W.O. COUCHMAN, owner in 1874 of 80 acres, Section 11, in "Ewingville," Harmony Township, where Thane and Eulah lived the rest of their lives; she died 28 April 1973; he was in the U.S. Army during World War I, on his way to the front when the Armistice was signed. No Issue.
13-7-2-3 3. Olof Britt DICKINSON, b. 11 Oct 1890, Section 1, Harmony Township, Hancock Co., ILL.
4. Son DICKINSON, b. 3 Sept 1891, d. 18 Oct 189, Section 1, Harmony Township, Hancock Co., ILL.
5. Son DICKINSON, b. 17 Jan 1893, d. 7 Apr 1893, Section 1, Harmony Township, Hancock Co., ILL.
13-7-2-6 6. Mary Gladys DICKINSON, b. 8 Jan 1896, Section 1, Harmony Township, Hancock Co., ILL.
13-7-2-7 7. William Galen DICKINSON, b. 11 Jan 1897, Section 1, Harmony Township, Hancock Co., ILL.
8. Rhoda Myrtle DICKINSON, b. 14 Feb 1899, Section 1, Harmony Township, Hancock Co., ILL, d. 24 June 1974, Buried: Holland Cemetery, Single, physically handicapped, from meningitis.
13-7-2-9 9. Mabel Pauline DICKINSON, b. 29 Dec 1904, Section 1, Harmony Township, Hancock Co., ILL.
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13-7-2-3 OLOF BRITT DICKINSON
Ewing Family Lineage: Juliette-George-Jonathan-William-James
Of her brother, born 11 October 1890, on the Dickinson farm in Section 1, Mabel writes: "Olof farmed, but he was also a lover of the great outdoors. He made many trips to Colorado to hunt with friends.
Olof could always find someone to go fishing with him. Whenever work permitted, he aimed to attend all the ball games held nearby. My folks and some of the neighbors thought Olof and I had lost our senses the afternoon we drove to Carthage in mud, axle deep, to watch a college football game and sit on the bleachers in a heavy rain. We were as wet as the players. He had lots of patience with his kid sister."
Olof was married on 6 May 1915, to Goldie BOSTON, daughter of Charles and Rowena (YETTER) BOSTON and granddaughter of Ruben J. and Sarah (DALE) BOSTON who owned land in Southern Carthage in 1874. Goldie inherited that land, and that is where she and Olof lived after their marriage.
Goldie died in 1945 and Olof married, on 6 October 1946, Edith (HARDING) JOHNSON, who was born 20 July 1890.
Olof was 75 when he died 6 July 1966. He is buried at Moss Ridge Cemetery, Carthage, Illinois.
ISSUE by Goldie:
1. (only). Glen Boston DICKINSON, b. 26 July 1918. Married: 17 June, 1944, Ann RHEA, born 20 Apr 1920, Birmingham, England. During World War II Ann served in the British Women's Land Army and Glen was a radio operator with the U.S. Armed Forces, 28 Oct 1941 to 19 Sept 1945.
1984: Glen a farmer, presumably Hancock Co., ILL.
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13-7-2-6 MARY GLADYS DICKINSON
Ewing Family Lineage: Juliette-George-Jonathan-William-James
Mary, born 8 January 1896 in Harmony Township, Hancock County, Illinois, attended Gem City Business College in Quincy, Illinois. Because of asthma and bronchial trouble, she went north and worked in the business office at the University in Fargo, North Dakota. Mary later moved to Denver, Colorado and was married there on 5 December 1929 to Thomas W. CRAWFORD, who was born 10 August 1894. Thomas had been in the service abroad, but was a government surveyor until his retirement.
The Crawfords had a son who was born 10 October 1930 and died the same day. Then on 16 January 1933, David William CRAWFORD came along. One week later the mother was gone. The date of Mary's death was 23 January 1933. Mary is buried at the Fairmont Cemetery in Denver, Colorado.
When David was 9 months old, Mary's sister, Mabel DICKINSON and her husband, Harold Frank BARBER, took him into their home in Hancock County, Illinois and raised him like the son they never had.
Thomas died 10 December 1968 and is buried with Mary at the Fairmont Cemetery, Denver, Colorado.
ISSUE:
1. Son CRAWFORD, b&d 10 Oct 1930, Denver, Colorado. Buried: Orchard Mesa Cemetery, Grand Junction, Colorado.
13-7-2-6-2 2. David William CRAWFORD, b. 16 Jan 1933, Denver, Colorado.
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13-7-2-6-2 DAVID WILLIAM CRAWFORD
Ewing Family Lineage: Mary-Juliette-George-Jonathan-William-James
David who was born on the 16th of January 1933 in Denver, Colorado, was motherless when he was a week old with the death of his mother, Mary, on the 23rd of January 1933. When he was 9 months old, his Aunt Mable Ewing and her husband, Harold Franklin BARBER, came and got him and took him home with them and into their household, to raise him with their daughter, Marilyn, who came along five years later.
At that time, Harold and Mabel were living with his widowed mother, Mary (LUCIE) BARBER, on the old Lucie farm in St. Albans Township, Section 3, Hancock County, Illinois - and that is where David grew up. When it came time for high school he went to Carthage High the first two years, riding into town with Harold, who worked there. The last two years he went to Bowen High, down in Chili Township, as school buses were running then.
David went on to college, attending a technical school in Nashville, Tennessee. He took Diesel and Auto Mechanics, which included welding, his great love.
David met a young lady, Phyllis STAFF, who rode the same school bus he did back in Hancock County. Phyllis was born 4 January 1935 and they were married 1 June 1952.
The newlyweds moved to Phoenix, Arizona. David had a good job with Glendale Welding in Glendale, Arizona. Phyllis went to night school while working as a nurses aide in hospitals. Phyllis graduated as a Registered Nurse.
In 1979 their address was 905 E. Seldon Lane, Phoenix, Arizona.
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13-7-2-7 WILLIAM GALEN DICKINSON
Ewing Family Lineage; Juliette-George-Jonathan-William-James
William, or Galen, as he was always called, was born 11 January 1897 and lived within a mile and a half of the place of his birth all of his life. He came into the world on the "home place" - the 25 acres belonging to his Grandmother Nancy (ATCHISON) DICKINSON, where John and Juliette lived, and went out of this world 79 years later, just a section and a half down the road, on the 140 acre farm which had belonged to his Dickinson grandparents beginning about 1850.
When Samuel DICKINSON died the old farm went to Nancy and then to her two unmarried sons. On their deaths in 1942, William fell heir. William and his wife, Flossie MC CORD - they were married 28 September 1918, gladly moved onto the Heritage Farm, a Centennial farm for sure.
William loved the old place and took great pride in it, and so did Flossie. After his retirement as a farmer, he kept up an immense garden to supply the needs of his children and grandchildren.
