CFH First Draft: Eliza Ferguson Myers

 This post is part of an ongoing series, sharing the first draft of my Revised Callin Family History. 

Eliza Ferguson is the 50th person in a descendant report beginning with the earliest known ancestor of our Callin family, (1.) James Callin. This descendant report uses the Register Style of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society. 

Please use the Contact Form (at right) to send questions or corrections.

CFH First Draft: Sarah Ferguson Myers

 This post is part of an ongoing series, sharing the first draft of my Revised Callin Family History. 

Sarah Ferguson is the 49th person in a descendant report beginning with the earliest known ancestor of our Callin family, (1.) James Callin. This descendant report uses the Register Style of the New England Historic and Genealogical Society. 

Please use the Contact Form (at right) to send questions or corrections.

A Ferrell Child

Standards of proof are very important.

When you do any kind of research, it's important to understand not only what you know, but how you know it, and how confident you are in your sources. Of course, sometimes you simply don't have sources - records are non-existent, or at least not online, and all you can do is document what you do have, and make a note of where you think you need to look for more information.

There is a very good essay about evaluating "proof" at DNA Explained which has some advice I suggest you keep in mind as you read this post because much of the information I'm putting together here today is definitely not proven.

If you read my previous posts, Echoes & Rhymes and The Montgomery Connection, you know that I'm already on shaky ground when I assert that Elizabeth Callen is the daughter of James Callin of Milton Township, Richland County, Ohio. I think I made a strong case that she is, but now I'm going to make a much weaker case that we know who Elizabeth's daughter is.

This is as much as I can prove:

Mary Montgomery

James Ferrell and Mary Montgomery were married in Rochester, Fulton County, Indiana, on 23 March 1843. We know this much from the marriage record in Indiana, Marriages, 1810-2001.

That's not a lot to go on when you consider the standards of proof I just made such a big deal about!

We do know that Elizabeth had a daughter named Mary, because there is a mention of a Mary Montgomery in the biographical sketch of Caleb and Elizabeth (Callen) Montgomery's son, Theodore found in the Fulton County, Indiana Handbook (published by Tombaugh House, and available on the Fulton County Public Library's website): "To these parents were born five children--Mary, now deceased; Sarah, now the wife of Henry Davidson, living in Halsey, Oregon; Theodore, of whom this sketch is concerned..." I have not found records to prove the relationship of the Mary Montgomery in that Fulton County marriage record to Caleb and Elizabeth, but it seems like a reasonable "right place/right time" guess to make.

I have also found no birth records or death records that prove the relationship of James and Mary (Montgomery) Ferrell to the Sarah Ferrell who appears in the household of Sarah (Montgomery) Davidson on the U.S. Census records for 1850 and 1860, but it seems reasonable that if her parents died before 1850, the Davidson family might have taken in their orphaned niece.

Based on the scant evidence, my guess is that James and Mary were married (1843), had a daughter (1846), and at least Mary died before 1850 - probably all in Fulton County. There are records for men named James Ferrell (spellings can vary) in Indian and Ohio after 1846, but my hunch is that the one we are interested in might have died before the 1850 Census. I can't really rule out any number of other scenarios - including one in which the Davidson family simply adopted an orphan from another family. But for now, I'm going to assume that Sarah Elizabeth Ferrell (1846–1916) is the granddaughter of Caleb and Elizabeth, and the orphaned daughter of James and Mary.

Sarah Elizabeth Ferrell (1846–1916)

Whatever her true origins, "Sarah E. Faroll," age 4, was living in the home of her aunt, Sarah (Montgomery) Davidson, in Newcastle, Fulton County, Indiana, according to the 1850 U.S. Census. The Davidson family, along with many others, took the Oregon Trail west in 1852 and 1853, and in 1860 "Sarah Ferrell", now age 14, appeared listed in their household in Linn County, Oregon, near the Harrisburg post office.

By the time of the 1870 Census, Sarah was newly married to her third husband and living with him, his four children, and her son and daughter from her two previous marriages in Lancaster, Lane County, Oregon. That is a lot to deal with in ten short years.

Her first husband was Josiah S Powell (1839–1865), son of Noah Powell (1808–1875) and Mary E. "Polly" Smith (1812–1893), and he died at 26 years of age on 21 November 1865. Since Joe and Sarah's son, Glenn O. Farrell Powell (1865–1948), was born on 19 March 1865, I calculate that they were married in the spring or summer of 1864.

Sarah married her second husband, E. J. S. Page, on 4 August 1867, in the home of her father-in-law, Noah Powell, according to Marion County, Oregon, Marriage Records, 1849-1900. Their daughter was Sarah Olive Page (1868–1968). We know precious little about Mr. Page, not having any birth or death records to refer to. We don't even know his full name, or whether he died or simply moved on; I'm inclined to think that he probably died.

Sarah Ferrell's third husband was a widowed banker named James Addison Bushnell (1826–1912). They were married 2 April 1870 in Lynn County, Oregon, after the death of his first wife, Elizabeth Crowley Adkins (1831–1868) on 2 January 1868 in Lane County, Oregon. To everyone's relief, they survived their second year of marriage, and each lived until the 1910s.

James was the son of Daniel Bushnell and Ursula Griswold Pratt (1789–1883). He and his first wife, Elizabeth, had seven children before her 1868 death:

• Charles Alvah Bushnell (1851–1874)
• Lucy G Bushnell (1854–1937)
• Ursula Josephine Bushnell (1857–1859)
• Mary Elizabeth Bushnell (1859–1859)
• William Francis Bushnell (1860–1865)
• Helen V. Bushnell (1862–1935)
• George Addison Bushnell (1867–1882)

In addition to the seven children from his first marriage, James and Sarah had five children together:

• Henry Clay Bushnell (1871–1933)
• Walter Scott Bushnell (1874–1881)
• Albert Bushnell (1876–1876)
• Mary Bushnell (1879–1881)
• Gertrude E Bushnell (1883–1977)

James died on 8 April 1912 in Lane County, Oregon. He was 85 years old, and  Sarah was 70 years old when she died on 29 January 1916 in Lane County, Oregon. They are buried Luper Cemetery.

We'll get to Sarah Page and the others in a later post, but for now, let's look at:

I. Glenn O. Farrell Powell (1865–1948), was born on 19 March 1865 in Albany, Linn County, Oregon, to Joe and Sarah Powell. As discussed above, his father died when Glenn was barely two years old; and a step-father also came and went before he turned five. But Glenn grew up in the home of James Addison Bushnell.

Glenn married Arvilla Howard (1869–1918) in 1887. Arvilla was born 28 July 1869 in Lane County, Oregon. Her parents were Royal Varney Howard (1833–1916) and Eda Jane Smith (1841–1919). Glenn and Arvilla raised four children: a son (Noble) and three daughters (Ada, Claudia, and Pauline). Arvilla died at only 48 years of age on 17 February 1918 in Portland, Multnomah, Oregon, and was buried in Lincoln Memorial Park in Portland.

Glenn farmed and supported his family as a carpenter. After Arvilla's death, he was remarried to Alice Jane Waud (1862–1942) on 18 December 1920 in Lane County, Oregon. He was the last of her five husbands. She died on 30 October 1942 in Renton, King, Washington, where she was living with one of her children from a previous marriage. Glenn died on 17 April 1948 in San Francisco, California, where he was living with his daughter, Pauline.

     A. Ada Gertrude Powell (1888–1975) was born in Oregon on 9 October 1888. She married Leon Leroy Myers (1886–1991) in 1910 in Multnomah County, Oregon.

Leroy was born 24 January 1886 in Morganville, Clay, Kansas. His parents were Conrad Myers (1855–1943) and Anna Augusta Roenigk (1860–1895). Augusta was born in Bremen, and Conrad was born in Iowa to John and Catherine Meyer/Myers, who were both born in Bavaria; so these Myers are probably not related to other Myers families in the Callin Family History.

Rev. Leon Myers photo Tue, Aug 4, 1936 – Page 4 · Macon Chronicle-Herald (Macon, Missouri) · Newspapers.com

The Reverend Leon Leroy Myers took his degree in May 1913 from the Eugene Bible College, and after a few years in Oregon, the family moved down to Redlands in San Bernardino. Leon became a prominent member of the Ku Klux Klan in Anaheim, and he was a crusader against liquor during the 1920s. In January 1925, after Rev. Myers was rebuked for making allegations against police and local officials that turned out not to be true, he was targeted by an anti-klan assassination plot. Later that spring, he was attacked and beaten by a citizen he had accused from the pulpit.

The Myers moved to Kansas in 1927, and to Cincinnati, Ohio, in the 1930s. Leon was frequently invited to speak at revivals.

Ada and Leroy had six children together, including twins, Leroy and Leon. But in 1954 she sued Leon for gross neglect and was awarded alimony. She did not sue for divorce, but it seems clear that they were no longer together after that.

When Ada died on 25 March 1975 in Half Moon Bay, San Mateo, California, she was survived by Paul, Eugene, Elizabeth, and James, as well as 12 grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Leroy lived to be 105 years old, dying on 22 November 1991 in Calaveras County, California.

     i. Paul Addison Myers (1911–2002) was born on 19 July 1911 while his father was leading his first congregation at the Christian Church in Dallas, Polk County, Oregon. By 1920, the family was living in Redlands, San Bernardino, California. In 1930, the 19-year-old Paul was enlisted in the U.S. military and stationed in the Panama Canal Zone with his unit at Fort Clayton.

After his enlistment ended, Paul married and became an accountant in San Francisco. His wife was Esther O'Dell (1913–1954), daughter of the Reverend Charles Norman O'Dell (1883–1973) and Ione Grundy (1887–1968). The couple lived in San Francisco until after the war began, and Paul enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps. On 7 December 1942, he entered boot camp as a private first class at Quantico, Virginia, and by October 1943 he had received his commission as a Second Lieutenant. He was wounded at Iwo Jima, and hospitalized at Guam in 1945.

After the war, Paul and Esther were living in San Pedro in 1949, but I get the impression from the records that the separation of the war took a toll on their marriage. I don't see any evidence that they had children, and Paul was living in Seattle with his second wife already when Esther died on 25 February 1954 in Stanislaus County, California.

Paul's second wife was Janet Kathrine Lynch (1927–2000); they probably met during their service, as she was a member of the Cadet Nursing Corps from 1945 to 1948. I wonder if they didn't meet at the hospital when he was wounded - but that's pure speculation on my part.

