Myers Family A - Samuel Ralston

Nathan Myers was born in Lehigh county, Pennsylvania in 1812, probably into a German-speaking family. His parents were Johannes (or John) and Anna Maria (Wuchter) Meyer. Johannes was a weaver. They married probably before 1808 in Heidelberg Township, Northampton County, Pennsylvania, which later became Lehigh County.

Nathan married around 1833. His wife, Leah Wagner, was the daughter of Johan and Maria; she was baptized in the Upper Milford Reformed Congregation (which is now known as Zion's Reformed Church). They had four sons between 1834 and 1844, including two who we'll be discussing in the coming weeks: Welby, and Daniel. Then, probably in 1845 or 1846, Nathan moved the family to Ohio. In 1850 they were listed in Thompson township, Seneca county. Nathan and Leah had four more children in Ohio, two sons and two daughters. Then, by 1860, they had relocated further west, to Perry township in Allen county, Indiana, where they lived near the Eel River post office.

Sarah Ferguson (1846–1934) was also born in Ohio, as you may recall from our February post, Rise of the Fergusons. The Fergusons also relocated to Indiana in the late 1840s, settling in Jackson township, De Kalb county. This placed the Myers and Ferguson families about 70 miles apart, on opposite sides of Fort Wayne. This was apparently close enough, as Sarah married Daniel Myers (1844–1922) on 3 September 1864. (I was not able to determine whether he served in the Civil War - there were a lot of "Daniel Myers" of varied spellings!)

They settled on a farm in Cedar Creek; they farmed and Daniel worked as a carpenter. They raised four sons, who were born in the space of ten years. Daniel suffered from arteriosclerosis later in his life, and died at the age of 78 at their home in Huntertown. He was survived by Sarah, three sons, 12 grandchildren, and eight great-grandchildren. Sarah moved in with Edward, the youngest son, whose two surviving sons were grown and out on their own. She died in 1934.

     I. Samuel Ralston Myers (1865–1947) married Nora Dale Green (1870–1955) on 24 September 1887. They had two sons and two daughters over the following decade, and Ralston farmed in Perry township, near Fort Wayne, Indiana, until some time in the late 1910s, when he and Nora moved to Toledo, Ohio. There, he took work as a machinist and pump operator for an oil company. Ralston and Nora are buried in the New Huntertown Cemetery in Huntertown, Allen County, Indiana.

     A. Clyde Alfred Myers (1888–1955) married Mabel Leona Schrader (1892–1978) in Allen county, Indiana, on 28 January 1909. Clyde retired as a master mechanic from I&M Electric, and died of a heart attack in 1955.

     1. Mildred L. Myers (1909-1910) died at ten months and 21 days old, on 29 April 1910, after a six week bout with pneumonia. (I calculate an 8 June 1909 birthday from that.)

     2. Ethel Ailine Myers (1910–1997) married Owen Jones Morris (1911–1986), probably after 1935. Owen was an accountant who worked in Fort Wayne, eventually becoming the corporate controller for Dana Corp. After his retirement, the couple seems to have had a home in Sun City, Arizona (at least, they did in 1984). Owen died of prostate cancer in Angola in Stueben county, Indiana, in 1986. I know they had at least one daughter, who completed Ethel's death certificate in 1997.

     B. Daniel Albert "Danny" Myers (1890–1985) was raised on his father's farm, and grew up to be a farmer. In the 1920s and 1930s he also drove a truck for a dairy. He married Edith Amanda Barker (1892–1942) on 18 June 1915. He was her second husband, and I feel I should take an extra moment to tell you her story, because it was difficult to puzzle out.