Flossie died 27 March 1976 and William six months and three days later on 30 September 1976.
On his death, the old place went to his son and daughter. William Jr., who owns the buildings and pasture and together he and Dorcas own the farming ground. William and his family live in the old homestead and love it as much as his parents did.
At the time of this writing, about 134 years old and always occupied by one of the family. Just think!
ISSUE:
12-7-2-7-1 1. William Galen DICKINSON JR., b. 3 Oct 1919.
2. Dorcas Lynn DICKINSON - (14 years later) , b. 5 Oct 1933. Married: 5 Sept 1954, Dr. Garland EMERSON, a dentist. 1979: resided Rout 5, Bassett, Virginia. Dorcas owns part of the Old Dickinson farm in Hancock County, Illinois.
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13-7-2-7-1 WILLIAM GALEN DICKINSON JR.
Ewing Family Lineage: William-Juliette-George-Jonathan-William-James
William was born 3 October 1919 near the old Dickinson farm which is now his. Nearby were the Bostons family into which William's Uncle Olof married many years before. A daughter of the Ernest BOSTONS was Marjorie, born 27 August 1923.
War clouds were gathering when William and Marjorie were married across the river in Kahoka, Missouri on the 12th of November 1940. They had two children, but by 1944 the Selective Service Administration was taking fathers of two, and William was drafted. William served from March 1944 to 1946.
William worked in Army post offices in the Pacific Theater during his two years in the service. One time he was sent to Okinawa and he was eager to get there because mail was awaiting him, and he had been without any mail for two months. When he arrived in Okinawa he was greeted by a typhoon. His letters, all 50 of them, his first mail in so long, were soaked and completely unreadable!
After service he returned to Marjorie, the children and life in Hancock County. He was a farmer, but also night patrolman for the city of Carthage, Illinois, a job from which he retired after many years of service. Marjorie worked for and retired after many years from the bookkeeping department of Memorial Hospital in Carthage.
On William Sr.'s death, William Jr., took over the old Dickinson homestead - a place both he and Marjorie loved as much as the three generations of Dickinsons before them.
William and Marjorie celebrated their Ruby Anniversary at the old home place on Route 1 on 12 November 1980. The party was given for them by their five children and Marjorie's mother.
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13-7-2-9 MABEL PAULINE DICKINSON
Ewing Family Lineage: Juliette-Geroge-Jonathan-William-James
My friendship with Mabel, across the miles, began on the 24th of February 1979, minutes after I had talked to her nephew, William DICKINSON JR. in Hancock County, Illinois. He directed me to Mabel, I called her, she expressed great interest and we have had this bond ever since.
She was so interested in her mother's Ewing family that she had already gathered in all the data on the progeny of her Ewing great-grandfather, George Washington EWING - and had compiled it into a little booklet. Her daughter, Marilyn, was then in the process of typing it up for distribution to various members of the family.
Mabel shared that information with me, and it comprises most of what you are reading here.
In turn, I was able to help Mabel realize a deep desire - to get into the DAR, Marilyn too.
Because she is right there on the scene where so much Ewing history has happened - Hancock County - she has been able to help me in so many other ways too. In spite of a nasty fall in May of 1982, resulting in a broken right arm at the shoulder and a broken left leg about the knee, which ended in arthritis and subsequent surgery to replace the knee entirely, Mabel had done lots of research for me there in Hancock County, and every bit of it has been no end of help to me.
Mabel, born 29 December 1904, brought up the rear of John and Juliette's nine children. She was born in the two-room house on the "home place" which now, nearly 80 years later, belongs to her.
Mabel attended the one-room Independence School down the road - where she went back later to teach. With so much family in the neighborhood the entire class must have been all cousins.
When high school time came she moved into Denver, down in the southern part of the Township and stayed with her Aunt Myrtle EWING during her two years there. The school was changed to a three-year school but Mabel decided she wanted to go to Carthage for the last two years.
My older sister, Mary Gladys, was working at the college office and was in her junior year at the college at that time. Our oldest brother, Thane, had a Model T and he suggested we stay out home and drive the 10 miles to school. No gravel on the roads at that time, and like this year it rained about every day. Mud holes, flat tires and ditches and two girls were ready to rent an apartment after one month.
"My Senior year at Carthage College Academy I was busy taking care of a sweet little three-year-old girl in their home, and loving every moment of it. My Freshman year at college I stayed with their brother's family at the other end of town. There were three children (the baby is now my lawyer and a good friend) to be dressed and fed - and it was 11 blocks to school. Now they jog, then I RAN! Those days I had an 11 o'clock class, and one at 1:15, that was the way to go and the only way.
"At that time with one year of college work we could get our teachers certificates. I taught in rural schools nine years, five before marriage and four after."
A fellow teacher was one Harold Franklin BARBER, called Frank. He was born 26 March 1906 in Bear Creek Township to Charles and Mary (LUCIE) BARBER. Harold went to school in the county, attended college one year and taught four years.
His father died three months after Mabel and Harold were married the 20 February 1930, and they moved back on the farm with his mother. She had lived there all her life but for a few years. She had always had poor health, but they were there 35 years until her death in August of 1965. The October following her death, they bought the house in West Point, St. Alban's principal town, where Mabel now lives.
Harold's Grandmother LUCIE had built the house when she retired from the farm. After her death the home passed out of the family hands, but before long the owners decided to sell, just at the time Harold and Mabel were looking for a home to purchase. A "For Sale" sign went up at 4:30 one afternoon. Neighbors called Mabel and Harold right away. They went in at 5:30 to go through the house again. The papers were filled out the next morning and by 9:30 a.m. the Barbers had themselves a house. The realtor told them that was the easiest sale he had ever made.
In 1979 Mabel wrote about West Point. "It is a small town of about 200. It was a thriving town 40 or 50 years ago, but now there are many retired people, and younger couples who drive to work in Keokuk and Quincy. We still have a grocery store, Masonic Hall, post office and elevator. There are four churches - Methodist, Christian, Assembly of God and Catholic."
As for the family property back in Harmony Township, the home place, Mabel's birthplace and her mother's before her, and many acres surrounding it, her father, John DICKINSON was left 85 acres when his mother, Nancy Atchison DICKINSON, died. Mabel bought out the other heirs, and her Uncle Samuel DICKINSON Jr., left her the 90 acre farm adjoining the property upon his death, so that Mabel owned some 175 acres in Harmony Township's Section 1 and 12. The 53 acres of timber pasture across the road in St. Mary's Township are in Marilyn's name. "She and Terry get only
enough income from it to pay the taxes," Mabel says, "but it gives them some experience. Now they know farming isn't all profit!"