Janet died 9 April 2000 in Kirkland, King, Washington. Paul also died there on 11 August 2002.

     ii. Eugene Powell Myers (1913–1998) was born in Silverton, Marion, Oregon on 19 December 1913. When he was 8 years old, and his family was living in Redlands, he and his little sister created a stir in the local community when they tried to run away and "see the world"!

Myers children "see the world" Mon, Oct 3, 1921 – Page 12 · Santa Ana Register (Santa Ana, California) · Newspapers.com
In 1930, Eugene was 16 and residing at the State Juvenile Training School in Gatesville, Texas.

He enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps on 20 March 1942, and by the end of the war, he had achieved the rank of technical sergeant, having spent 20 months in the Pacific theater. He was discharged on 19 March 1946.

On 31 July 1951, he married Joyce Emily Hughes (1925–2009) in Alameda County, California. They had five children, four sons and a daughter; three of whom are still living.

Eugene died on 15 July 1998 in Grosse Pointe, Wayne, Michigan, survived by Joyce and four of their children. Joyce died there on 12 March 2009.

     a. Wayne Leon Myers (1953–1995) was born on 23 June 1953, in Berkeley, California, and died on December 27, 1995, in New Orleans, Louisiana, at the age of 42. Dr. Wayne L. Myers was listed in the City Directory of New Orleans in 1992.

     b. Dana O'Farrell Myers (1961–2011)  was born on August 9, 1961, in Detroit, Michigan, and he worked for the United States Postal Service in St. Petersburg, Florida, from 1986. His passions were sports, the beach, and camping. He never married, but he spent 24 years with his companion (she is still living) and their cat, Smokey. He died in Sunset Beach on 1 December 2011.

     iii. Elizabeth Jane Myers (1915–1989) was born in The Dalles, Wasco, Oregon on 30 December 1915. She grew up in Redlands, San Bernardino, California (surviving her adventure with her brother, Eugene, when she was six), and followed her family to Kansas in the 1930s. Her father was a pastor in Cincinnati, Ohio, when Elizabeth probably met and married Norman B Hallenback (b. 1904).

Norman was born in Brooklyn, New York, on 30 May 1904. His parents Bert Cornelius Hallenbeck (1875–1954) and Edith Testut (1878–1944), moved the family to New Jersey by 1920. He married Helen J Frank (1908–1985) on 14 Aug 1926 in Bridgewater, Somerset, New Jersey, and in 1930, Norman left her with three small children when he disappeared from the movie theater where he worked with $1600 and a pretty, young cashier. Helen officially divorced him in 1932.

Norman turned up in Cincinnati in 1938, where he was charged with forgery. This arrest led to the alerting of authorities in New Jersey to his whereabouts. Elizabeth probably met Norman in Cincinnati, as that's where her father was preaching. They were married and living in Caldwell, Essex, New Jersey, in 1940, with a daughter (still living) and a son.

Unfortunately, 1940 is the last we see of Norman. He left his second family and disappeared from view; and he is almost certainly deceased. (If he is still alive, he should appear on this list!) Elizabeth remarried in New Jersey in 1945, and divorced in 1951 in Florida. In 1962, she married
Raymond Edwin Hebeler (1914–2005), and they lived in Calaveras County, California, where she died on 12 March 1989. Elizabeth was buried in Mokelumne Hill Protestant Cemetery.

     a. Robert Norman Hallenbeck (1940–2001) was born on 3 September 1940, in Montclair, New Jersey. He was married in 1961, in Los Angeles, California, and again in 1974, in Clark County, Nevada. He died on 13 June 2001, at the age of 60, in California.

     iv. Leroy J Myers (b. 1921) and his twin brother Leon David were born on 21 February 1921, in San Bernardino, California; Leroy was not a healthy child, and while records have not been identified, he is said to have died while his family was living in Dodge City, Kansas, where he appeared on the 1930 Census.

     v. Leon David Myers (1921–1944) was quite an accomplished young man. He was a Master Councilor of the Cincinnati Chapter of DeMolay, and graduated from Withrow High School. He was employed by the American Surety Co. and attending evening college at the University of Cincinnati when he enlisted on 25 April 1942.

Leon received a commission and acheived the rank of Captain. He was flight leader of the 396th Fighter Squadron of the 368th Fighter Group (a Thunderbolt group), serving in the Ninth Air Force. He received the Air Medal, 12 Oak Leaf Clusters. Distinguished Flying Cross and Purple Heart. He was killed in action over Saint-Lô, France, 26 July 1944, near the end of the invasion of Normandy, leaving behind a young widow.

In 1949, he was returned to the U.S. and buried in Golden Gate National Cemetery, San Fransisco.

     vi. James Conrad Myers (1924–1986) was born on 10 Oct 1924 in Orange County, California, and was very small when his father moved the family to Kansas. He enlisted in the U.S. Army on 3 July 1943 in Cincinnati, and served with the Chinese Combat Command.

James married after the war, on 9 October 1949; his wife and son are still living. James died on 14 September 1986 in Pacifica, San Mateo, California.

     B. Noble Glenn Powell (1890–1936) was born on 7 April 1890, in Oregon, the only son of Glenn and Arvilla Powell. He established himself as a professional driver in 1910, at a time when chauffuers were transitioning from horse-drawn carriages to motor vehicles. He appears in the Oregon Motor Vehicle Registrations database as early as 1912.

He married Bertha Ann Johns (1896–1980) around 1913; she was the daughter of Oliver Troy Johns (1862–1908) and Ella Francis Elliott (1872–1966). They had a son and daughter in Portland. Bertha also worked as a waitress.

Noble died on 14 February 1936, in Portland, at the age of 45, and was buried there. Bertha was remarried twice, but died on 9 September 1980 in Eugene, Lane, Oregon.

     i. Noble Glenn O Powell II (1914–2015) was born in Portland, Oregon to Bertha and Noble Powell. As a teen, he served in the Civilian Conservation Corps at Mt. Hood. He served in the U.S. Navy in WWII in the Pacific theater. He moved to Eugene in 1951.

On 25 July 1936, in Portland, Noble married Mary Trofimenko (1915–2008), and they enjoyed traveling the world together for 73 years. Mary was born 1 December 1915, in Killdeer, North Dakota, to Wasyl and Anna Procentko Trofimenko. She attended Girls Polytechnic School in Portland. She worked as a retail clerk for Eugene Toy and Hobby.

Mary died in Eugene on 7 October 2008. Noble spent his final years at Gateway Living in Eugene, and died on 26 January 2015, four months after his 100th birthday celebration. He was survived by his two children, 7 grandchildren, 8 great-grandchildren and, 3 great-great-grandchildren.

Two of his grandchildren are deceased:

• Noble Glenn O. "Bo" Powell IV (1966–2017) was born on May 28, 1966, in Eugene, Oregon. He graduated from Willamette High School in 1984 and joined the U.S. Navy, where he excelled as a boatswain's mate. He deployed for operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm, Enduring Freedom, and Iraqi Freedom, earning multiple Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medals and Commendations along the way. After 26 years, Senior Chief "Bo" Powell retired from the Navy with honor in 2009.
  
  Bo was married in 1991, and he is survived by his wife and two sons, as well as his parents and a sister. He died on 13 September 2017, after a long battle with multiple myeloma cancer.

• Leslie Gayle Powell Daum (1970–1997) was born on 16 February 1970, in Eugene, Oregon. She was killed in a car accident on 24 August 1997, at the age of 27. She was survived by her ex-husband and two sons, as well as her parents, brother Bo, and her sister.

     ii. Arvilla Powell (b. 1920) born just before the 1920 Census, Arvilla did not appear in any other records with her family. Presumably, she died as an infant.


     C. Claudia Mae Powell (1891–1974) was born on 14 November 1891, in Oregon. She married Joe Mulholand on 19 October 1910, in Marion, Oregon; however, they seem to have been separated by 1916, when she appeared in the Portland city directory alone as "Claudia Mulholland."

Claudia lived in Portland and San Fransisco, where she operated a candy shop; she moved to Stayton, Marion, Oregon, in 1951. She died on 15 July 1974, in Stayton, at the age of 82. Private interment was in Rose City Cemetery, Portland.

     D. Pauline B Powell (1892–1970) was born on 31 December 1892, in Oregon. She married George O Greybrooke (1888–1961) around 1920, and they lived in San Fransisco for about 30 years. George was born in the Dakota Territory, and served in the U.S. Army from April 1918 to May 1919, at the end of World War I.

Pauline died Saturday, 14 November 1970 in a Salem nursing home at the age of 78 years. She was survived by her sisters, Claudia Powell, also of Salem, and Mrs. Ada J. Myers, of Half Moon Bay, California.

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 Family can be hard.

When you start digging into the history of any family, there are stories that can be hurtful or embarrassing to uncover. And when, like me, you are so distant a relative that you might as well be a random stranger, you don't know any of the people who might be hurt or embarrassed by the stories you uncover. That means being extra careful, not only to do thorough research and adequately document what you know, but also to reach out to the survivors of those stories in a way that represents them well.

There were several examples here of (potentially) messy divorces, family abandonment, and the impossible-to-ignore involvement with the Klan. Fortunately for me, I have found the other researchers I've met over the years to be pragmatic about confronting these stories. People who get into this hobby seem to become accustomed to the idea of accepting "black sheep" and scoundrels into their family tree along with the upstanding pillars of the community.

After all, it's not like we have much choice in the matter by the time we come along!

Of the living people mentioned in this post, it looks like I may have found at least one candidate to look for in the DNA database. Once I find a match, I'll be sure to post an update.

Until then, if you recognize yourself in this family, and want to fill in gaps or make corrections, please don't hesitate to reach out to me. I'm on Gmail as "callintad," or you can comment below. You can also follow the link above, on the right, to the Callin Family History Facebook group, which is a private group for descendants of James Callin. (Be prepared to tell me how you're related to this family, so I know to let you in!)

I'll be working hard to get as much of this branch documented before I start school in a couple of weeks, so stay tuned!

Myers Family B - More Cool Kids

If you're new to this blog, I've been working my way down the family tree from my own 5th-great grandfather, James Callin, as part of an ongoing project to revise the Callin Family History published in 1911 by my 2nd great uncle, George W. Callin. I'm getting excited, because we're getting close to finishing up the Ferguson branch of the family - which means we're almost into MY branch of the family!

