Saturday, June 4, 2016

The Nick Ferguson Family

Last time, we looked at Nicholas P. Ferguson, and the descendants of his eldest daughter, Mildred.

If you're new to the blog, or if you simply haven't noticed, I've been trying to stick to a more consistent outline format when I list descendants. Since Nick Ferguson is our "main subject" right now, Mildred was enumerated with a Roman numeral one: I.  Her siblings will be listed with these large Roman numerals; their children will get capital letters (A., B., etc.), grandchildren will get the Arabic numerals (1., 2., etc.) and if great-grandchildren are not still living, they'll be listed with lower case letters (a., b., etc.)

I try to vary the use of Bold and Italics to make it easier to scan down the page and pick out names. I would use colors, but that's not as easy to read, especially for those with color blindness.

So, to continue Nicholas Ferguson's descendants:

     II. Ida May Ferguson (1871–1872) - sadly, we begin this week's list with a tragedy. We only know about her because she is mentioned in the Callin Family History, which says only, "Ida May, died at 1 year old." I've estimated her birthdate, based on the assumption that the CFH listed the Ferguson children in order of birth.

     III. Anise L Ferguson (1873–1906) married John L Bailey (1871–1967) in 1891, when she was 18. They had three daughters and a son together, and then in 1906, Anise died. John remarried in December 1911, adding the children of his new wife, who was suddenly widowed earlier that year, to his family. They had two more sons, but I won't be listing them here, since they are not descendants of Anise. (I'm happy to share what little I know about them upon request.)

I know little more than names and birth dates for Anise's children; they appeared on the 1900 and 1910 Census; the former with their mother, the latter without. By 1920, James was married, and his older sister were nowhere to be found.

     A. Elsie L Bailey (b. 1893)

     B. Hattie Bailey (b. 1895)

     C. Georgie Bailey (b. 1897)

     E. James E Bailey (1899–1981) married Helen L Morris (1901–1973) about 1920. They settled on a farm in Crane, Paulding county, Ohio, and had one daughter: Ida Annise Bailey (1930–1986). They moved back to De Kalb county, Indiana, probably some time in the 1930s. Ida's obituary said she lived in Saint Joe most of her life, and she had been the theater manager for the Auburn-Garrett Drive-In.

     IV. James F Ferguson (1877–1964) married Florence Grube (1880–1953) in 1899, and farmed in DeKalb county his whole life.

     A. Arthur D Ferguson (1899–1964) married Velma Pauline Sliger (1903–1982) in November 1927. Arthur worked as a foreman for Rieke Metal Products Corp. in Auburn, until his death in March of 1964. The couple had three sons in the 1930s who are still living.

     B. Chalmer Ferguson (1903–1989) lived on his father's farm at least until 1964. Unlike his more adventurous cousin of the same name (the son of Terry Victor Ferguson), this Chalmer Ferguson does not appear to have ever married or had any children.

In 1939, Chalmer was employed by his aunt, who lived on a neighboring farm. This aunt was Florence's sister, Ida. On the 23rd of November, Chalmer went over to milk the cows, and when he went into the basement of the house to run the milk through the separator, he found that Ida had hanged herself with a length of clothesline. The papers suggested that she was despondent after her husband, Joseph Lige, had left her.


     C. Alice L Ferguson (1908–1990) was also still single and at home on the farm in 1964, when her father died. According to the Indiana death certificate, she died at the age of 82. She was a resident of the nursing home when she died, and she never married.

Alice and Chalmer also made an appearance in the local paper in 1952, after their father's barn was struck by lightning during a bad storm, destroying thousands of dollars of property.

Found on Newspapers.com


     V. John Henry Ferguson (1880–1919) married Harriett C. "Hattie" Milliman (1890–1969) on 20 July 1907 in De Kalb county, Indiana. John is listed in the 1910 Census as a machinist in an auto factory; I'm willing to bet that he worked for the Auburn Automobile company. He died unexpectedly in 1919 from "cerebral spinal fever" and peritonitis. Hattie remarried in 1920 to Samuel Shutt Springer (1885-1963) in Detroit, Michigan; they lived in Indiana.