Mabel rents out her farm. The renter she has had for 40 years retired this year at the age of 83, and in May it was rented out to a young man who had just graduated from high school that month. He is very interested in farming. "As his father lives near by to help, we were glad to give him a chance at it."
While Mabel was still teaching, when they were first married, and living in the Lucie farm with his mother, Harold was working part time with the Farm Program, measuring farm fields. Later he worked in the county office, and became manager. After several years of work in Carthage he was named State Fieldman over 12 counties, and headquartered in Springfield, Illinois.
Mabel left teaching when her 9-month old orphan nephew David came into their home, to be joined five years later by Marilyn. Mabel took care of the livestock and had a big garden from which she did a lot of canning. They had their own beef, pork, vegetables and fruit, and she froze at least 100 fryers each year.
In 1960 the counties were all redistricted which meant a turnover of personnel. Frank was the first to go, as he had been the last one in. However, he was only off two months when he was hired as manager of the Hancock Grain Company elevator at Denver, Illinois - only about six miles from home.
Frank retired 1 December 1968 because of ill health. Twenty-three days later, on Christmas Eve, he was gone, age 61. He is buried there at West Point, Hancock County, Illinois.
"Well, we had three good, belated honeymoon years in our home here," Mabel wrote me. "I'll stay here as long as I can drive and have these wonderful neighbors."
Through the ensuing 15 1/2 years Mabel has gotten involved in handicraft, such as china painting, ceramics, eyelet embroidery, crochet, quilting, etc. There are several widow women in town to eat out with, and to talk to upon occasion. Mable travels quite a bit - or did before her fall. She hops on a bus and goes anywhere. Marilyn and her family live not too far away in Kirksville, Missouri and they see each other frequently, and David and his family come often to visit. And she has the DAR.
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13-7-2-9-1 MARILYN GLADYS BARBER
Ewing Family Lineage: Mabel-Juliette-George-Jonathan-William-James
Marilyn was born in the farm home of her LUCIE great-grandparents in St. Albans Township, Hancock County, Illinois, two miles north of West Point. The date was 17 October 1938. There was another young person in the household when she arrived. He was her 5 year old cousin David, but they were like sister and brother all through their years at home and ever since.
Marilyn graduated from Bowen High School and went to Gem City Business College in Quincy, Illinois. She worked at LIKES Jewelers in Quincy and became their bookkeeper when they opened a new store in Hannibal, Missouri. Later she left the firm to go to Northeastern State College in Kirksville. While at college she worked in the registrar's office and that is where she met Terry GIBBONS and that was the end of her college career.
Terry was born 15 October 1940 and was in charge of the keys at the college - Key Security Specialist. Terry had a bad heart attack in May of 1981, but was able to returned to work in August.
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Ewing Family Lineage: George-Jonathan-William-James
Edward, born 19 March 1862, in Harmony Township, was out on his own by the time he was 18, or so the census would indicate. At least in the 1880 census he was listed as a farm laborer with the family of William and Georgiana WALTON, who had a 80 acres farm in Section 12 of Harmony Township. He was also listed that same year with his own family, at home.
In 1886, Edward's sister, Juliette, and her husband, John DICKINSON, were leaving from Kansas. Edward, then 24, decided to go with them. They went to Dighton, Sutton Township, Lane County, Kansas. Three years later the Dickinsons returned to Hancock County, Illinois, but Edward, who taught school in Lane County, remained.
In the early 1890s Edward met another schoolteacher, Minnie C. FREEMAN, born 6 June 1866 in Lynn, Indiana, and they were married 1 May 1892. Minnie had previously taught in Greenwood County, Kansas where one of her pupils was a Herman MARTIN.
After marriage, Edward turned to farming. They had a good place going and after the good wheat crop of 1903, they were able to build a nice two-story farm home.
But soon after the turn of the century, Edward's health failed and it became necessary to give up the farm and move into Dighton. They needed someone to look after the farm, and Minnie thought of her student back in Greenwood County, Herman MARTIN. In 1904 Herman and two sons, Roy and Ward, went to the Sutton Township farm and worked it for three years on shares. In 1905 two more Martin sons followed. The Martins eventually went into homesteading themselves.
Dighton was remembered in "KAMSAS PIONEERS," 1975, Topeka Genealogical Society, as being "Where the only trees in town grew at the bank, but many windmills wheeled in the wind."
While Edward and Minnie were in Dighton, Edward was in real estate and insurance.
Edward was in Hot Springs, Arkansas when he died on the
15th of September 1916, age 54 years. Minnie died 9 January 1926. Both are buried at Sutton Cemetery, Dighton, Kansas.
NO ISSUE
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13-7-4 WILLIAM LAFAYETTE EWING
Ewing Family Lineage: George-Jonathan-William-James
Here is another William and Mary Ewing. This William, born in Harmony Township, Hancock County, Illinois, 10 May 1865, married Mary Jane WHITE on 10 February 1889, in Hancock County, thus forming a union of two first names which are very important in this history.
Mary was born 18 March 1868 in McDonough County, next door to Hancock County. She was the young sister of Morris WHITE, who nine years earlier had married William's sister, Pearliette. Mary and Morris were children of James and Pamelia Ann (BOYD) WHITE.
William and Mary began married life in Hancock County, but departed Hancock briefly in favor of Galveston, Texas - but very briefly, apparently between children, because their first five are recorded as having been born in St. Mary's Township, Hancock County, Illinois.
About 1900 William's brother Edward was writing from Dighton about the glories of homesteading in Kansas and in 1901, William and Mary succumbed, as did his sister Sarah and her husband, John Smith. The Ewings took up residence near Dighton in a two-room sod house! Their sixth, Pauline, was born there in December 1902.
Two more daughters came along after that in the sod house on the Kansas prairie. William was not satisfied, and the family, totaling 10 now, moved on in about 1908, to East Lynn, Missouri. But even that was not the right place. The Ewings finally found their way to Douglas County, Kansas, where they established a farm at Richland, 14 miles southwest of Lawrence, Kansas. William and Mary lived there 30 years. Lawrence is midway between Topeka and Kansas City.
The family of seven daughters and one son grew up, married and moved away.
In 1939 there was a big occasion to bring all, or most, back - William and Mary's Golden Wedding Anniversary. It was to be celebrated on 17 February 1939. On January 30th William wrote to his cousin A.E. Ewing and thus I have a letter from William in the files and A.E.'s lengthy reply. William's letter reads:
"I am a son of G.W. Ewing . I have heard him speak of you lots of times.