We began looking at today's family last week, with Tom and Amanda (Myers) Cool, and their eldest children: daughter, Helen Cool Davis; and son, Charles Lewis Cool. Let's pick up where we left off with their second son:

III. Walter Perry Cool (1887–1979)

Walter was a lifelong Indiana farmer. He grew up on his father's farm in Jackson township, and married Edna Barnhart (1890–1960) on 21 December 1907. They set up their own farm near Wilmington, in De Kalb county, eventually moving to Union City later in life. They raised two daughters, and their grandson

Edna suffered from chronic kidney disease which put her in the Barkley Nursing home for the last month of her life; she suffered a stroke and died of respiratory failure in December of 1960. Walter lived to be 91 years old; he lived with arteriosclerosis for his last 15 years before he, too, suffered a stroke in 1979.

     A. Phyllis Naomi Cool (1909–1927) grew up and married Roy Lee Free (1903–1980) on 18 July 1925. The couple had a son, but it wasn't long before Phyllis fell victim to typhus in 1927. Walter and Edna adopted the baby boy, Leroy. Roy eventually remarried, and had two sons with his second wife in their home in Louisville, Kentucky.

     1. Leroy E Cool (1926–1982) was adopted by his grandparents, and raised as their son; he never used the surname Free. He grew up on their farm, and eventually enlisted in the U.S. Army, serving from 28 March 1945 to 26 November 1946 at the end of World War II. Leroy married Eva Mary Ording (1921–2014) after the war, on 26 November 1947. They were married for 35 years and had four children together before Leroy's death in 1982. Eva survived until 2014, and when she died, she left two surviving children, 8 grandchildren and 15 great-grandchildren.

     a. Phyllis Catherine (Cool) Wachter (1951–2000) was married, and died in Lansing, Michigan, at only 49 years of age.

     b. Julie Cool (1962–1962) died in infancy.

     B. Dorothy Opal Cool (1913–2014) lived to be 101 years old, and spent her whole life in De Kalb county, Indiana. She married Trever J "TJ" Mavis (1908–1983) on 12 October 1929. TJ was from Williams county, Ohio, but worked as a pressman in a metal plant in De Kalb county to support his family. Before TJ's death in 1982, they had six children: three sons, and three daughters, one of whom survives.

     1. Donald Eugene Mavis (1930–2004) married Margaret Eileen Carpenter (1925–1996). Donald and Eileen had two daughters, still living. Donald lost Eileen to cervical cancer in 1996. He worked as a tool and die maker in the auto industry, and he died from a stroke.

     2. Dale Elsworth Mavis (1932–1998) graduated Auburn High School in 1951, and according to his senior yearbook, he intended to study to become a veterinarian. He attended college in Michigan, and after 1993, he lived in Morris, Grundy county, Illinois. After his death at 66, he was buried near his parents in the Farmer Cemetery, Defiance county, Ohio.

     3. Elenor Elain Mavis (1934–2004) married Kenneth Howard Mitchell (1913–1992) on 14 November 1975, when she was 41 and he was 62. She worked as a scheduler for a manufacturing company, and died from a coronary event attributed to arteriosclerosis related to obesity, according to her death certificate.

     4. Darell Walter Mavis (1935–2011) married and left behind his wife, daughter, two sons, 8 grandchildren, and 8 great grandchildren.

     6. Ellen Jean (Mavis) Wood (1944–2007) married Danny Duane Wood (1944–2006) on 16 September 1963. They later divorced. Danny died the year before Ellen died from cervical cancer. She left behind a son, two daughters, 7 grandchildren, and one great-granddaughter.

IV. Grace E Cool (1890–1984)

When Grace married Harry Brandon (1892–1965) on 14 April 1917, she became his second wife, and she brought two children into the family. It's hard to tell from 100 years away what their situations were and what motivations and social pressures were driving them, so I will try to spell out what the records tell me in a non-judgmental way. If you are descended from this side of the family, and you have more information about them, please let me know so I can tell their story properly.

The records seem to show that Grace had her first son, Nelson, with a man named George Oberlin in May 1911. There is no indication that Grace married Mr. Oberlin, but his name is on the birth certificate.

At around the same time, Harry was married to Wava Mae Howlett (1893-1960) and they had a daughter. The couple married in April of 1910, and when their daughter was born on 22 February 1911, they named her Ilene Lillian Brandon. Harry and Wava divorced in June 1911, while Harry was serving part of his National Guard duty at Fort Benjamin Harrison, and Wava remarried three or four times in rapid succession, making it hard to tell where she might appear in the 1920 Census. It looks as though after the divorce, Wava kept custody of the baby, and called her "Eileen Hazel."

I have not been able to find a birth record for Grace's second child, but Wanda Lillian was born on 12 June 1914 (according to the Social Security records). I don't have any evidence that Harry is Wanda's biological father, but since the marriage records say he and Grace were married on 14 April 1917, and Harry, Jr. was born 27 February 1917 - they may well have been together unofficially well before 1917. And in August of 1917, Harry was granted an exemption from the draft quota due to having a wife and three dependents.

Harry adopted Nelson, and raised Wanda, Harry, Jr., and the twins, along with Grace. Harry died in 1965 from pulmonary congestion after suffering from Parkinson's disease for the previous 15 years. By the end of his life, he was a resident of Souders Hospital, which was torn down in 2008. Grace survived him by nearly 20 years, and died from a heart attack at the age of 94.

     A. Nelson B. "Nellie" Brandon (1911-1995) married Ruth Geneva Wheeler (1914–2006) who was the daughter of Greenwood and Lola (De Witt) Wheeler. Nellie worked as a factory laborer until his retirement. Later in life, he suffered from Alzheimer's disease, and died three days after he suffered a stroke in 1995. Ruth also suffered from dementia in her later years, and died of a heart attack at 91 years of age. They had at least one daughter, who is still living.

From their Find-a-Grave memorial page

     B. Wanda Lillian Brandon (1914-1991) married Clifford Ethen Farmer (1913–1975) after 1930. Clifford was the son of Andrew Oliver and Lyda Ann (La Fever) Farmer of Noble county, Indiana. Clifford and Lillian had at least one child, still living, before moving to Hillsdale, Michigan, where they lived out their lives. They are buried in the Mountain Home Cemetery in Otsego, Allegan county, Michigan.

     C. Harry Lewis "Bud" Brandon, Jr. (1917–1996) was married around 1939, and his wife survived him. Bud served in the U.S. Navy during World War II.

     D. Cleo Brandon (1919–2005) was one of a set of twins born to Grace and Harry Brandon on 29 December 1919. She married Wilbur Nelson Johnson (1921–1997) on 3 May 1941. Wilbur was the youngest son of Nelson Columbus "Lum" Johnson (1891–1980) and Blanche E Getts (1892–1977).

When they married, both Cleo and Wilbur were employed by the former Auburn Rubber Co. and Cleo was later an employee of the Cooper Jewelry Store in Butler, Indiana. They had two sons, still living, and a daughter, Melanie, who died some time before her mother.

     E. Claude Brandon (1919–1982) was Cleo's twin brother. He enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II, serving from 19 August 1941 until 10 December 1945. After the war he married Martha Jean McNabb (1928–2003) at St. Mark's Lutheran Church on 19 February 1949. (And, no - she is not related to the McNabb families we discussed earlier this year. I checked!)

Jean worked as a bookkeeper for two Auburn drug stores for a combined 25 years: Romeiser Drug Store and Keltsch Pharmacy. She also served as assistant to the controller of Mid American Electronics in Auburn for six years, and she was a receptionist for Dr. Stanley Greenberg in Garrett for six years.

Claude and Jean had two children; a daughter, still living, and a son, Thomas James Brandon (1954–2003), who left behind a widow and two children of his own.

 - -- --- -- - 

That's all I have time for this week, but we still have three more Cool siblings to talk about next week. 

As always, if you are related to anyone mentioned in this post, please say hello - you can drop a comment below, join our Callin Family History Facebook group, or email my Gmail address: callintad at gmail dot com.

Corrections and editorial comments are not only welcome, but encouraged.

Myers Family B - One of the Cool Kids

Longtime readers know what a deep affection I have for interesting names. You may have also detected (or inherited?) my penchant for "dad jokes" - and this family you're about to study presents many opportunities for me to embarrass myself with both. If you suspect I'm making fun of one of your ancestor's fascinating monikers, I assure you I am only enjoying it in a way that is meant to express affection and appreciation. So please - be cool.

 - -- --- -- - 

John S. Cool (1828-1901) was born in Yates county, New York, the son of Philip and Mary Cool. Around 1833, Philip moved his family to Sandusky county, Ohio, but he soon died. Mary took her five youngest children (including John) back to New York, but her eldest son, Daniel, remained in Ohio. In 1839, eleven year old John went back to Ohio where he lived with Daniel until 1843, when John (now fifteen) and two other brothers, Christopher and Isaac, went to De Kalb county, Indiana.

In 1850, John traveled back through Ohio and headed to New Jersey, visiting family. A real, live pioneer visiting the Garden State, twenty-two years old, and with a forest cabin and farm back in Indiana, he must have seemed quite a catch to Sarah A. Wilson (1830-1892) of Sussex county, New Jersey. They married on 8 October 1851, and she returned to De Kalb county with him to raise a family. As the dusty old History of De Kalb County, Indiana put it, "They then came to his forest home and commenced housekeeping in the log cabin. Ten children have been born to them..."




 Amanda A. Myers (1865–1905) was, of course, the second eldest daughter of Welby and Eliza (Ferguson) Myers, who you may recall from previous posts. Amanda married Thomas J Cool (1860–1931) in 1882, not long after the birth of her brother, James Myers.

Tom was the fourth child to be born of the log cabin housekeeping of John and Sarah Cool. He was a farmer in Jackson township, which his father had helped found in 1874. The couple raised had six children before Amanda died in 1905. Her death certificate lists the cause of death as "toxemia," which is an out-dated term for pre-eclampsia, one of the many dangerous risks of pregnancy. She left behind two sons under ten, two daughters in their early teens, and three older children.

After Amanda's death, Tom remained unmarried, but he appears to have sold his farm and moved into Union City. This coincided with the rise of automobiles, and in 1910 Tom worked as a "dray man" for an auto factory.  In 1920, he worked in plumbing, but by 1930, he was working as a painter in an auto factory; probably the Auburn Automobile factory we've seen pop up in previous posts.

Tom died suddenly in 1931 from acute appendicitis. He was 71 years old.