Edith was born 16 April 1892 to Benjamy Barker and Amanda Kimes (according to the Indiana marriage certificate from her wedding to Danny). Before 1900, she was adopted by Allen G. and Julia (Wilcox) Dunten, and that is the name she used on all of her official documents (birth/death certificates, marriage records, etc.). Edith married Earnest Burdette Mesel (1885-1936) on 10 August 1908. Earnest was originally from Chataqua county, New York, and he was in Indiana working on the railroad as a section laborer,

The couple had two daughters: Dorothy Lillian Mesel (born 8 January 1909) and Virginia Luella Mesel (born 12 December 1911). It isn't clear what happened between them, but by 1915, Earnest was back in Cherry Creek, Chataqua county, New York, married to Gertrude Johnson (1892-1990); he had Dorothy listed in his household on that year's state Census. In 1920, Virginia appeared in the household of Allen and Julia Dunten; she appeared in 1930 in Danny and Edith's household, listed as married and with the surname "Lee."

Danny and Edith had six children together, four of whom survived to have families of their own. They were all grown when Edith died in 1942, and Danny remarried to Goldie C Freeman (1882–1964) in 1943.

Found on Newspapers.com

     1. Maurice Dale Myers (1916–1935) was 19 years old when he fell and was run over by a tractor on the family farm in Swan, Noble county, Indiana. (The newspaper account linked here may be disturbingly graphic; it does contain some genealogical information, though.)

     2. Eugene Allen Myers (1918–1972) joined the U.S. Army on 2 October 1940, more than a year before the attack on Pearl Harbor, and served in the Army Air Forces as a technical sergeant during the war.

His record shows that he was discharged on 11 September 1945, but he married Ruth June Hemphill (nee Rowe; 1926-2008) in Randolph county, Arkansas, on 10 June 1946. I suspect he was still stationed at what would have then been called Blytheville Army Air Field, waiting for his discharge.

After their wedding, Eugene and Ruth moved back to the Fort Wayne area, where he worked as an assembler. They had two children, a son and a daughter, both still living.

     3. Betty Arleen Myers (1919–1999) was the only daughter of Danny and Edith. She married Thurlo Samuel "Frog" Gaff (1916-2004) on 25 September 1938, in Fort Wayne. He worked in welding and painting for LaOtto Fabricating for 23 years. They had a daughter and a son, both of whom are still living.

     4. Samuel Albert Myers (1920–1997) was a career military man, enlisting in the U.S. Army on 6 October 1939. In 1940 he was a private serving with the 21st Field Artillery at Fort Knox, Kentucky, and in 1945 he and a wife were listed living in Denver, Colorado, his occupation still "United States Army." Since he retired in 1970 from the U.S. Air Force as a Lieutenant Colonel, I'm going to make the educated guess that he was selected for officer training some time after the close of World War II, and received his commission in 1953. I believe he had at least one son, who is deceased, but I have not been able to find records to confirm this.

     5. Robert Lee Myers (1925–1952) also enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1944, serving through November 1945. He married in March of that year, and the newlyweds settled in Avilla, Noble county, Indiana. After his unexpected death in 1952 from leukemia, his wife remarried, and she is still living.

     6. Calvin C. Myers (1926) was born prematurely on 12 January, and died one month and one day later; the cause of death listed was "exhaustion."

     C. Sarah Oseola "Ocie" Myers (1892–1964) married Anthony Barney Spain (1887–1920) on 8 October 1915, and they lived in Fort Wayne. Anthony was a laborer and crane operator who caught pneumonia and died in February of 1920. Two years later, on 27 May 1922, Ocie married Jessie Marion McCord (1884-1960), and they moved to Toledo, Ohio. I have found no evidence to suggest that Ocie had any children with either of her husbands.

     D. Gercie May Myers (1896–1951) married Stephen Raymond Hayes (1891–1970) on 10 June 1915, and in 1920 the couple was living in Ralston and Nora Myers's home in Toledo, Ohio, along with their baby daughter. Stephen worked as a switchboard operator for the power plant.

     1. Mary Maxine Hayes (1916–1991) grew up and married Francis J "Frank" Lininger (1917–1986), and together they raised two daughters, who are still living. According to her 1991 obituary, they had four grand-children.