"We are going to celebrate our 50th wedding anniversary on the 17th of February, 1939, if we live until then. We live eight miles east of Richland, 14 miles southwest of Lawrence, Kan. I was at the Ewing reunion at Burnside a year ago last August, the first reunion I ever attended. We have seven girls and one boy, 24 grandchildren, six great-grandchildren. Our children are all married, two in Wenatchee, Wash., one in Tucson, Ariz., balance in Kansas. We have 56 relatives living including first cousins. I will be 74 - 10th of next May. My wife will be 72 - 18th of March. Thirty-eight living we went to school with. Don't you think we are about to catch up with Mary McNeal Ewing? I have the Ewing genealogy that my Father had. My Father was born in Gallia County, Ohio, May 29, 1833. Died April 27, 1910. I have a picture of the old log cabin built in Ohio. Was that where my father was born or do you know? I don't. I have one sister living in Carthage, Ill.
"I was looking over some clippings today and saw where you had written to the Burnside reunion a few years ago, so thought I would write a few lines to you."
W.L. Ewing
William did live for their anniversary celebration, but not much afterward. He died 1 February 1940, at the age of 70 years. Mary died 6 October 1946. Both are buried at the Memorial Park Cemetery, Lawrence, Kansas.
ISSUE:
13-7-4-1 1. Olive White EWING, b. 24 Dec 1890, Plymouth, St. Mary's Township, Hancock Co., IL.
13-7-4-2 2. Helen Eunice EWING, b. 12 April 1893, Plymouth, St. Mary's Township, Hancock Co., IL.
13-7-4-3 3. Robert Morris EWING, b. 31 Dec 1894, Plymouth, St. Mary's Township, Hancock Co., IL..
13-7-4-4 4. Beatrice Belle EWING, b. 27 Sept 1898, Plymouth, St. Mary's Township, Hancock Co., IL.
13-7-4-5 5. Frieda EWING, b. 10 Sept 1900, Plymouth, St. Mary's Township, Hancock Co., IL.
13-7-4-6 6. Pauline EWING, b. 18 Dec 1902, Dighton, Lane County, Kansas.
13-7-4-7 7. Alice May EWING, b. 12 July 1905, Dighton, Lane County, Kansas.
13-7-4-8 8. Minnie Roselyn EWING, b. 20 Apr 1907, Dighton, Lane County, Kansas.
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Ewing Family Lineage: William-George-Jonathan-William-James
Olive was born 24 December 1890 at Plymouth, St. Mary's Township, Hancock County, Illinois and was 11 when the family moved to Dighton, Lane County, Kansas. In the fall of 1909, when the family was living in East Lynn, Missouri, Olive left home and hearth and returned to Hancock County to help with the care of her aging grandfather, George Washington EWING. He died the following April. Before Olive had a chance to return home, there was a wedding.
She was married on 10 December 1910, at her Grandmother Pamelia WHITE's home in St. Mary's Township to Sidney FREER. Sidney was born 25 September 1889 and was an orphan.
The newlyweds set up housekeeping at Lawrence, Kansas. They had no children of their own but adopted a son born in 1923.
Sidney died of cancer the 21st of June 1933. He is buried at Memorial Park Cemetery in Lawrence, Kansas.
Olive, 42 at the time of Sidney's death, married again. Her second husband was George MILLER, whom she married on the 26th of November 1934. At some point they moved to California and Olive died 7 March 1952 at Culver City, in the los Angeles area, of cancer. She was buried back at Lawrence, Kansas with Sidney.
ADOPTED SON:
1. Arbon Lee FREER, 14 Jan 1923. Married: 3 Oct 1948, Florence PILATE, b. 3 June 1930. Resided: Inglewood, California.
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Ewing Family Lineage: William-George-Jonathan-William-James
Helen put in her appearance on 12 April 1893 at the Ewing home in St. Mary' Township, Hancock County, Illinois. The family moved to Dighton, Kansas and then to East Lynn, Missouri. By the time the family finally settled at Richland near Lawrence, Kansas, Helen was 17 years old.
Helen and John Robert JOHNSON were married 22 October 1913.
John was born 11 February 1886, the son of William and Anna (BUSTER) JOHNSON, and the brother of Charles who married Helen's younger sister, Pauline.
Helen and John lived near Lawrence and raised five children. John died of a heart condition on 10 January 1961 and Helen died of cancer 25 February 1965.
ISSUE:
1. John Edgar Winn EWING, b. 12 June 1911(?), Lawrence, Kansas.
2. William Robert JOHNSON, b. 27 Apr 1915, Lawrence, Kansas. Married: 21 Sept 1937, Lillian KETCH, b. 18 Jan 1920 - divorced, 1960.
13-7-4-2-3 3. Frieda Pearl JOHNSON, b. 18 Oct 1917, Lawrence, Kansas.
4. Nellie Nadine JOHNSON, b. 16 Oct 1919, Lawrence, Kansas. Married: 18 July 1939, John Henry LEDERER, b. 28 Sept 1917.
5. Dorothy Arlene JOHNSON, b. 21 Oct 1921, Lawrence, Kansas. Married: 5 July 1941, Charles Wesley INGLE, b. 13 June 1909.
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13-7-4-2-3 FRIEDA PEARL JOHNSON
Ewing Family Lineage: Helen-William-George-Jonathan-William-James
Frieda was born 18 October 1917 near Lawrence, Kansas. She and Fred J. SCOTT, born 7 December 1912, were married on the 28th of December 1935. In 1937 they lived in Lone Star, Kansas - just outside Lawrence, when they attended the Ewing reunion in Burnside, Ohio. With them at that time was their daughter, Joan, who was born in December 1936. Joan was given a prize for being the youngest at the reunion.
Frieda and Fred were divorced in 1943 and Frieda married Carl BANNER. Frieda and Carl were divorced in 1951, and she then married John ROWE in 1952. John was born 23 November 1912.
Frieda died 22 March 1970 of cancer of the lymph glands.
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Ewing Family Lineage: William-George-Jonathan-William-James
This is the line that means so much to the Ewing family. Robert, born 17 June/31 December 1894 at Plymouth, Kansas was the only son, of the only son, of Jonathan EWING to produce Ewings. He only had one son and that son only had one son. Ronald Eugene EWING is it!
The woman who helped produce Ronald's father, Edward Ettore EWING II, was Gertie Elizabeth GRAMMAR, born 5 February 1896. Gertie and Robert were married 17 February 1917 and celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary on 17 Feb 1967. They lived at Lawrence, Kansas.
Gertie died 22 January 1975, two weeks before her 79th birthday, and Robert followed on 17 June 1975, age 80 years.
ISSUE:
1. Cecil May EWING, b. 10 Apr 1918, Lawrence, Kansas. Married: 23 July 1936, Kenneth Clifford HERSCHELL, b. 3 Feb 1916, apparently brother of Elvin HERSCHELL, who married her cousin Lois HARRELL (13-7-5-1-1).