• I. Helen Cool (1883-1972)

I have to confess that I almost missed Helen altogether when I put this post together. She did not show up in any of the Census records, and it was only after I found an obituary for her brother, Charles, that I even knew to start looking for her.

Once I did, I learned that she was the eldest child of Tom and Amanda, born 22 January 1883, according to most of the reliable records I found. Since Helen was not listed in the household in 1900, I assume that at 17, she may have found work outside the house, possibly as live-in hired help. She married Perry Ralph Davis (1872-1938) on 29 December 1905, in Detroit, and they moved to Toledo, where Perry was the proprietor of his own saloon.

They lived in Toledo until the 19th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1919, put an end to Perry's saloon - at least legally. By 1920, the couple had moved to Long Beach, California, where Perry ran an auto accessories business, and eventually opened his own lunch room. After Perry died, around 1938, Helen stayed in Long Beach, and took work as a seamstress. She lived until 1972, and died in Downey, Los Angeles county, California.

• II. Charles Lewis Cool (1885–1928)

Charles grew up on his father's farm in Jackson township. He married Katherine "Kate" Gaskill (1890–1968) in April 1908, in Oceania, Michigan, and settled in the Pleasant township, located in Steuben county, not far from Angola, in the top/right-most corner of Indiana.

Kate was the daughter of  Richard J Gaskill (1842–1921) and Sylvina Wolcott (1846–1913), the youngest of their seven children. Their family had helped settle and establish Steuben county, much as the Cool family did De Kalb. She and Charley ran their farm in Pleasant township and had ten children before Charley's sudden death in October of 1928, at the age of 43. One night, he went out to check on his orchard, and was found dead that night at midnight, at the base of one of his trees.

I haven't found any documents to say how dire their situation was, but I know that just one year after Charley's death was Black Tuesday, the onset of what we now call the Great Depression. Farmers were typically not well off, as they were vulnerable to the boom-and-bust cycles of the economy, and rarely had the ability to build up savings. Dying at 43 was probably the most catastrophic thing that could happen to a farmer and his family.

This might explain what happened to this family between 1928 and the 1930 Census. Kate would have been pregnant with their tenth child when Charley died. Another, Henry, may have died in infancy in 1925; but that still left her with eight children who needed homes. There were two old enough to marry, one teen ager, and five who were under ten. Plus the year old baby, Elizabeth. Kate managed to find foster families for most of the younger children, and kept Elizabeth with her when she moved into her brother's home on North Wayne Street in Angola.

Kate eventually remarried, and moved to Bryan, Williams county, Ohio, with her second husband, Forest E Becker (1886–1969). She lived to be 79 years old, and Forest only outlived her by a few months.

     A. Margaret Ila Cool (1908–1987) married Oscar Leo Little (1906–1961) a few years before her father died. Ila and Oscar took in her 10 year old brother, Don, in 1930. Oscar was a farmer, and he and Ila raised one daughter on their farm. He died of a heart attack at the age of 54 in 1961. Ila stayed in their home, surviving until a stroke took her in 1987 at the age of 78.

     1. Betty Jean Little (1924–2003) married Richard A Yanka (1921–1986), who served in the U.S. Army in World War II as a Technical Sergeant. After the war, he completed a chemical engineering degree in 1948, and accepted a position in Chicago, Illinois, with the American Mayes Co. I don't believe the couple had any children.

     B. Gertrude Willidean Cool (1911–1991) married Elmo Earl Sams (1905–1971) on 13 October 1928 - the same month her father died. Elmo farmed and hired out as a laborer during the 1930s, staying mostly in Steuben county; but some time either before or after the Second World War, the family moved to Battle Creek, Michigan, where Elmo found work as a machinist.

The couple raised seven children, two of whom are still living.

     1. Mary Kathryn Sams (1929–2012) was born at the very beginning of the Great Depression, and grew up to marry Eugene Roy Latta (1926–2003) after World War II in Battle Creek. Mary was employed for 42 years at the Weston Biscuit Company (making Girl Scout Cookies) until her retirement in 1989. Two of their children died young, but Mary was survived by a son, three daughters, eleven grandchildren, thirty great-grandchildren.

     a. Diane Kay Latta (1948–1950) died at one year of age.

     b. Gordon E. "Gordie" Latta (1954–1979) died at 25 in Battle Creek, Michigan. I have not found any mention of a cause of death.

     3. Rebecca Jane (Sams) Miller (1931–2002) left behind very little in the records I have found. I know she married, and have her husband's name from one of her sibling's obituaries. I found her 1950 year book photo from Lakeview High school in Battle Creek. And I know that she died in 2002, but have no details. I have found no other information about her husband, so I don't know if he is still living.

     5. Charles Lewis Sams (1936–2000) was a veteran of the U.S. Army, serving in 1955 and 1956. After 1990 he lived in Grand Rapids, Michigan; he died in 2000 and was buried in the Chapel Hill Memorial Gardens in Grand Rapids.

     6. Earline Sue (Sams) Eldred (1940–2015) married on 1 March 1958, and her husband is still living. She worked at Hastings Aluminum and Hastings City Bank until retirement. After that, she and her husband had a trailer at Upper Crooked Lake, and enjoyed fishing. When she died Earline left behind her husband, four children, four grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

     7. Robert Eugene Sams Sr (1944–2011) graduated from Springfield High School in 1962, attended Western Michigan University, and proudly served in the USAF. He worked in the manufacturing and auto industry until moving to Las Vegas in 1990 where he was a 21 year employee of the Gold Strike Hotel & Casino. He was married to Jeanne Hilyard (1943–1981) about 1965, and they had four children, one of whom survives. After Jeanne died, Bob remarried, and his second wife is still alive, as well. I know very little about Bob's deceased children beyond their names and dates:

       a. Melissa Ann "Missa" Sams (1967–1997)
       b. Robert Eugene Sams Jr (1969–1975)
       c. Samantha A Sams (1988–1989)

     C. Thomas Richard Cool (1914–1977) was about 14 years old when his father died, and Thomas went to live with a foster family: Alva and Myrtle Masten. They remained close throughout Thomas's life. He married, and his wife survived him, but they did not have any children together.

     D. Don Charles Cool (1918–1994) went to live with his older sister, Ila Margaret, and her new husband and baby. His little niece was only a few years younger than he was. When Don grew up, he married Maxine Sanders (1918–1966) in February 1938. At first, they lived with her parents on their farm. They had four sons, two still living, before Maxine died in 1966.

     1. Lanny D Cool (1938–2010) worked for GE from 1966 until his retirement from Lockheed Martin in 2000. He served in the United States Air National Guard. He was married in 1961, and his wife survived him, along with two sons, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

     2. Kevin Lee Cool (1956–1979) was only 23 when he was in an auto accident that fractured his spine. He was a graduate of the Hamilton Community school.

     E. D. O. Cool (1920-1937) and his brother, Ted, went to live with elderly sisters, Rose and Irene Crain, after their father's death. D. O. was only 17 years old when he was killed in a car accident. He was described as an industrious young man, well liked by all.

     F. Ted Eugene Cool (1922–1997) graduated from Hamilton High School in 1941, earning his bachelor of science degree from Findlay College, and his master of art from Ball State University, Muncie. He served in World War II, and then taught school in Eaton and Selma in Delaware County.

He married Janice Lee Buller (1931–2013) 17 November 1951 in Eaton, Indiana, and they raised one daughter, who is still living. The couple lived in Muncie until 1995 when they moved to Attica, in Fountain county, Indiana. Janice was employed nearly 40 years with Ball State University, retiring in 1995, as head secretary in the math department.

     F. Ruth Marie (Cool) Wilson (1923–1987) went to live in the home of John and Amy Sowle after her father's death, when she was five years old. She may have also lived with Alva and Myrtle Masten, as her maiden name appeared as "Masten" in one record that I ran across.

She married, and she and her husband raised at least one daughter. Ruth died at age 64, but I haven't been able to find enough information about her husband to know whether he is still living.

     1. Sandra Ann (Wilson) English (1943-1998) was married several times, and I think she may have had at least one child; but the only thing that is certain is that she died very young.

     G. Henry Cool (b. 1925) presents a bit of a mystery; there is definitely a birth certificate for him, and the obituaries I have found for his siblings indicate that he predeceased them, but I haven't found any other records. I'm inclined to believe that he died in infancy, as some other researchers have concluded.

     H. Kenneth Leroy Cool (1926–2001) went to live with his older sister, Gertrude, and his brother-in-law, Elmo Sams, after their father died. He served in the U.S. Marine Corps during the Korean War, and definitely left a bride behind who visited his family in 1953; but I have not been able to track down any further information about his family until the records of his 1987, at age 64. That wife survives him.

     I. Elizabeth Jean (Cool) Kelly (1927–1993) was only a year old when her father died, and she went with her mother to live with her aunt and uncle; Kate Cool's brother, Jason (or Jay) and his wife Hattie Gaskill. Elizabeth also married multiple times, according to the records I've been able to find; she moved west at some point, and as best as I can tell, she married her last husband in 1975, and by 1977 they were living in Los Angeles, where she died not quite twenty years later.

     J. Charles Cool Jr (b. 1929) may be the most tragic part of this story. Once again, I only have a birth certificate, which clearly puts his birth date on 19 March 1929, and names his parents; but while he should be with Elizabeth and their mother on the 1930 Census, he is not. I suspect he also died in infancy, adding to the tragedy of his father's death a few months before.

 - -- --- -- - 

       Once again, we're short on time and space, and we've only covered the first two of Amanda and Tom Cool's children. Depending on how extensive each of their families are, we may need a few more weeks to look at the rest!

• III. Walter Perry Cool (1887–1979)
• IV. Grace E Cool (1890–1984)
• V. Bessie L Cool (1893–1980)
• VI. James Don Cool (1896–1972)
• VII. Frankie L Cool (1902–1977)

As always, please drop a comment below, send an email, or join the Callin Family History Facebook group if you are related to any of the people in this post. If you are, then you belong in the Callin Family History, too!

Until next time - be Cool!

(I couldn't resist...it didn't help that we're going through a heat wave this week in Maryland.)

Myers Family B - The Cowans of Missouri

Last time, we began with the second of our Myers-Ferguson families: the descendants of Welby and Eliza (Ferguson) Myers. This week, we will look at their eldest child; their daughter Mollie.