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That rounds out the descendants of Ralston Myers. Next time, we'll begin with his fatally stubborn brother, Henry.

There were a lot of gaps in the records that probably led to a number of mistakes and omissions in this post. If you're one of the still living sons or daughters that I allude to in this post, please contact me and let me know what I got wrong so I can fix it. You can email me at my Gmail address (callintad at gmail dot com), comment on this post in the comment section below, or follow the link to our Callin Family History Facebook group and get to know more distant cousins.

Disease Stalks the Land

Many apologies to my fans, family, and followers, but I have been smitten by an old disease - literally forty years old, in my case.

I had chicken pox when I was four years old, and last week, it crawled out of its hiding place in my trigeminal nerve, and made any of the activities I normally engage in completely unbearable. The good news is that it has not infected my optic nerve, and my right eye is clear (except for gross blisters on my eyelids which make it irritating to read or do much of anything involving looking).

I'm feeling a lot better today, thanks to Aciclovir, and I'm taking the week off of work, so as not to pass on any more viruses than necessary. If you saw that my half-finished post on the Myers family went up, I've taken it down again so I can finish it. I hope to get a chance to put the finishing touches together in the next few days.

Meanwhile, while my eyes have been out of commission, I've enjoyed catching up on back episodes of the BackStory American history podcast. I'm going to go listen to this episode, now:

Contagion - Responding to Infectious Disease.

Stay well, and make sure every child you know is vaccinated, because even a mild outbreak of this "minor" disease really, really sucks.

Reminder: Callin Family History Facebook Group

Are you descended from James Callin? If your relatives have made an appearance in this blog, then you probably are! (You can use the "Search this Blog" bar to the right to look for a name, and make sure.)

I've set up a Facebook Group, so if you're trying to find out more about your ancestors, or would like to meet some cousins and catch up (and correct some of my inevitable mistakes!), just follow This Link and send me a request.

(You can also search for "Callin Family History" among the Groups on Facebook, and you should be able to see it.)

It is a closed group, and I'll only add people I can confirm are related to these families.

My personal rule not to publish any information about living people on Mightier Acorns still stands. Anything a cousin shares in the Group won't be posted here unless I have express permission to do so.



Hope to see you there!

The Nick Ferguson Family

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

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

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

So, to continue Nicholas Ferguson's descendants:

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

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

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

     A. Elsie L Bailey (b. 1893)

     B. Hattie Bailey (b. 1895)

     C. Georgie Bailey (b. 1897)

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

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

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

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

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


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

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

Found on Newspapers.com


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Happy Hunting!

The Middle Child: Nick Ferguson

James L. Ferguson and Eliza Callin's middle child was a boy born in 1843. I don't know if I'm making too much of his name, but it always struck me as a unique choice among the many Johns, James, Williams,  and Georges in use by the rest of the family. It may have come from Charles Dicken's third novel, Nicholas Nickleby, or James and Eliza may have learned it from reading about Czar Nicholas I of Russia.

Regardless of the origin of his name, from the age of five Nicholas P. Ferguson (1843–1912) grew up on his father's farm in Jackson township, De Kalb county, Indiana. He was eighteen years old when the Civil War broke out, and as we discussed last week, his two older brothers enlisted; Nicholas does not appear to have done so, though there are a number of people named "Nicholas Ferguson" in other states who did. It is possible I simply couldn't tell that one of them was our Nicholas Ferguson!

Nicholas married Latita "Lettie" Kiester (1850–1930) on 26 April 1868 in De Kalb county. Poor Lettie is one of those people with a name that the people taking and transcribing records simply cannot grasp - her name appears variously as Letitia, Luticia, Letechia, and even Delotea in one source. And her surname gets the same treatment, rendered as everything from "Kester" to "Keister." The Callin Family History spells it "Latita Kiester," so that's what I've used here. The records also diverge on her birthdate; for example her obituary says 22 September 1850, but the 1850 Census that lists her with her family (Peter and Lydia Keister) was taken on 2 August that year, and most other sources indicate that she was born "about 1849."