2. Edward Ettore EWING II, b. 16 Sept 1921, Lawrence, KS. Married: 27 Nov 1948, Leta Lorraine CAIN, b. 2 Feb 1926. 1984: resided Lawrence, Kansas. Edward a policeman in Illinois.
3. Edith Lorraine EWING, b. 6 July 1928, Lawrence, Kansas. Married: 12 July 1946, John Robert NEEDLES, b. 15 May 1924.
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Ewing Family Lineage: William-George-Jonathan-William-James
Beatrice was born 7 September 1898 at Plymouth, Kansas and was married in Lawrence, Kansas on 26 October 1915 to Marvin Cyrus METSKER, the son of Henry and Mary METSKER. Marvin was born 10 December 1894. They had three children, the youngest was only 7 years old when Marvin died on 18 December 1929. On 26 March 1932, Beatrice married Earl Fuller GALE who was born on the 26th of February of 1895. By 1939, at the time of her parents' Golden Wedding Anniversary, Beatrice and Earl were living in Wenatchee, Chelan County, Washington.
They had three children and 37 years together when Earl died in May of 1969 of a heart condition. Beatrice died in Carson, Skamania County, Washington on the Columbia River. Her body was returned to Lawrence, Kansas for burial in Washington Creek Cemetery.
ISSUE:
1. Mary Belle METSKER, b. 4 Aug 1916, near Lawrence, Kasas. Married 1935, Louis WELLS.
2. Alice Maxine METSKER, b. 29 Jan 1919, near Lawrence, Kansas. Married: 20 Feb 1948, William Boyd PETERSON, b. 22 Jan 1922 .
3. John Henry METSKER, b. 14 Dec 1922, near Lawrence, Kansas. Married: Grace HOE.
4. Jack Edward GALE, b. 24 July 1936. Married: Doris HUBBARD, b. 21 July 1948.
5. James Ewing GALE, b. 20 Feb 1940. Married: 3 June 1961, Jacqueline MAGUIRE, b. 4 Aug 1941.
6. Elizabeth Jane GALE, b. 28 Feb 1942. Married: 29 July 1961, Samuel Francisco Wilfrede HOLLENBERRY, b. 12 Oct 1941.
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Ewing Family Lineage: William-George-Jonathan-William-James
William and Mary's fifth child, Frieda was born in Plymouth, Kansas on 10 September 1900. Frieda was married in Lawrence, Kansas on 17 January 1919 to Raymond Edward MC CLURE. Raymond was born 23 March 1895 and was in the U.S. Army during World War I, stationed at Camp Funston, Kansas.
ISSUE:
1. Earl Eugene MC CLURE, b. 14 Aug 1919, Lawrence, Kansas. Earl enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps on 30 June 1938 at Kansas City, Missouri. He served during World War II at Guadalcanal, Peleliu, Saipan and Guam. He was discharged a Gunnery Sergeant at Seattle, Washington, 8 November 1945. 1972: general manager, Lawrence Ready Mix Concrete Plant - 17 years. Married: 22 June 1948, Lorraine THOMPSON, b. 26 Aug 1914, no issue listed.
13-7-4-5-2 2. Lauren Keith MC CLURE, b. 5 Apr 1921
13-7-4-5-3 3. Bruce Warren MC CLURE, b. 28 Jan 1923
4. Merle Emery MC CLURE, b. 27 Dec 1924, Lawrence, Kansas. Married: 17 Feb 1957, Janice RIGBY, b. 24 Aug 1934. Served in U.S. Army, World War II, then attended Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas, later joined Lawrence, Kansas Police Department - 1971, made captain..
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13-7-4-5-2 LAUREN KEITH MC CLURE
Ewing Family Lineage: Frieda-William-George-Jonathan-William-James
Lauren was born 5 April 1921 near Lawrence, Kansas and was married on 25 May 1942 to Betty Louise DAVISON who was born the 6th of August 1922. Betty was the daughter of Leslie and Beatrice (MILLS) DAVISON.
Right after their marriage, Lauren was inducted into the U.S. Army - 11 June 1942. Lauren was a Wire Chief with the Signal Corps and served in Tunisia, Rome, Ano, the North Appenines and the Po Valley. He was in the European Theater of Operations for almost three years and after victory there was sent to Japan, arriving just after the bombing at Hiroshima. He came out of the service on 30 November 1945, a Staff Sergeant, with several medals - including the Good Conduct Medal.
Lauren and Betty picked up life in Lawrence. Lauren and his brother Earl attended Car Body Repair School in Kansas City, Missouri. That was Lauren's occupation for awhile, but about 1962 he became Service Department Manager for Ship Winter Chevrolet which became Turner Chevrolet, and in 1972, had been there for 10 years. The family lived in Lawrence, Kansas.
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13-7-4-5-3 BRUCE WARREN MC CLURE
Ewing Family Lineage: Frieda-William-George-Jonathan-William-James
Bruce, born 28 January 1923 at Lawrence, Kansas was 19 years old when he enlisted for World War II, on the 11th of December 1942, in the U.S. Marine Corps at Kansas City, Missouri.
After Basic training at San Diego, California he went to Gillespie Field nearby where he received his wings as a parachutist. Bruce served in the Pacific Theater of Operations from 21 September 1943 to 12 November 1945, with a two-month break midway.
Bruce saw action on the Solomon Islands, Guadalcanal and Chousel. He participated in securing Iwo Jima in 1945. At the time of his discharge on 25 November 1945, he had made Corporal and had been singled out as an Expert Rifleman. Bruce was awarded the Bronze Star for Meritorious Achievement against the enemy on Iwo Jima.
At war's end Bruce returned to Lawrence and immediately enrolled in Bethany College, Lindsborg, Kansas, majoring in Economics and Business. During his four years at Bethany he was president and secretary of his fraternity and Captain of the Bethany football team in 1947. He was named to All-Conference two years running and to the Kansas All-Star Team during his senior year.
Bruce received his Bachelor's in 1948, and promptly proposed to Betty Jo TURNER, daughter of the Charles E. TURNERS of Wichita, Kansas. Betty Jo was born 16 July 1928. They were married 28 August 1948.
Bruce's first teaching position was in the seventh grade at Lawrence Junior High School. He also coached football and basketball. In 1953 he accepted a similar position at Liberty Junior High School in Hutchinson, Kansas and the family, now numbering four, moved to Hutchinson. At Liberty Jr. High, Bruce taught Science to seventh graders and coached basketball at Liberty and football at Hutchinson Senior High School.
In 1961 Bruce began to teach the educable mentally retarded. He moved to Hutchinson Senior High and also kept on coaching of the football team. He had 14 years of teaching in Hutchinson and in 1967, the high school year book was dedicated to him.