This is one family where the Callin Family History does not give us much to go on, and the records don't necessarily have all of the facts I usually count on in one document so I can be sure that the child of one family is the bride in another. I found Indiana marriage index records for a Mary A Myers which led me to a possible husband, which led me to a Find-A-Grave memorial which gave her maiden name and her husband's name. Because I don't have original records, I could still be wrong, and have the wrong family -- though I don't think I am.

The CFH (which was published in 1911) says this of the oldest child of Eliza and Welby: "Mary, born 1864; married, 4 children, three living." It goes on to give this Mary her own page, naming two of these four children as "Geo. Myers" and "William Myers" - which, since her married name would not have been "Myers," makes me doubt that great uncle George had the most up to date story on his cousins when he compiled this part of the family tree. You won't see a George or William in the family below. But if I identified her husband correctly, then the Census records and all that follows should tell the story of the right folks, and allow me to correct Uncle George.

    I. Mary Augusta "Mollie" Myers (1864–1927) married Richard Jefferson Davis Cowan (1863–1948) on 14 February 1884 in Knox county, Indiana, and moved with him to Wayne county, Missouri. Jeff was born in Cowan township, which is located almost exactly half way between St. Louis to the north, and Memphis to the south.

Jeff's grandfather, Richard Dickey Cowan, was born in Lincoln county, North Carolina, in 1782. He served as a Major in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812, settled in Missouri some time after the war (probably establishing Cowan township on a land grant) and was elected to the Missouri state house of representatives in 1828, 1834, 1838. Major Cowan died in 1868, and his son, Jeff's father, Richard Dickey Cowan, Jr. died two years later. Jeff's grandmother, Susan, took in Jeff and his two older sisters briefly in 1870, and then the three went to live in the home of Washington and Emily Ellis, where their mother, Eleanor, was the domestic servant. In 1871, Eleanor married Wallis Kirkpatrick (1840-1908). Jeff likely grew up in that household, until he was old enough to be on his own.

At first, Jeff Cowan settled with his new wife in Wayne county, and began a family. The couple had a baby every other year until 1890. In the 1890s, there are a few records of a Jefferson Davis Cowan in California, which could be someone else, or could mean that our Jeff Cowan was exploring business opportunities on the west coast. In 1900, his occupation was listed as "Hotel keeper," and in 1910, he was listed as a traveling salesman.

Hornersville Cemetery, Dunklin county, Missouri

Altogether, Jeff and Mollie had eleven children - all but one of whom survived to adulthood. By 1920, they had moved 100 miles south to Hornersville, in Dunklin county, which is in the panhandle at the bottom of Missouri. After Mollie died in 1927, Jeff lived with his son, Leonard, for a while, but at some point, he moved out to Los Angeles, where he died in 1948. Jeff and Mollie are both buried in the Hornersville cemetery.


     A. Uriel Cleveland Cowan (1884–1958) grew up in Wayne county, and in 1910 was living with his parents and working as a salesman in a dry goods store. He married Minnie Bell Kibby (1878–1963) some time before 1917, and they lived in Clay, Dunklin county, in 1920. Some time in the 1920s, Cleveland and Minnie moved to Michigan, where they lived in the Detroit area for about twenty years.

As far as I can tell, Cleveland and Minnie did not have any children. (But remember Minnie -- we're going to talk about her family more near the end of this post!)

     B. Cona Billie Cowan (1886–1967) married Edwin A Costner in Greenville on 26 October 1905. That much, I can prove with a Missouri Marriage record. Other researchers claim that the couple had a daughter, known only as "Little Tot," who died in 1909. I have not been able to find any records to confirm any of that, and Cona appears in the 1910 Census with her parents and siblings, and she is listed as "Single."

Cona married again, this time to  Robert Bryan Taylor (1894–1958). There are two Arkansas Marriage records for this wedding in 1935, but the couple was listed on the 1930 Census living in Hornersville with Robert's mother, Fannie. They remained in Dunklin county until the 1940s, when they moved out to California. They may have gone there with Cona's father, Jeff; Robert died there in 1958. After the deaths of her husband and father, Cona returned to Missouri, where she died in 1967.

     C. Nettie Beatrice Cowan (1888–1967) George William Stivers (1887–1939) on 3 January 1909. George was elected to the legislature in 1922 and 1923 from Wayne county, and served as postmaster at Piedmont. He suffered a heart attack in April 1939, and died.

     1. Phyllis Edith Stivers (1909–2003) married Homer E Beall Jr (1908–1965) and they have three daughters still living, and in their late 70s.

     2. Joseph Wiley Stivers (1911–1981) graduated from the University of Missouri in 1930, entered the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, and received his commission in 1934. He served his commitment to the Navy, and returned to Piedmont, where he was appointed as a postmaster in 1940. He served in the Navy as a Lieutenant Junior Grade, from 1942 to 1946; after the war, he returned to Piedmont and was again appointed postmaster.

He married Magdalene Stovall (1917–1996), but I have not found any mention of their children in any records.

     3. Carolyn B Stivers (1914–1992) married Arthur B. Meyer, Jr. (1916-1989) on 9 February 1940. Her name appeared on the marriage certificate as "Carolyn Stivers Larkin," so I assume she was married once before; however, I haven't been able to document that further. Arthur had also been married before, and brought a young son into the marriage.

Arthur's father was a bank president in neighboring Moniteau county, Missouri. Arthur was an editor in Piedmont, Wayne county, when he married Carolyn. When the war broke out, he obtained a commission and served from 1942 to 1945 as a Lieutenant in the U.S. Navy. After the war, Arthur took a job in Silver Spring, Maryland, where he and Carolyn were living in the late 1950s; they were there through at least 1980. After retiring, they moved to Littleton, Arapahoe county, Colorado, where they died just a few years apart. They were buried together in the Fort Logan National Cemetery in Denver.

     4. George William Stivers Jr (1920–1945) graduated from the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1942, and served as an officer in the United States Marine Corps during World War II. He was cited for gallantry in the South Pacific, Guadalcanal in 1942 and Tarawa in 1943. He was General J.C. Smith's Aide de Camp and in 1944 he became an air cadet. That same year he received his wings from the Corpus Christi NAS. He was piloting Grumman Avenger, FT-117, that was part of the infamous Flight 19 squadron that disappeared in the Bermuda Triangle while on a training mission out of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

     D. James Wiley Cowan (1890–1973) Beryl Viola Ferguson (1897–1965) around 1923, and they had two children, a son and a daughter, who are still living. Wiley moved the family to Detroit in the 1930s, where he worked in the auto industry, like his brother, Cleveland. Around 1944, Wiley and Beryl moved to Alhambra, Los Angeles county, California. Sometime after 1956, they moved out to Riverside in San Bernardino, where are buried.

     E. Everett Austin Cowan (1894–1972) grew up in Wayne county, Missouri, and enlisted in the U.S. Army in World War I, serving from May to December or 1918. After the war, he married Minnie Bell Bolding (1898–1990) on 12 May 1919, when he was 24 years old. They had three sons and a daughter; their youngest son is still living.

The family moved to Los Angeles after the birth of their first child, but returned to Missouri by 1935, and Everett went to work as a tool checker for WPA roads projects.

     1. Everett Doyle Cowan Sr (1925–2011) was born in Poplar Bluff, Missouri, and after his family moved back to Missouri from Los Angeles, he remained in Strafford for most of the rest of his life. Doyle served in the U.S. Coast Guard during World War II, and was a lifetime member of the VFW Post at Strafford.

Doyle married Mildred Esther Fetterhoff (1928–2004) in May 1945, and they raised three sons and two daughters together. All but one of them survives. He retired from Springfield City Utilities where he was supervisor at the power plant.

Update from 30 Nov 2023:

I was very excited to hear from a living descendant this week. She had a correction to add, which I've edited to avoid naming the living.

Everett and Mildred were never married, and it is not accurate to say they raised their children. Unfortunately, Mildred wasn’t capable due to disability and Everett wasn’t around. She died of lung cancer in 2004. Everett re-married and had step children. "To put it bluntly, Everett wasn’t a father really to his children. Everett Austin and Minnie Bell Cowan raised" the two youngest sons. Everett “Junior” Doyle Cowan also stepped up as a father figure to them.

There is a record of a marriage license for Everett and Mildred dated 5 May 1945 from Cook County, Illinois, but applying for a license does not necessarily mean that a wedding took place. 

     a. Everett Doyle Cowan Jr (1946–2010) was born in Chicago, Illinois, and spent much of his childhood on his grandparents’ farm near Strafford. Junior graduated from Strafford High School and obtained an undergraduate degree from Southern Baptist University and a master’s of education from Drury University. He served for a short period in the U.S. Marine Corps, spent nearly 15 years as a teacher and a principal, and also owned a construction business and a lumber yard. He served as Mayor of Strafford, Missouri.

After retiring, Junior moved to Tulsa, Oklahoma, where he died in June 2010. He was survived by his wife, three children, and three grandchildren (as of 2010).

     2. Mary Ann Cowan (b. 1928) was born in Los Angeles, California, and returned to Missouri with her family when she was about 7 years old. Aside from a California birth index and two Census records, I have not found any other information about her, though her brother's 2011 obituary did say that she predeceased him.

     3. Kenneth Wesley Cowan (1933–1997) was born in Hollywood, but grew up in Strafford, Missouri. He graduated Strafford High School in 1951, and attended the teacher's college in Springfield. He enlisted in the U.S. Navy and served in Vietnam. I don't know when, but I know that he married, and that he and his wife had at least two sons.

     a. Troy Bryant Cowan (1960-1969) only lived two weeks past his ninth birthday. I do not know what caused his death.

     b. Kenneth Troy Cowan (1970-1993) named partly in honor of his recently decease brother, Kenneth enlisted in the U.S. military when he was 19, serving for three months in 1989.

     F. Richard Cowan (1897–1907) was the older twin, born about a week before his sister, Bessie. I could not find any record or newspaper account to explain why he died at age nine.

     G. Elizabeth Rae "Bessie" Cowan (1897–1955) was born on 7 September 1897, at least a week after her twin brother. She married John Stanley Krapf (1897–1960), a World War I veteran who served as a sergeant in the 43rd Infantry. He worked as a government clerk, and they had a daughter. It isn't clear when or why, but it appears the family moved to Los Angeles in the 1940s. Their daughter married, then died in 1948, the same year that Bessie's father died there. Bessie died in Los Angeles in 1955, and John moved back to Poplar Bluff, Missouri, where he died in 1960. He is buried in the Hornersville Cemetery.