     A. Mildred Irene Ferguson (1911–1923) died at age 12, about four years after the death of her father.

     B. Mary Jane Ferguson (1916–1996) was four years old when her father died, and only eight when her sister died. She married Vernon Renalto "Buck" Halter (1912 - 1992). Buck served in World War II, and then worked as a truck driver. He died of a malignant brain tumor at the age of 80.

     VI. George Ferguson (1883–1883) died in infancy, according to the CFH. As with his sister, Ida May, I've estimated his birth date.

     VII. Margaret J Ferguson (1884–1947) married Jacob Stebing (1879–1956) in September 1904. They raised four sons, and had a little girl in 1920 who died.

     A. George Nicholas Stebing (1910–1990) married Harriet Elizabeth Thimlar (1911–1991) on 24 June 1933 in Auburn. George served in the U.S. Army from 21 April 1944 to 10 May 1946.

     B. Robert Paul Stebing Sr (1913–1979) married Kathryn A Klopfenstein (1916–2011) in the 1930s, and he served in the U.S. Navy during World War II,  from 7 March 1944 to 1 January 1946. He worked as a tin smith, and I gather from the "Senior" suffix that the couple did have at least one child, who is probably still alive.

     C. Everett Romain Stebing (1918–2004) married Beverly E Kline (1922–1980) and they had two sons (still living). Everett enlisted in the U.S. Army on 13 November 1942, and served in the war as a technical sergeant.

     D. June Irene Stebing (1919–1920) died at 10 months of age, and was buried in Roselawn Cemetery, Auburn.

     E. Vernon Eugene Stebing (1924–2003) was an insurance agent for Western Southern Life Insurance Co. for 23 years, retiring in 1984. He was also a retired member of the Auburn Fire Department. He served as a sergeant in the U.S. Army and was a veteran of World War II and the Korean War, enlisting on 9 July 1943 and leaving the Army on 30 November 1952. When he died, he was survived by his wife, son, two daughters, eight grandchildren and five great-grandchildren.

     VIII. Dorothy Mail Ferguson (1889–1967) married Lloyd Alton Mitchener (1886–1963) on 15 November 1915. Lloyd was employed by the Auburn Automobile company (like his brother-in-law, John Henry Ferguson), and by the Warner - Motor Division. They raised two daughter, the younger of whom is still living.

Dorothy's mother, you may recall from last week's post, lived with the family until her death in 1930.
Since it was evidently a law that no two records could spell the woman's name the same way, Latita Kiester Ferguson is listed in the Mitchener household in 1930 as "Latisha L Ferguson."

     A. Hilda Mae (or "Hildamae") Mitchener (1924–2007) married Ray Donald Steward (1923-2012) in November 1942. They moved to Charles City, Iowa, in 1962. Hildamae worked as a salesperson, office clerk and teachers aide at various places. Ray enlisted in the United States Army on January 6, 1943, and served as a Private until he was honorably discharged. After the war, he worked for International Harvester as a draftsman, then for the Dana Corporation, working on Indy 500 cars. Ray began working as a mechanical engineer employed by the J.I. Case Company. This career led him to Charles City, where he worked from 1962 until his retirement in 1989.

The couple raised a son and two daughters, and had three grandchildren, all still living.

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As I mentioned last time, I will be playing a little more loosely with the posting schedule here. I have some other things going on that may require me to skip a week here and there. Don't Panic! And please consider sharing something that you think would be interesting as a guest post.

This post is late, in part, because of a rookie mistake I made. By this point, I should know better than to accept information that seems "not quite right" - but when I started digging for records about Hilda Mae Mitchener and her sister, I found some marriage records that weren't quite right...but were "close enough." This is always a judgement call, and I do go over what I find and look for corroborating evidence or records that might help me weed out facts that aren't right.

In Hilda's case, I ran with the first marriage records I found for her, and expanded her part of the family tree quite a way before finding a birth record that named different parent from OUR Hilda! After half an hour of painstakingly reviewing each record I had added, I figured out where I made my mistake, and then spent another hour deleting the records of people who are not at all related to our family.

Lesson: even with relatively unique names, like Hilda Mitchener, you have to take your time and verify that you have the right person - the OTHER Hilda even had a younger sister with the same name as our Hilda's living sister.

Happy Hunting!

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