Each summer for several years Bruce attended Colorado State College at Greeley and in August of 1962, he received his Master's in Special Education for Mentally Retarded. He also attended the University of Kansas, University of Illinois and Northern Illinois University to improve his teaching methods and abilities.
In August of 1967, Bruce accepted a position at Lyons Township High School in La Grange, Illinois where he was the title Prevocational Coordinator. The prevocational program was set up to help the socially maladjusted student, and provide work experience. The student goes to school a half day and works the other half, Bruce found jobs for the students.
Betty Jo is very talented and artistic. She attended Bethany, Friends University at Wichita, Kansas University at Lawrence and College of DuPage, Illinois. She has taken art courses from outstanding teachers of varying backgrounds - including Turkish and Iranian. Betty Jo has won several awards at La Grange Art League Shows and has sold some of her paintings. She has taken courses in Jewelry, Drawing and Design at college levels.
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Ewing Family Lineage: William-George-Jonathan-William-James
Pauline was the first of William and Mary's children to be born at their new home in Dighton, Lane County, Kansas. The date was 18 December 1902, a year after their arrival on the Kansas prairie.
Pauline spent her teen years at Lawrence, and that is where she met and married Charles Edward JOHNSON. Charles was born 27 May 1893 and was the son of William and Anna (BUSTER) JOHNSON and was the brother of John who married Pauline's sister Helen.
Charles served in the U.S. Army during World War I. Charles and Pauline were married 25 July 1920.
The Johnsons lived in Lawrence, Kansas until the mid 1930s when they moved to Tucson, Arizona. Their seventh and last child, Carol, was born there in 1938.
Carol was 6 years old when Charles died of a heart attack on 6 March 1947 at the age of 53 years old.
On 8 June 1957 Pauline married Harvey Wright MEALER. Harvey was born 5 April 1902 and died in November 1967.
ISSUE:
13-7-4-6-1 1. Ethel Lorene JOHNSON, b. 11 Oct 1922, Lawrence, Kansas.
13-7-4-6-2 2. Eleanor Marie JOHNSON, b. 3 Aug 1924, Lawrence, Kansas.
3. Barbara Louise JOHNSON, b. 8 Aug 1926, Lawrence, Kansas, d. 10 Aug 1926.
13-7-4-6-4 4. Glenn Eldon JOHNSON, b. 14 July 1930, Lawrence, Kansas.
5. Kenneth Lee JOHNSON, b. 14 Dec 1932, Lawrence, Kansas. Married: 25 Aug 1962, Kathleen Mapes TILDEN, b. 22 Jan 1946, daughter of David and Virginia TILDEN. Kenneth served 1951-1954 in U.S. Marines, 3 months in Korea. 1972: fire inspector, Los Angeles Fire Department
6. Anna Jane JOHNSON, b. 15 Dec 1933, d. 28 Feb 1935.
7. Carol Eunice JOHNSON, b. 23 May 1938, Tucson, AZ. Married: 1st 23 Feb 1958, Ronnie Neal DAVIS, div. Married 2nd 1961, Thomas Hayden THOMPSON, b. 24 Apr 1938. Carol was a stewardess for two years.
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13-7-4-5-1 ETHEL LORENE JOHNSON
Ewing Family Lineage: William-George-Jonathan-William-James
Ethel was born in Lawrence, Kansas on 11 October 1922. She was 17 when she and Clarence Everett LATHAM were married. Clarence was born 4 July 1919 and served with the U.S. Navy. They were divorced and Ethel married Willis Clarence KEDDY on 9 May 1949. Willis was born on 19 May 1924.
Ethel died 25 December 1968 of cancer and Willis died 9 Feb 1970 of a brain tumor.
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13-7-4-6-2 ELEANOR MARIE JOHNSON
Ewing Family Lineage: Pauline-William-George-Jonathan-William-James
Eleanor was born in Lawrence, Kansas on the 3rd of August 1924 and died 42 years later on 2 March 1967 of cancer.
In between, she had three husbands and a daughter. On the 17th of September 1943 she and Clarence MC NEAL were married and later divorced. On 19 September 1958 she married Wilbur Vincent MUELLER. Wilbur was born 7 April 1920. That marriage too ended in divorce. Her third husband was Robert CRADIC whom she married in March of 1965.
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13-7-4-6-4 GLENN ELDON JOHNSON
Ewing Family Lineage: Pauline-William-George-Johnathan-William-James
Glenn was born 14 July 1930 in Lawrence, Kansas and on his 17th birthday he joined the Navy as a reservist on active duty. He transferred to the regular Navy in May of 1948 and served on destroyers in the Pacific Fleet. He spent 17 months in Korea. In September, 1952, he transferred to the Naval Air Force and served as flight crew member on Electronic Test Evaluation (Anti-Submarine Warfare). In October of 1954 he transferred to submarine duty and served on diesel subs until June 1959, when he was called up on the first crew selection for the nuclear-powered Polaris. He spent his last three years in the Navy on installation and check-out of Sub Force Pacific's first and only computerized submarine crew training facility at Pearl Harbor. Glenn retired from the service on 16 June 1969 as Chief Sonar Mate.
Glen had married Bobbie Joan BARRET, who was born 1 July 1932 in Abilene, Texas. They were married on the 26th of August 1950 and had three children, only one surviving infancy and they adopted a son.
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Ewing Family Lineage: William-George-Jonathan-William-James
Into the two-room sod house on the Kansas prairie came Alice May on 12 July 1905. Alice grew to young womanhood in Lawrence, Kansas and on graduation from high school, attended Lawrence Business College, from which she was graduated in the 1920s. Alice went into general office work and worked at that until her marriage 15 May 1927 to George Admiral FIEGER. George was born 31 October 1902 and was the son of George and Tressa FIEGER of Topeka, Kansas. Alice and George lived in Topeka.
In 1941 George and Alice and their daughter Barbara moved to the San Diego area of California. Alice worked as an assistant bookkeeper in a jewelry store for 15 years. Later she had her own shop, the Gift 'n Knit Shop for 10 years.
During this time Alice and George were divorced and Alice married Clifford Melville ROMAINE on 17 February 1949. Clifford was the son of Melville and Nella (WILLIAMS) ROMAINE and was born 7 February 1907, in Newark, New Jersey.
Alice lost her only daughter on 24 December 1951 when Barbara died in San Diego of Lupus erythematosus, a rare disease of unknown cause or cure.
When Alice and Clifford were married he was a retired Chief Machinist Mate. He had retired in 9 November 1947, after 21 1/2 years of duty with the U.S. Navy, many of them aboard destroyers such as the Yorktown, the Wainwright and the St. Louis, and the aircraft carrier, George F. Elliott.
In 1949 Clifford took a job with the Federal Civil Service as machinist in heavy duty equipment. In August of 1950 he was recalled to Navy duty during the Korean conflict, and was stationed in San Diego as instructor of Naval History and Military Code of Justice. He served until 31 July 1952.