     1. Phyllis Evelyn (Krapf ) Hicks (1925–1948) died in Los Angeles, just a few weeks before her 23rd birthday.

     H. Leonard Jefferson Cowan (1899–1976) grew up on the farm, and began working in the timber mills around Hornersville in Dunklin county. He married Ruby Riley (b. 1904) in Poplar Bluff on 26 July 1919. Leonard's father was living with them in 1930, before moving out to California. They were together throughout the 1930s and 1940s, but never had children as far as I could tell.

When World War II broke out, Leonard signed up, and served at the Jefferson Barracks as an auto mechanic. After that, I'm not sure what happened to Ruby, but Leonard ended up married to Myrtle M "Maggie" Smith (1908–1987), and I believe he lived with her during his later years in Chester, Illinois, just across the Mississippi river from Missouri. After Leonard died, Maggie moved to Las Vegas, Nevada, where she died; they were buried in Ellis Grove City Cemetery, Randolph county, Illinois.

     I. Curtis R Cowan (1901–1993) married 17-year old Bertha "Bertie" Lee Banks (1903–1924) on 5 June 1920. She died in 1924, and Curtis quickly re-married on 19 October 1925. This time, his bride was Essie Mae Chitwood (1909–1964).

Essie Mae was the half-sister of Minnie Bell Kibby, Curtis's sister-in-law (remember, I told you we'd talk about her again). Their mother was Esther Ellen "Nellie" Duncan (1854–1937), who married George Chitwood some time after John Kibby died.

Curtis and Essie May had eight children; five sons and three daughters, most of whom are still living. Like his older brother, Curtis worked in timber, and he lived in Hornersville until 1935, when he moved the family to Alton, Madison county, Illinois. (I couldn't say whether he moved there before or after his brother did.) The couple had moved to Chester by the time Essie May died in 1964; that is where Curtis died, as well.

     a. Kathryn Joyce (Cowan) Lloyd (1927–2006) was a realtor for over 30 years and attended Abundant Life Christian Center, through which she helped establish a prison ministry working with delinquent girls. She was survived by 4 daughters, 6 grandchildren, and 3 great-grandchildren.

     c. Stanley Glenn Cowan (1930–1980) enlisted in the U.S. Army, and served in Korea from 1950 through 1952. He appears to have been a career non-commissioned officer, retiring at the rank of Master Sergeant. He never married, that I know of, and he was only 50 when he died.

     d. Janett Cowan (1932–1934) died before she reached two years of age.

     f. Lindell Davis "Tex" Cowan (1936–2010) was just a couple of years too young to serve in Korea, but he enlisted in the United States Air Force. I assume he was probably stationed in Texas, as he moved to El Paso, Texas, and joined the Police department in 1958.

He married Genoveva J Juarez (1931–1995) and raised three daughters in El Paso. After Genoveva died, Lindell moved back to Illinois. He retired from Granite City Steel after many years of dedicated service as a welder.

     J. Thelma D Cowan (1905–1990) moved out to Los Angeles to stay with her younger brother and his wife, and was living with them in 1930. Not long after that, she married and electrical engineer named Stanley E Lindahl (1905–1987) and they had a daughter, whom they raised in the Los Angeles area. Both of them are buried in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale.

     K. Brewster Wilson Cowan (1908–1980) married a girl named Gladys W. (1908–1963) around 1930. I can't find a marriage record, but they were in the Census and U.S. city directories in Los Angeles, and they seemed to be happy living in California. At the end of World War II, Bruce enlisted in the U.S. Army for a few months, and served at Fort Macarthur in San Pedro, California.

I don't know whether they ever had children, but after Gladys died, Bruce did enjoy a whirlwind romance with a woman named Lorene. They married and divorced between February and September of 1966.

 - -- --- -- - 

And that brings us to the end of what I can tell you about the Cowan family and their descendants. There's certainly a lot to take in, and considering the leap of faith I started with, I hope this is mostly correct.

As always, if you are related to anyone mentioned in this post, please say hello - you can drop a comment below, join our Callin Family History Facebook group, or email my Gmail address: callintad at gmail dot com.

Corrections and editorial comments are not only welcome, but encouraged. I want to get this right!
 

Myers Family B - Welby and Eliza

For the last several weeks, we were looking at the descendants of Sarah Ferguson and her husband, Daniel Myers. This week, we begin looking at Sarah's younger sister, Eliza, who married Daniel's older brother, Welby. (And if you want to start with Sarah's and Eliza's parents, see February's post: The Rise of the Fergusons.)

Eliza Ferguson (1847–1920) married Welby Nathan Myers (1842–1931) on 16 April 1863 in De Kalb county, Indiana. While his name is rendered several different ways in the various records I found (Willoughby, Wiloby, Wilbey, and sometimes as William), Welby N. Myers is the name given in the Callin Family History, and seems to me to be the most common rendering among the sources where he is likely to have had any input.

Welby's death certificate calls him "William N. Myers," but the informant on that record is the Home Hospital in Lafayette, Tippecanoe county, where he was residing at the time of his death, and I have the impression that their record was wrong or garbled when the form was filled out. Ironically enough, his daughter, Almeda's death certificate gives his full name - Wilbey Nathan Myers - and lists her mother's full name as "Eliza Calin Ferguson." The handwriting was slightly damaged on that record, though, so the transcriber rendered it as "Eliza Caline Fergeebr." (Moral of the story: be wary of poor transcriptions - and sympathetic to transcribers! They know not the context of what they do.)

Welby and his brother Daniel are both listed in 1860 as "Laborers" on their father's farm. Like his brother, there is no evidence that Welby fought in the Civil War; judging by the timing of his marriage and the birth of his two eldest daughters, Welby and Eliza remained in Indiana and began their family during those war years.

• I. Mary Augusta "Mollie" Myers (1864–1927) 
• II. Amanda A. Myers (1865–1905) 

(Mollie and Amanda each left behind a lot of descendants for us to discuss, so we'll look at them in more detail in coming weeks.)

In the year between the birth of Amanda (July 1865) and Carrie (April 1866), the family moved to Eaton county, Michigan, where Welby was working in carpentry according to the 1870 census. They lived in Roxand, at least for the four years between 1866 and 1870, when they had their two younger daughters, Carrie and Minerva.

By 1880, the family moved back to the Auburn area in De Kalb county, Indiana, where Welby established himself as a farmer. There, when Welby was 39 and Eliza 34, they had their youngest child and only son, James.

• III. Carrie A. Myers (1866–1954) 

Carrie married Oscar Haines (1859–1934) in 1886. He was a farmer, and they lived in Auburn township, where they raised their adopted son, who came to their family when he was five years old. Around 1910, Oscar and Carrie moved to the town of Ashley. In the 1930s, Oscar's health began to fail, and Carrie took care of him after he suffered a serious of strokes; he died in 1934. Twenty years later, Carrie died in the convalescent home in Butler.

     A. Oscar "Harry" Harris (1892–??) had six children, according to Oscar Haines's 1934 obituary; however, I have been unable to locate any reliable records to tell me more, partly due to how common the names "Harry" and "Harris" are. Without knowing where he lived or his wife's name, any of the records I found could be the family I'm looking for. The search continues.

• IV. Almeda Minerva Myers (1869–1900) 

Almeda married Clement V Brandon (1865–1926) on 15 January 1887 in De Kalb county, Indiana, and promptly had their son, George, on 12 September of that year. Almeda died in August of 1900 from tuberculosis, and Clement carried on alone, raising 13 year old George. He bought a farm outside the town of Garrett in 1920, where his son's family was living with him when he died.

     A. George Curtis Brandon (1887–1959) married Lottie Belle Clark (1889–1970) on 20 February 1906, and he went to work for the B. & O. Railroad as a trainman. He inherited his father's farm in 1926, which was valued at $875, and in the early 1930s, he sold the farm and moved to Indian River, Michigan. He died in in 1959 at the hospital at Petoskey, Michigan, after a two month illness. Lottie survived him, and moved back to Fort Wayne to be near their daughter. Lottie died of a heart attack at age 82 while living in the National Nursing Home in Fort Wayne.

     1. Imadean May Brandon (1906–1992) married Theodore R Crooks (1902–1985) in April 1924 in Garrett, Indiana. They had two children; a son and a daughter. Theodore worked as a "trimmer" in an auto factory - most likely the Auburn Automobile company - and later worked for General Electric in Fort Wayne. He was long retired when he died at 83 from a "recurrent cerebrovascular accident" in 1985. Imadean lived until 1992, and they were buried together in the Garden of Devotion section of Lindenwood Cemetery in Fort Wayne.

     a. Darel Arthur Crooks (1924–2013) was a veteran of the U.S. Army Air Corp, and served in the South Pacific Theater during World War II. He married in 1974, and was employed as a pharmaceutical salesman for the former Michigan Pharmacal, located in Auburn Hills, Mich. He retired in 1988, when he moved with his wife to their home on Burt Lake. They spent their winters in Ft. Meyers, Florida or Orange Beach, Alabama.

As well as his wife and four of his five children, Darel left behind eight grandchildren, seven great-grandchildren and one great-great grandson.

     b. Geraldine Joan (Crooks) Green (1928–1970) graduated from Kendallville High School in 1947, and went to Fort Wayne, where she worked for Sears as a typist in 1950. She was living in Columbus, Ohio, with her husband when she died at 41 years of age.

• V. James N Myers (1881–1923) 

James lived on the farm and worked with his father until his late twenties. His sister Amanda married in 1881, and Mollie in 1884, so James probably did not know them as well as he did his younger sisters.

James married Grace A Perry (b. 1881) in June 1910. She had been married before, and divorced, and brought a son from her first marriage, Harry, into the family. She had been supporting herself  by working in the home of the Link family when James married her. When their son was born the following year, they named him in honor of that family.

James took his family and moved to Toledo some time before 1920; they were living there when James died in July 1923, killed in an accident involving an electric street car. According to the reporting in the Toledo Blade:

J.M. Myers, Ottawa road, was killed instantly when hit by a Toledo bound Lake Shore limited car at stop 337 in the Woodville road Thursday morning.
It was first reported that Mr. Myers had intentionally thrown himself in front of the car but Coroner Henzler gave a verdict of accidental death.
"Mr. Myers was crippled. One of his feet was shorter than the other and it is my opinion that he suddenly fell in front of the speeding car when he stepped into a hole beside the track," the coroner said.
Witnesses say that Mr. Myers had been standing in a shelter house at stop 337 for several minutes when he walked out at the approach of the limited. They say he suddenly lurched forward and that within a second the car was upon him.
The car was operated by J.B. Emmons, Toledo, who said that he did not see the man until he left the shelter house.
He said that then the car was less than 50 feet away and although he put on the brakes it was too late to stop.