You may recall that Nicholas's grandmother, Elizabeth Simon Callin, was living with his family during the 1860s. She died in 1864, just a few years before his wedding, and his mother, Eliza Callin Ferguson, died just two years after, in 1870. All of Nicholas's surviving siblings were grown by then, and his father went to live with Nicholas's younger brother, John. Nicholas established his own farm near Auburn, and he and Lettie raised their family there, until retiring from farming and moving into Auburn around 1900.

In 1912, when he was 67 years old, Nicholas was sent to the Lutheran hospital in Fort Wayne for a surgical procedure, and he died there on 26 January 1912. Lettie survived him by 19 years, eventually succumbing to a five week illness in 1930 and dying at the home of their youngest daughter, Dorothy Ferguson Mitchener.

Nick and Lettie left behind seven children. This week, we'll only have time to look at the eldest:

     I. Mildred Ferguson (1870–1952) was probably named for her aunt Mildred Ferguson Ettinger. She married her first husband, William Newton Penland (1867–1953) on 30 April 1896. They were not married for long; in 1900, Mildred was listed in the home of Fillmore Squires as his housekeeper. At that time, the Census said she was married, but she and her three-year-old son, William, lived in the Squires household, and her husband was nowhere to be found--at least not in the 1900 Census.

William Newton Penland turned up in Osborne county, Kansas in 1905, and by 1910 he had remarried Anna R. Simon (1887-1982). They would have three children between 1910 and 1914, and then relocate to Los Angeles county, California, in the early 1920s. They would remain in the Alhambra area until their respective deaths.

On 7 January 1905, Mildred remarried, too; her second husband was Fillmore A "Phil" Squires (1861–1948), whose name you may recognize as her employer in 1900. Phil was widowed some time prior to 1900, and had a son, John H.L. (or Leroy) Squires (b. 1877), from his previous marriage. By 1910, Mildred and Phil had two daughters, as well.

They raised their step-sons and their daughters in the Auburn, but at some later point, the couple moved to Muskegon, Michigan, where they died a few years apart. Since that is where Lavornia and her husband were living, also, that they may have moved there together.

     A. William Everett Pendland (1896–1981) was raised by his mother and step-father, and as far as I know, he never had contact with his father; particularly after the elder William Penland remarried and relocated to California. Everett appears to have preferred the spelling of "Pendland," while his father's records use "Penland."

William married Nellie M Emerick (1897–1990) on Christmas Eve, 1919, and they lived in Fort Wayne, where he was president of the General Printing Company during the 1920s. He and Nellie raised a son and daughter in Auburn, and lived out their lives there after he retired from business.

     1. Iris Maxine Pendland (1920–1980) married Lawrence Leroy Wible (1920–2003), and they had three sons and a daughter, all but one of whom are still living. Larry was a realtor in the Auburn area, and he retired in 1985. After Iris died in 1980, Larry remarried; his wife survived him.

     a. James Robert Wible (1958–1981) graduated from Waterloo High school in De Kalb county, Indiana. He died at age 23 in Los Angeles, California.

     2. James William Pendland (1926–1980) served in the U.S. Army during World War II as a Corporal. He graduated from the Indiana University School of Business and the I. U. Law School. He went to Lawrence County after receiving his law degree and practiced for a brief period in Mitchell before moving his practice to Bedford, where he was a practicing attorney and Lawrence County Public Defender. He was married several times, but left no children of his own; his wife and stepson are still living.

     B. Lavornia Squires (1905–1998) married Harry G Julian (1901–1979) on 23 March 1929 in Defiance county, Ohio. Harry was a salesman, and the couple moved quite a bit, living in Grand Rapids for a few years, then Indiana, then Ohio, and ending up in the Muskegon, Michigan, area. They also had an address in Pinellas county, Florida. They do not seem to have had any children of their own.