Clifford retired from his job in December 1965 when he was 63 years old. Clifford and Alice had a few years of doing what they pleased together. Alice died 4 January 1970 after almost 30 years of marriage.
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Ewing Family Lineage: William-George-Jonathan-William-James
Minnie was born at Dighton, Kansas 20 April 1907, and like her sister, Alice, was a graduate of Lawrence Business College and was a stenographer for several years. On 31 December 1927, she and Leonard Hugh FIELDS were married. Leonard was born on the 16th of May 1905 and was the son of Warren and Maude (FAULK) FIELDS. They began their married life in Lawrence, but later moved to Arlington, Kansas, where Leonard was an electrician with the Kansas Power and Light Company until his retirement in June of 1970.
ISSUE:
1. (only). Ruby Ilene EWING, b. 26 Jan 1925. Married: 1944, James Ranial WESTERFIELD, b. 27 July 1923.
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Ewing Family Lineage: George-Jonathan-William-James
The fifth of George Washington and Eunice (COX) EWING's children was Sarah, who was born on the Harmony Township farm, Hancock County, on 8 August 1867.
Sarah and her husband, John Franklin SMITH were another family that migrated to Dighton in Lane County, Kansas. They were married 1 January 1893 and probably went out in 1901 when Sarah's brother William Lafayette, did.
Sarah died in March 1938 and John, who was born 24 October 1867 and died in June 1948.
ISSUE:
13-7-5-1 1. Waneta SMITH, b. 11 June 1894, Hancock County, Illinois.
2. Pearl SMITH, b. 14 Dec 1901, Dighton, Lane County, Kansas . Married: Paul HAROLSON, who died in 1949 when he was killed in an explosion where he worked.
Issue:
3. Infant HAROLSON, b&d 1933
5. Josephine HAROLSON, b. 1938
3. Harold Franklin SMITH, b. 18 Oct 1907, Dighton, Lane County, Kansas. Married: Cornelia .
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Ewing Family Lineage: Sarah-George-Jonaathan-William-James
Waneta was born 11 June 1894 in Hancock County, Illinois and was about 6 years old when the family moved to Dighton, Lane County, Kansas. Waneta was married there on 13 February 1915 to Roy HARRELL. Roy died 17 February 1945. Waneta then married Samuel C. SCOTT on 13 November 1947. Samuel died in June 1949.
ISSUE;
1. Lois Kathryn HARRELL, b. 19 June 1916. Married: 24 Dec 1933, Elvin HERSCHELL - very possibly brother of Kenneth who married Lois' cousin Cecil May Ewing (13-7-4-3-1).
2. Blanche Emma HARRELL, b. 12 Feb 1918. Married: 6 Mar 1938, James Robert COLLINS.
3. Bruce Franklin HARREL, b. 9 Oct 1919. Married: 10 July 1942, Leona SMITH.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Jonathan-William-James
To their eighth and last, Jonathan and Margaret gave the intriguing name of Margretta Lucetta. She was born either the 23 or 28 of January 1837 in Huntington Township, Gallia County, Ohio, near the bank of the Raccoon River.
Margretta was about 12 years old when her family made the move to Hancock County, Illinois in the fall of 1849. She was at home five years after her father died in 1850, but on the
28th of January 1855, when she was 17 years old, she and Reuben CRAVEN were married.
There is a sketch about Reuben in the 1880 HANCOCK COUNTY HISTORY (Page 678) which tells us he was born in Pennsylvania in 1831 to Joseph and Mary (BROWN) CRAVEN, also natives of Pennsylvania, and that they moved to Hancock County in 1841, settling first in Hancock Township and later moving into Carthage, Illinois
The sketch goes on to say that Reuben began teaching school at the age of 21 in 1852 and that he continued to do so during the winter months, farming in the summer, at least until the time of the 1880 history.
Reuben and Margretta had a farm of 117 acres ("of good land" says the sketch) in Hancock Township near Middle Creek, and they spent all of their married life there. In the censuses their real estate was worth $2,000 in 1860; $6,000 in 1870 and $2,000 in 1880. In the 1870 census, Margretta's mother Margaret was living with them.
Reuben was active in his community, as Justice of the Peace for eight years, township supervisor and school trustee. Reuben was the Justice of the Peace who married Margretta's brother, George, and Eunice.
Margretta died 11 Oct 1896 at the age of 68 years. Reuben's death date is unknown and he was not found in the 1900 census.
ISSUE:
1. Linneus P. CRAVEN, b. 18 Sept 1855, Hancock Township, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 3 Dec 1907, Lake City, Minnesota. Married: 4 July 1876, Anna Elizabeth GEIGER. 1880: math teacher at Mt. Morris Academy in Illinois. 1913 per A.E. Ewing: Lake City, Minnesota.
Issue:
1. Charles Lawrence CRAVEN, b. 20 May 1878, Cottonwood, MN. five children.
2. Daniel Elwood CRAVEN, b. 9 Oct 1882.
2. Mary Margaret CRAVEN, b. 3 Aug 1857, Hancock Township, Hancock County, Illinois, teacher, single, lived at home.
3. Emma May CRAVEN, b. 26 Dec 1862, Hancock Township, Hancock County, Illinois. Married: 22 Sept 1887, John Andrew RADFORD (brother of Emberzetta who married Joseph). Moved to Dighton, Kansas in 1901 with others.
Issue:
1. Margaret RADFORD, b. 3 Aug 1902, Dighton, Lane County, Kansas.
4. Joseph Reuben CRAVEN, b. 9 Dec 1863, Hancock Township, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 2 Apr 1910, Joy, Mercer County, Illinois. Married: 18 Mar 1885, Emberzetta Alice RADFORD (sister of John). Lived in Joy, Mercer County, Illinois. Worked railroad and lumber yard. Emberzetta was at the 1910 Ewing Reunion.
Issue:
1. John CRAVEN, b. about 1887, d. 25 June 1908.
2. Mary E. CRAVEN, Married: WILLITS.
3. Helen G. CRAVEN, Married: HESSE
(two other children died in infancy)
5. John Edward CRAVEN, B. 21 Sept 1864, Hancock Township, Hancock County, Illinois. Married: 6 Jan 1904, Maude E. HARRISON. John was a lawyer in Minneapolis. Lived in Mora, Minnesota.
Issue:
13-8-6 6. Clara Jane CRAVEN, b. 17 July 1867, Hancock Township, Hancock County, Illinois.
7. Jenoa/ Genoa Grace CRAVEN, b. 16 June 1876, Hancock Township, Hancock County, Illinois. Married: 29 Aug 1899, Henry MILLER. 1910: resided Hamilton, Illinois. 1913: Richland, Wisconsin. She wrote a song for the 1910 Ewing Reunion.