A few years later, Grace re-married to James Erven; she died in July 1948.

     A. Marshall Link Myers (1911–1976) was an electrician for the Norfolk and Western Railway 30 years, retiring in 1974. He was also a dock master for the Ottawa River Yacht Club. His wife and daughter survived him.

 - -- --- -- - 

Special thanks to the kind and helpful staff of the Local History & Genealogy Department of the Toledo Lucas County Public Library for providing the obituaries for James N. and Marshall Myers.

Also, credit to Ancestry user baraboo84 for finding and uploading several wedding and death documents for James & Grace Myers - without which I would not have been able to find out nearly as much about them as I did!

As always, if you are related to any of the people in this post, I'd love to hear from you. This is part of an ongoing project to update the 1911 Callin Family History, compiled by George W. Callin of Bowling Green, Ohio. If your family is listed here, then you belong in that book!

Comment below, email me (callintad at gmail dot com), or follow the link to our Callin Family History Facebook page, and tell me how you're related so I can add you to the group.

Next week: The Cowans of Missouri (there are a lot of them).

Myers Family A - Two for One Post

James Callin's great granddaughter, Sarah Ferguson, and her husband, Daniel Myers, were the parents of four sons. We spent the last two posts reviewing the two elder sons and their descendants.

I. Samuel Ralston Myers
II. Henry Tilman Myers

Today, we'll have time to cover the descendants of both of the younger sons in one post - but first, I have to introduce someone else.

Emma May Hostler (1862-1922) was born near the beginning of America's Civil War, and died after the First World War. Her parents were Michael Hostler (or Hosler), Jr. (1832-1916) and Elizabeth Disler (1832-1930), both of whom were born in Stark county, Ohio, to German immigrant parents and both of whom were part of that great Westward migration to Indiana that we saw during the 1840s.

May married early, wedding William B Fletter (1858–1891) on 10 August 1879 in Allen County, Indiana. They had seven children during the 11 years they were married, and while I have not found any documented evidence of the date of William's death, I believe the other researchers of this family who peg it around December 1891. Sadly, the youngest of those seven children was also born that year, and May remarried on 29 November 1893 to Alfred E. Keck (b. 1872) - who, you might note, was ten years her junior.

I don't like to moralize or sound judgmental about the marriage customs of these earlier times. There is no way to know what social or economic pressures drove anyone's decisions; but there are a number of factors here that spell danger to modern readers. A young widow, with so many children; a younger husband; volatile economic times; whatever it was that motivated them, the Kecks had two sons together before their divorce in 1899, and this time, when she remarried, May found a husband from our family.

     III. David Albert Myers (1873–1938) grew up on his father's farm in Perry township, near Fort Wayne, and he married May Keck in 1902, when most of her nine children were old enough to be self-sufficient. I don't believe he adopted any of them, though Ernest Vernon (1895-1965) and Franklin Adolph Keck (1898-1975) appeared in the household under the Myers surname in 1910. At that time, the family was living in Chicago, where David worked as a carpenter. David and May had one son together.

     A. John Michael Myers (1903–1944) married Burnetta Blanche Hess (1907–1970) on 6 November 1922 in Hillsdale, Michigan, and they raised two daughters in Fort Wayne, Indiana. One of their daughters is still living. John supported the family working in a foundry. He contracted pneumonia in 1944 and died on April 15. The records aren't clear to me, but it seems that before John's death, Burnetta was already married to her second husband.

Betty Rose (Myers) Birch
Covington Memorial Gardens, Ft. Wayne, IN

     1. Betty Rose Myers (1923–1983) joined the U.S. Army in March 1945, and served through January 1946. I know from her death certificate that she was divorced at the time of her death, but I have not been able to locate an obituary or any other information about her husband or any children.

     Some researchers have documented May Hosler's death in 1941 in Los Angeles, California, but I found her death certificate on Ancestry.com - according to that document, which correctly identified her parents and her husband, she died on 4 May 1922 from kidney failure due to chronic interstitial nephritis. She was buried in the Old Leo Cemetery in Leo-Cedarville, Allen county, Indiana, next to her first husband, William Fletter.

When he lost May, who had been 11 years his senior, David might have ended up on his own. His son and many step children were all grown, after all, and many men his age might have retired to the farm. But in December of 1923 David married his second wife Iva Elizabeth Shirely (1904–1962). She was 18 when they wed, and they had two daughters and a son before David's death in 1938. As far as I can tell, their elder daughter is still alive.

     B. Davis Lewis "Sonny" Myers (1925–1990) was a truck driver who was living in Hicksville, Ohio, when he did of a heart attack at age 64. He enlisted in the U.S. Army on 21 August 1943 and served until 27 February 1946. He was married, and his wife survived him; she may still be alive today.

     C. Violet Beaula Myers (1927–2007) was born in Benton Harbor, Michigan; I'm not sure why, as her parents were lifelong residents of Fort Wayne, but the records are pretty clear. She married Robert L Kessinger (1921–1990), on February 18, 1946. He worked as a telephone lineman. They raised two daughters and two sons, and left behind three grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren.



     IV. Edward Alfred Myers (1875–1952) the youngest of these four Myers brothers, married Gertrude M Jones (1882–1928) on 29 September 1901. Edward worked as an engineer and builder in the Fort Wayne area. He and Gertrude had four children - three sons and a daughter - two of whom survived to adulthood. The records are not completely clear, but I believe that Edward and Gertrude divorced in the early 1920s. Having lost two children within a couple of years of each other, their marriage may have suffered; they would not be the first couple to split up after such a painful tragedy. There are marriage records for Gertrude Jones and Evert Arnold in 1924, and Gertrude Arnold died in June 1928. Other researchers on Ancestry document her death in February, as Gertrude Myers, but I have not found records to confirm that.

The Myers family seems to have been close, as they frequently took care of each other during hard times. In 1910, Edward's brother, Henry, came to live with Edward's family after Henry's wife, Fannie, died. Henry's younger children went to live with Daniel and Sarah that year. And after Gertrude left in 1924, Edward's mother, Sarah, came to live with him.

Edward spent his final years in the Leslee nursing home, and died of chronic nephritis in 1952.

     A. Albert Harry Myers (1902–1981), eldest son of Edward and Gertrude, married Luella Emma Claus (1902–1946) on 15 May 1922 in Hillsdale, Michigan, and he worked as a wire drawer and enameler in the 1930s and 1940s. They raised three children together, but Luella died just at the close of the second World War. Then on 2 October 1949, Albert married his second wife, Ivah V Miller (1903–1976).

Albert and Luella's two younger children seem to still be alive, but they lost their older daughter in 1944.

Found on Newspapers.com
     1. Wilma Gertrude Myers (1922–1944) graduated from North Side High School in Fort Wayne in 1940, and she found work as a bookkeeper for the First National Bank in Fort Wayne. The bank was located next to a Sears and Roebuck Co. building which was ravaged by a fire at the beginning of April 1944.  Two floors had burned away, and while the building was undergoing repairs during the first two weeks of April, there were heavy rains and high winds in the area, which further weakened the remaining walls. On 11 April, the Sears & Roebuck building collapsed and spilled tons of brick and mortar debris into the Fort Wayne bank, killing six and injuring several others. Wilma was among those killed during the collapse.

     B. Arthur Lee Myers (1904–1921) was 17 years old when he and a friend decided to go hunting one Monday in November 1921. They tried to hop a ride on a freight train back to Fort Wayne, and when his friend attempted to pass the shotgun up to Arthur, it discharged into his left shoulder. The accident occurred on the 7th of November, and he died two days later.

     C. Alva Albert Myers, Sr. (1906–1969) married Laretta Belle Green (1908–1945) on 5 March 1927. In 1930, their little family was living with Laretta's parents on Wabash Avenue. Alva worked in the wire factory. They had six children altogether; five of whom survived to adulthood, and three of whom are still alive today.

On the 15th of October 1945, Laretta died after a coal oil explosion at home covered her entire body with second degree burns. Her three youngest children were all under the age of ten when she died. Alva remarried in 1950; his second wife was Pearl Maude Trim nee Carpenter (1914-1954), who died just four years later of ovarian cancer.

     1. Mary Ellen Myers (1928–2010) married Frederick Wilson Cartwright (1925–2012). Fred was a World War II Purple Heart Army veteran. He retired as a mogul operator for Wayne Candies in Fort Wayne, Indiana and he and Mary moved to Virginia to be nearer to their four children, ten grandchildren, six great grandchildren and several step great grandchildren. Two of their daughters and their son are still living

     a. Ellen Elizabeth (Cartwright) Wasson (1960–2011) was born in Fort Wayne, but was living in Palmer Springs, Virginia, when she died at the age of 51. She clerked for Slip-In Convenience stores, and was a member of the Church of Religious Science.

     2. Edward William Myers (1930–1931) was just over a year old in April of 1931, when he contracted pneumonia and died.

     3. Helen Luella (Myers) Bell (1932–2012) married in 1951, and she was survived by her husband, three daughters, two sons, 19 grandchildren, 39 great-grandchildren, and one great-great-grandchild.

     D. Henrietta May Myers (1909–1917) was severely disabled, suffering from a spinal defect and from a bout of meningitis when she was two years old. At age 8, she died from a pulmonary hemorrhage.

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Sometimes this hobby feels very morbid - especially when I am writing about a family that has suffered a lot of tragedy. Most of the time, I contribute that feeling to the fact that I'm not writing about living people (not without their permission!) and to the fact that I'm getting a lot of information from obituaries. This is particularly true at the end of a post, when I'm usually writing about the most recent generations.

But I think Ancestry either added a database of Indiana Death Certificates, or made the existing records easier to find, because as I reviewed these last few Myers families, the Ancestry hint system was suggesting these records to me. That is why I was able to go into (often gruesome) detail about how some of these people died.

Whatever the reason, I hope you found this interesting and helpful, and as always, if you spotted any mistakes, please let me know. And if you belong to this family, let me know that, too! Drop a note in the comments, or come visit our Callin Family History Facebook group to learn more about this project.