     C. Ruth Squires (1908–2005) and her sister were involved in a car accident in 1924, in which the car they were riding in was struck by a freight train. Two passengers were killed, and Ruth sued the driver and the railroad for her injuries.

Found on Newspapers.com

Ruth married Arol A Draime (1903–1967) on 15 September 1927 in De Kalb county, Indiana, and they settled in Willard, Huron county, Ohio, where they raised their daughter and three sons. Arol worked for the Baltimore & Ohio railroad as a chief clerk for 45 years. Incidentally, they were married by the Rev. Joseph W. Ferguson, whom you may recall from last week's post.

     1. Richard Eugene "Dick" Draime (1929–2001) was too young to fight in World War II, but he enlisted after graduating from Willard High School, and served in the newly established United States Air Force. He was stationed at Scott Air Force Base when he was married in 1951, and returned to the Cleveland area after his enlistment was up.

Dick was married several times, but I have not seen any records indicating whether he had any children; each of his wives may still be living, as well. Since Arol's 1967 obituary says that he left behind 17 grandchildren, I'm willing to bet that at least a couple of them were Dick's children!

     2. Donald A Draime (1930–1995) married his wife, Louise Ann Cline (1932–2004), probably in the 1950s. There was another Donald Draime family living in Canton, Ohio, during this time; unfortunately, all of my searches kept finding information about that other family, so I know very little about Donald and Louise.

     3. Beverly Ann Draime (1931–2012) was married twice; first to a boxer named Marlen "Mike" Roose (1927-2009), and in 1956, to Angelo J "Cap" Caporini. Mike Roose was a top-ranked amateur boxer in California, but he also served in the U.S. Navy during World War II and as a U.S. Marshal in Ohio. He married Beverly around the end of the war, and they had two children before they split up around 1951.

Mike remarried Maxine Faith in 1952, and in 1956, Beverly married Mr. Caporini, a veteran of the U.S. Army; they also had two children after moving to Ontario, Ohio. When she died in 2012, her daughter, step-daughter, and her three sons were all still living. Beverly left behind 12 grandchildren, 2 step-grandchildren, 9 great-grandchildren, and 8 step-grandchildren.

     4. David Max Draime (1933–2006) was a U.S. Navy veteran and graduate of Kent State University who established the Stoneridge company in 1965. The company produced wiring harnesses for the agricultural equipment. The company grew from five employees at the original factory to 6,000 employees on four continents. Max's son remained the company's director at his death.

I'm not renowned for my skills at mathematical computation, but if Arol Draime's obituary was correct, and he had 17 grandchildren in 1967, then there are 12 unaccounted for in my records. That is a lot of Draime family to track down! If you happen to know any of them, please send them this blog post, and let them know about our work, here.

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A couple of administrative notes:

1. My time management skills are not great, and I have been struggling to stick to a weekly posting schedule on this blog. It isn't that I don't want to put the time in - I do! - it's just that I have a number of other projects related to the grand "Tad Callin Retirement Plan" that I haven't been keeping up on. So for the next few posts, I'm going to do my best to stay on the weekly schedule, but I expect it will slip to a bi-weekly or even monthly post over the summer.

2. Since there will be empty space in the schedule here, I would like to extend an invitation to all of you: If you're related to me, and have a story about the family you'd like to share, I am always happy to put up guest posts. They don't have to be long, they don't have to be "proven" - family lore, photos (identified or not) and memories are all part of the family history.

And, as always, if you've come across this blog because you're one of the living descendants of someone I've written about, I'd love to hear from you! I am sure I've made some mistakes or left a lot out - I don't post information about living people, so if I can't tell whether they're still living, I err on the side of caution and don't write about them.

Please drop me an email (I am callintad at gmail), Tweet at me (@tadmaster), or find me on Facebook (we have a private Callin Family History group there) and help me make this history more accurate and complete.

Thank you for following along!