8. Frank Lay CRAVEN, b. 13 Dec 1879, Hancock Township, Hancock County, Illinois, d. 13 Aug 1948. Married: 21 Dec 1901, Josephine Esther SIMMONS, b. 24 Aug 1880, d. 23 Feb 1958. Lived: Carthage, Illinois.
Issue:
1. Julia Maria CRAVEN, b. 18 Sept 1902, Carthage, IL d. Dec 1949, single .
2. George Lay CRAVEN, b. 11 Feb 1905, Carthage, IL d. 28 Jan 1915, 9 years old.
3. Clyde Ray CRAVEN, b. 19 June 1907, Carthage, IL d. 11 July 1969, single.
4. Lucy Anabella CRAVEN, b. 25 Nov 1909, d. 27 Sept 1976, apparently single.
5. Frank Stuart CRAVEN, b. 20 Aug 1912. 1979: 503 Washington St. Carthage, IL.
6. Oscar Lee CRAVEN, b. 31 May 1914.
7. Ralph Earl CRAVEN, b. 27 June 1917, d. 9 May 1977.
8. James Simmons CRAVEN, b. 25 June 1920, d. 21 Dec 1920, age 6 months.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Margretta-Jonathan-William-James
Clara, born 17 July 1867, and her husband, Andrew Jackson REED only had four children. Only two of those produced, but they had a very large number of progeny to carry on the line.
Andrew was born 12 September 1857 in Floyd County, Virginia to William and Fanny (BURGESS) REED. He and Clara were married 16 March 1886. They went out to Dighton the year after their marriage in 1887, the same year the Dickinsons went to Kansas. By 1896 Clara and Andrew were back in Illinois, and that is where they lived the rest of their lives. Their farm was in Hancock Township.
Andrew was 62 years old when he died 14 April 1920 and Clara was 53 years old when she died 18 February 1921
ISSUE:
13-8-6-1 1. John Clyde REED, b. 23 Feb 1887, Dighton, Lane County, Kansas.
2. Minnie Grace REED, b. 9 Oct 1888, Dighton, Lane County, Kansas, d. 14 Apr 1976, Buried: Carthage, Illinois. Married: after 1910, Ezra Lee BOYD, b. Dec 1886, in Virginia, d. 30 Aug 1970, Buried: Carthage, Illinois. Minnie was Miss Craven in the 1910 reunion report, she was reunion secretary and sang . Ezra's parents lived in Carthage Township, IL. 1900 census: Minnie and Ezra Lived Plymouth, IL. No issue.
13-8-6-3 3. Esther Laura REED, b. 19 July 1896, Hancock Co, IL.
4. Clara Margaret REED, b. 5 Oct 1898, Hancock Co, IL, d. 24 Sept 1967, Macomb, Illinois - single.
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13-8-6-1 JOHN CLYDE REED
Ewing Family Lineage: Clara-Margretta-Jonathan-William-James
John's coming was apparent when the Reeds departed Hancock County for Kansas. He was born 23 February 1887 in either Dighton or Salina, Kansas. On the family's return to Hancock County, Illinois, John was about 10 years old. John remained at home several years, but about 1915 the gypsy in him took over and he was off. Minnesota first, where he was married on the 5th of February 1916 to Nina BUTLER.
John worked the railroad for awhile, and he had a leather shop and was a farmer. He and the family moved around a great deal - Minnesota, Nebraska, Wisconsin, Michigan (Kalamazoo) and even Florida. Eventually he and Nina ended up in Chula Vista, California, a suburb of San Diego, for that is where they both died - Nina on 7 February 1970 and John on 25 January 1971.
ISSUE:
13-8-6-1-1 1. Dolores Clarabelle REED, b. 7 Nov 1918.
2. Elthura Nina REED, b. 29 Oct 1920. Married: Jay GUYETTE, d. 10 May 1981. 1979: 135 N. 81st St., Belleville, IL.
3. Gyde Dale REED, b. 8 June 1925, Omaha, Nebraska, d. 18 Dec 1962, 37 years old. Married: Jackie .
13-8-6-1-4 4. Maxine Mae REED, b. 2 May 1927, Arnold, WI.
5. Donald Eugene REED, b. 4 Nov 1929, Minnesota. Married: Peggy PASCAL. 1984: Fort Pierce, Florida. No issue, but five step-children.
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13-8-6-1-1 DOLORES CLARABELLE REED
Ewing Family Lineage: John-Clara-Margretta-Jonathan-William-James
Dolores was born on 7 November 1918. The family was living in Kalamazoo, Michigan when she married a man known only as Mr. VANDEWORKEN in about 1938. They had a daughter, Geraldine, but were subsequently divorced and Dolores married for the second time on the 18th of October in 1941 to Charles Grant LANDELLS. Charles had been previously married and had a son Charles William LANDELLS, born 16 September 1940. Charles, the father, adopted Geraldine and Dolores adopted his son.
In 1984 Charles and Dolores were living at 572 Elketon Blvd., in Spring Valley, California 92077 - San Diego County.
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Ewing Family Lineage: John-Clara-Margretta-Jonathan-William-James
Maxine was born 2 May 1927 in Arnold, Wisconsin. When the family was in Kalamazoo, Michigan, Maxine married Horace Leon
MC DANIEL, but they were divorced. The family was in Fort Pierce, Florida when Maxine met James E. CHURCH. Maxine and James were married in Birmingham, Alabama on 2 May 1957.
The Churches moved to San Diego, California in 1968. They bought a duplex at 762 Madison Avenue in Chula Vista, California 92010 and have lived there ever since.
James' two children by a previous marriage were raised with her three.
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Ewing Family Lineage: Clara-Margretta-Jonathan-William-James
Esther was born after the Reeds had moved back to Hancock County, Illinois from Kansas, on 19 July 1896. Esther and her husband, Harvey WEDDING, lived in Columbus Ohio. Esther died in Columbus on the 4th of December in 1965 and Harvey died the 28th of December in 1969.
ISSUE:
1. Harvey Reed WEDDING. 1979: resided Pratt Street, Ravenna, Ohio.
2. Margaret Jane WEDDING. Married: DOLNEY. 1979/1984: 2005 Cunningham Drive, Columbia, S.C.
3. David WEDDING 1979: resided 8971 Edgehill Drive, Mentor, Ohio.
4. Joseph WEDDING 1979: deceased, family resided: Raymond, Ohio.
5. Thomas WEDDING 1979: Huntsburg, Ohio
6. Mary Lou WEDDING. Married: MEYERS. 1975: resided Huntsburg, Ohio.
7. Ruth Ann WEDDING. Married: WILLIAMS. 1979: resided Chardon, Ohio.