Myers Family A - Stubborn Henry

Last time, we began looking at the first of two Myers families. Sarah Ferguson, the daughter of Eliza (Callin) Ferguson, married Daniel Myers, and they had four sons. We looked at the descendants of their eldest son, Samuel Ralston Myers, and now we will kick off with his brother:

     II. Henry Tilman Myers (1868–1918) grew up on his father's farm in Perry township, Allen county, Indiana, and he married Frances "Fannie" Thompson (1879–1908) on 12 May 1898. They moved to Union township in neighboring De Kalb county, where Henry worked as a teamster.

Remember, that is a job that was changing drastically during Henry's lifetime. When he started out, he was probably still working with teams of horses pulling wagon loads of timber; by the mid 1910s, it was more likely that he was working with trucks or tractors.

Found on Newspapers.com

As you can tell from the obituary linked here, Henry met his end in 1918, after what appears to have been a frustrating day at work. He was only 50 years old, though at this point he would have been driving loads of timber for twenty years; and after making a delivery of heavy timber to the work site, he probably just wanted to stand out of the way and rest. I know that I don't respond well when I'm tired, and people keep yelling at me, so while the newspaper makes it clear that Henry was stubbornly ignoring warnings to get out of the danger zone, I can't help thinking that he was just confused and annoyed.

This article was important to my research, because finding records to tell the story of Henry's life had been difficult, and until I saw this article, I had no idea whether he and Fannie had any children. Even this obituary isn't as helpful as it could be, since it says he was "survived by the widow, five children" but appears to list six children and not name his widow. Which means that after Fannie's death in 1908, Henry re-married, but crucial details like his second wife's name are lacking. Piecing this puzzle together meant working backwards from limited information, complicated by the fact that there was more than one Henry Myers in Indiana at the time.

To the best of my abilities, here is what I think I figured out:

     A. Ruth Mabel Myers (1899–1958) was surprisingly difficult to research, and there are some gaps in the records that raise questions about where she was for long periods of time. In most records, she is referred to as Mabel, though she seems to have preferred to be called Ruth after the 1930s. When her mother died in 1908, Mabel would have been just 9 years old, and three of her younger siblings (Hubert, Ford, and Oleva) were listed in the household of grandparents Daniel and Sarah Myers in 1910, Mabel and her other sister, Marie, were not. Henry moved in with his younger brother, Edward.

Mabel married Harry Paul Clement (1892–1933) on 11 March 1916; their marriage certificate is the only record I found that listed her birth date as 29 March 1897. Most records say 29 March 1899, and the earlier date would be unlikely, since her parents weren't married until May 1898. That means she and Harry wanted to get married when she was only 16, and the couple probably didn't want to have to seek her father's consent.

They had one child, a daughter, when they were together, but they soon divorced, and Mabel remarried to Arnold R. Wolf (b. 1898) in December 1921. They also divorced, some time after 1925, and Mabel (now preferring the name Ruth) was married to Walter James Baker (1894–1971) by 1940. He was a widower with several grown children, and he and Ruth were still together when Ruth died of rectal cancer in 1958.

     1. Kathryn Maxine Clement (1917–1995) seems to have preferred a quieter life than her mother's. She lived for some time with her aunt, Oleva, appearing in the Zimmerman household in 1930. She married Carl E Beam (1909–1990) around 1935, and they stayed together in the Fort Wayne area for the next 55 years. Carl worked as a bottler for the Falstaff brewery for 32 years, retiring in 1967. He died of respiratory failure after suffering from chronic lung disease which developed into pneumonia. Kathryn died of mesothelioma in 1995, leaving behind a son, a daughter, six grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren.

     B. Hubert J Myers (1900–1974) was something of an outlaw. After the 1910 Census, when he appears in his grandparents home, there isn't much in the way of recorded evidence that he was around, except for a few mentions in the Fort Wayne newspapers. In 1922, he was fined $5 for public intoxication, along with several friends. Ten years later, he was sentenced to 180 days "at the state farm" for selling a stolen car. By 1940, he seems to have married and settled down to work as a bartender. His wife's name was Flossie, but other than a 1907 birth date, I don't know much about her. They were together through at least 1945; his death certificate says he was widowed. He died of intestinal cancer in 1974.

Ford R and Edith Myers headstone
Lindenwood Cemetery, Fort Wayne, IN

     C. Ford Ruford Myers (1902–1960) is someone about whom I still know very little for all the records I was able to locate. His father's obituary seems to be the only place his name is recorded as "Rutherford," and he usually appears as "Ford R."

The U.S. City Directories database records for Fort Wayne show a Ford R Myers working as a "wire drawer" or "tinsel operator" for many years. He married Helen Ethel Willson (b. 1901) in October 1925, and they were together through at least 1930, though I have been unable to locate a Census record (which would tell us whether they had any children). He seems to have been married to a Florence (Souder) Bullerman (1906-1989) in 1939, but she appeared in the 1940 Census living in her parents' home (under the name Myers), and Ford's directory listings in the early 1940s show him living with Edith (1906-1968), who is buried next to him in Lindenwood Cemetery in Fort Wayne.

As with his brother, I can't tell whether Ford left behind any progeny.

     D. Minerva Marie Myers (1905–1998) married Edward Lawrence Welch (1903–1944) on 14 August 1922, when she was still 16. Edward and Marie raised two sons together, and Edward worked for the Fort Wayne Drug Co. until his death from a coronary embolism at the age of 41. She remarried to a Mr. Dunn who preceded her in death, as did both of her sons. Marie died of a sudden stroke at the age of 92.

     1. Edward Lawrence Welch Jr (1923–1976) served in the U.S. Army's new Air Corps from 27 November 1942 to 13 January 1946. After the war, I am unable to locate any information about where he went or what he did, though I presume he remained in the Fort Wayne area for the following 30 years, as the U.S. military and Social Security files indicate that's where he died.

     2. Arnold Leroy Welch (1925–1987) enlisted a year after his brother did, serving in the U.S. Army from 17 November 1943 to 20 January 1946. He married on 2 December 1952, and he and his wife raised a daughter in the Fort Wayne area. Arnold died of colon cancer in 1987; his wife survived him and is still living.

     a. Joanna Lee Welch (1953–1990) died very young, leaving behind a new husband and a career as a hotel manager. Her death certificate indicated the cause of death being due to intravenous drug use, but without more details, I wouldn't want to speculate or moralize about that. She was married briefly when she was eighteen, and had just remarried a couple of years before her death, not long after her father died.

     E. Oleva Gertrude Myers (1907–1996) was the most elusive of Henry and Fannie's five children to track down. It would seem that the obituary that named her was confused about her name, but after piecing together a number of records, I'm satisfied that I have the right person. Of course, nothing about this family was easy to figure out, so please bear with me. I think this is what happened:

Oleva married Sherman L Zimmerman (1904–1956) around 1924, and they had three children before 1930; a daughter, and two sons. Oleva and Sherman divorced at some point, and from what I can tell, the two younger children, Donna and Harold, were adopted by Ralph and Elsie Yarde. Sherman remarried and had seven more children (three sons, four daughters) with his second wife, Mary Imogene Likes (1923-1957). Sherman died from a cerebral abscess in 1956, and Mary was killed in a car accident a year later.

Oleva had remarried to Arthur F Everett (1910–1993) by 1940, and Henry Zimmerman lived with them for a time. She outlived her husband by three years, then died at age 90 of a heart attack, leaving behind 10 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren and 5 great-great-grandchildren.

     a. Henry Clayton Zimmerman (1925–2002) married Marilyn E Glasgow (1926–1975), probably around 1968, and they had one daughter, who is still living. He did remarry in 1977, after Marilyn's death, and his second wife is also still alive today. Interestingly, that second wife was also married to Henry's brother, Harold.

     b. Donna Louise (Zimmerman) Yarde (1926–1998) married Edgar Dale Grabill (1923–2006) on 29 December 1946, and they raised three daughters and a son, all still living. Edgar and Donna raised their kids in the Goshen area, and moved to La Otto in Noble county later. Donna eventually succumbed to heart disease.

     c. Harold L (Zimmerman) Yarde (1928–1990) married Beverly G Nelson (1930–2010) on 4 June 1949, and they had four children over the following five years; a son and three daughters. In March 1955, Beverly filed for divorce, and in July, so did Harold. In September, the judge awarded custody of one of the children to Beverly, and required Harold to pay child support in the amount of $7 a week.

By December 1955, Harold was remarried; his second wife later married his brother, Henry, in 1977. I don't know how long they were together, but Harold married twice more in 1978 and 1979. His third wife was Gladys O (Smith) Durham (1921–2011), and their marriage did not last long, but Anna Jean "Oma Jean" Vanover (1933–2002) moved with Harold to Nashville, where they were together at his death.

     i. Sheryl Lynn Yarde (1954–2012) was the youngest of Harold's four children. She seems to have suffered from kidney disease, and left behind two grown sons and a grand-daughter.

 - -- --- -- - 

When one does this kind of research as a hobby, it's easy to think of every mystery solved as a masterpiece worthy of Sherlock and Batman, even though most of the time the most difficult challenge comes from figuring out how to fish facts out of a new database. This family, though, represented a crazy quilt of half-correct clues, missing records, and logical leaps that left me scratching my head (and not just from the shingles).

I'm not complaining. This is what I do for fun, after all. But each of Henry's children presented a new set of questions to untangle one piece of evidence at a time. Except for Hubert and Oleva, all of them used their middle names, and Oleva's name was rendered as everything from "Olive" to "Alevia" in her records. Their relationships took unexpected, and sometimes bitter, turns; and I had to keep digging for tiny clues that would unlock the next fact until I pieced it all together. For all that, I still have no idea who Henry's widow was!

But now that I've solved most of the mysteries here, I feel the usual hesitation about publicizing what might have represented some difficult childhood experiences for the surviving cousins who might read this. I always hope that for the families involved, nothing I've found in the public record is considered a secret, and that no one is hurt by what I've uncovered.

I know that my grandmother would have been uncomfortable talking about things like divorce and adoptions, and it could be that a distant cousin might be disturbed by something that was hidden or forgotten which they find out about through my blog. That is never my intent, but I have to take the approach that if I can find the evidence on the Internet, then the truth is already "out there" waiting to be discovered. In the case of this post, much of that evidence came from digitized archives of the Garrett Clipper on Newspapers.com - which you can see at this link.

Of course, if I simply got things wrong, I'm always happy to make corrections. If you have evidence that helps me correct my records, please contact me and let me know. You can comment below, email me (I'm "callintad" on Gmail), or join the Callin Family History Facebook group and say hello!