The Second James L. Ferguson

The sixth child of James L. Ferguson and Eliza Callin was a boy named after his father. He was their second son, born in Ohio, and at about 8 years of age, his parents moved the family to Indiana.

James L. Ferguson (1841–1907) married Margaret Walters (1845–1926) on 9 April 1865 - the same day that Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant at the Appomattox Court house, signaling the end of the Civil War. James served in the war, having enlisted in Company B, Ohio 11th Infantry Regiment on 20 June 1861. He mustered out on 21 June 1864.

I imagine that the joy of the wedding and the end of the war was dampened by the death of James's older brother, George, in February 1865. The Callin Family History says that George was killed in battle on the Potomac, but I believe George was serving in the Indiana 13th Infantry Regiment, which was in North Carolina in February. Whatever the details were, the loss could not have been easy to bear.

James and Margaret began their family on a farm near his parent's farm in Jackson Township, DeKalb county, Indiana. They had six children over the following 15 years, four of whom survived to adulthood. Some time during the 1870s they relocated to a farm in Union township, and in March 1906, a downturn in his health forced James to move into Auburn, where he died of heart disease in June 1907. She was sick for a long time with Bright's disease and neuritis and was bedridden for two years before she died at the home of her daughter, Mrs. Jennie Kosht of East Seventh street, Auburn.

      I. Sarah M. Ferguson (1867–1881) died at age 13, of unknown causes.

      II. Mary Jane 'Jennie' Ferguson (1869–1963) married Emmett Kosht (1869–1920) in 1892. They had a baby that year which died in infancy. Emmett died in 1920, leaving his estate to Jennie and their son, Walter. Jennie's mother, Margaret Ferguson, likely moved into their home around 1924.

      a. Walter Markley Kosht (1904–1925) graduated from Auburn high school with the class of 1924, but was taken to the Irene Byron sanatorium for treatment for tuberculosis in February 1925 and died on 31 July 1925.

After losing Emmett, Walter, and her mother in just a few short years, Jennie remarried John H. Flemming (1867-1944); as of 1930, they were living in Jennie's home. That is where Jennie remained after John's death in 1944, until about 1962, when her health deteriorated to the point where she needed to move in with the Ruchel family in Jackson. She died there on 3 April 1963.

      III. Rev. Joseph W Ferguson (1871–1963) married the younger sister of Emmett Kosht, Cora I Kosht (1871–1927), early in 1891. "In his early days" he served as a deputy sheriff in De Kalb county. In 1892, he entered the ministry of the United Brethren church, and he was sent to minister in the Hicksville, Ohio, area. He took his young family to Ohio, about twenty miles from Auburn, where they remained until Cora's health began to deteriorate in the 1920s.

Joseph resigned his ministry so he could stay in Auburn and tend to Cora. In February 1927, she died in their home "from a stroke of apoplexy."

After Cora died, Joseph remarried Delia Hassig (1893–1977) in November 1927, in Coldwater, Michigan, and returned to his ministry. Over the course of his career, he estimated that he officiated at 3,400 funerals; when searching through the Newspapers.com database for his obituary, there were many other obituaries listing him as the officiating minister, right up through the last months of his life. In 1962, his health began to fail, and he died in November 1963 at the age of 92.

      a. Justus A Ferguson (1891–1910) was born in September 1891, in De Kalb county, Indian, and grew up in Ohio, where his father's ministry had taken the family. He died 24 April 1910 in North Baltimore, Wood county, Ohio, at the age of 18, and was buried in Woodlawn cemetery, Auburn, Indiana.

      b. Ford M Ferguson (1904–1978) married Florence Ferne Hook (1906–2000) in April 1927, just two months after his mother died. Ferne was born in Hicksville, and that is where they were married, but they settled in Auburn, where they raised their daughter, who is still living. Ferne worked as a bookkeeper for Messenger Corp. for 19 years, and served as a deputy auditor for De Kalb county for 9 years. She retired as secretary of the Auburn Street Department in 1985.

      IV. Elmer Ellsworth Ferguson (b. 1875) died in infancy.

      V. Terry Victor Ferguson (1877–1961) married Grace Beatrice Rush (1882–1975) on 2 June 1900 in Hicksville, Ohio, probably by his older brother, and settled his family on a farm near Auburn, Indiana. This family suffered several severe tragedies, such as the 1935 hunting accident in which Terry was shot in the face by a shotgun, nearly costing him an eye. He was 55 years old at the time. After her retired from farming, Terry enjoyed good health until the late 1950s, when he moved into the Sheehy nursing home, where he died in 1961.

      a. Harold R Ferguson (1902–1995) married Freda M Warfield (1902–1989) on 28 November 1923, and as far as I know, they raised one daughter, who is still living.

      b. Chalmer Ferguson (1908–1970) is someone who will require more research. He was born 24 November 1908 in De Kalb county, Indiana, probably on his father's farm outside Auburn. He had a cousin with the same name (about whom we will learn more next week), and I was not able to easily distinguish between them in the Indiana records databases.

This Chalmer Ferguson was definitely living in Portland, Indiana (Jay county) in 1944, and he was married three years later in Butte, Montana. He married Louise Walter (b. 1917) on 7 March 1947, and the Montana marriage record lists his parents' names. There is also a Chalmer Ferguson listed in the Anaconda, Montana, city directory that year, and since the towns are 24 miles apart, I'll allow that this is our boy.

Less certain are marriage records which only list the bride & groom and the date. A Chalmer Ferguson married Danell Armstrong Sparks (1916-1993) on 3 September 1957 in Nez Perce, Clearwater county, Idaho. According to his father's obituary in December 1961, Chalmer was living in Orofino in Clearwater county, Idaho, so I'm inclined to accept that this is the same Chalmer. Danell Ferguson died in Orofino in 1993, so I presume they were together during his last thirteen years.

If anyone out there is/knows a descendant of this man, I'd love to find out more about him!

      c. Fidelis Lucille Ferguson (1916–1936) died of a heart attack at the age of 21 in the State hospital in Fort Wayne, Indiana. She was committed to the state school for the feeble minded at Fort Wayne in August 1934.

      d. Thomas Woodrow Ferguson (1917–1944) went by the name "Joe" growing up in Auburn; probably in honor of his uncle, the Rev. Joseph Ferguson. He attended school at St. John's and East Keyser, and graduated Auburn high school in 1936. He was working in Dayton, Ohio, and married to Mable Campbell when World War II broke out, and he enlisted in the Army August 22, 1942. He received his training at Atlantic City and was sent overseas on January 10, 1943 to be stationed in China for nearly two years.

On his last furlough before deploying, a baby girl was born to the Fergusons. They named her Helene. Sadly, she died that day: October 14, 1942. Mabel went back to Auburn, where she lived with Joe's parents and found work at the Donna beauty shop. He went back to New Jersey, and shipped out for China.

In the summer of 1944, Corporal Ferguson wrote home to let the family know that he had been sick with typhoid in July, but that he was getting better. On 24 August, however, his fever returned, and he died. He was buried in an American Military cemetery at APO 627, which his commander described in the letter to Joe's parents as "nestled in a broad fertile plateau over six thousand feet up in the mountains."

I do not know what became of Mabel, but I hope she lived a long, happier life after these awful years.

      VI. Thomas L Ferguson (1880–1958), the youngest son of James and Margaret Ferguson, married Mary Jones (1881–1960) on 13 April 1901 in Hicksville, Ohio - likely married by his brother. Thomas was a farmer and a railroader, and after he retired from those activities, he and Mary ran an apartment house in Auburn for nearly 30 years, until his death in 1958 from heart disease and complications from diabetes. Mary followed him a couple of years later, after suffering from cancer for two years. They left no children behind.

- -- --- -- -

As I put the finishing touches on this post, I was struck by just how sad the last half of it has been. With the exception of the adventurous Chalmer, who may have left behind a number of children for whom I simply found no records, the Fergusons in this branch of the family seem to have had few or no children, and suffered numerous tragedies. It's easy to forget sometimes how much life can go on between the dates at the beginning and ending of each person's story.

These were people living through the "Turn of the Century" - they saw the 20th Century begin, with all of the wild inventions, booms and busts, history-changing wars, and disease-defeating scientific progress. They traveled, they learned, they loved...and when they lost, they picked up and kept trying.

There were only a couple of daughters mentioned as still living within these paragraphs, but I hope there are more whom I simply didn't find. I hope they find out about this blog. And if they do, I hope they'll tell us a bit more about these people and the lives they led between the tragedies.

And next week, I hope we'll find a few more victories, with fewer of those tragedies to go with them!

Cardinal Rules

• Rule number one: You are never "done" with your family history.

This project to update and document the descendants of James Callin is something I've been working toward for twenty years or so. And in the past, when I've gone over what I know about the part of the family we'll be looking at today - Margaret Ferguson and her descendants - I have never been able to find much beyond what the Callin Family History told me:

"Record of Margret Ferguson who was the 4th daughter of Eliza Callin Ferguson who was the 3rd daughter of John Callin who was the 2nd son of James 1st.

Born 1839, died 1902.
Married to Jerome Gallaher.
To this union two children were born:
Mary, married.
Helen, married, two children."

So when I began drafting this post, I expected that to be all I could tell you about Margaret Jane (Ferguson) Gallaher. Assuming I could scrape together names of the husbands of Mary and Helen, and find out the names of Helen's two children, I might have bare-bones minimalist biographies of six or eight people, tops.

• Rule number two: Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

Evidence is the life blood of this project. Without documents that say when and where people lived, and what they did there, I can't rule out anything. And for the longest time, I could only find bits and pieces of this family's story - while the rest was a great, empty possibility.

Then I found an obituary...

Jerome Bohan Gallaher was born 23 August 1833, in Litchfield, Connecticut. He was one of eight children and moved westward when he was a young man settling at various points in Ohio and Indiana. He married Margaret Jane Ferguson (1839-1901) on August 15, 1858, in DeKalb county, Indiana, and they had two daughters: Mary (or Mollie), in 1860, and Helen in 1862.

At the beginning of the Civil War, Jerome enlisted in the 2nd Indiana regiment, in which he served until 25 August 1865. At the time of mustering out he had attained the position of Quartermaster of his regiment. After the close of the Civil War the Gallaher family moved to Black River Falls, Wisconsin, where Mr. Gallaher engaged in his old business of photography. In 1872 they moved to the newly incorporated town of Chippewa Falls, where they resided until the early 1890's, when he settled on a homestead outside of town.

Margaret preceded her husband to the grave in May 1901, and after that he lived alone most of the time on his farm. For the last two years of his life, he had been rather feeble, but when his friends planned to have him come to town where he could be looked after, he always vetoed their plans, expressing the wish to remain on the old farm as long as he lived. He died in January 1912.

     I. Mary A (Mollie) Gallaher (1860-1913) married William John Ickstadt (1865-1906) in September 1883. William took her away to the neighboring town of Edson where he was appointed as postmaster in October 1883, and he became a prominent real estate and business man in the Boyd area. In 1906, at the age of 47, he drowned in a boating accident on Pike lake. Mollie only lived another seven years, dying at 53.

     A. Jerome Monroe Ickstadt was born on 19 June 1884. He married Marie A Street in Boyd, Chippewa county, on 20 May 1912. The couple settled in Fond du Lac, where Jerome was a fireman with the Chicago & Northwestern Railroad company. The last record I have found for them placed them in Fond du Lac in 1921; there is another placing Marie in that town in 1924, but with no further listing for Jerome. I have found nothing to indicate when or where either of them died, or whether they had any children.

     B. Alice Mae Ickstadt (1888–1973) married Louis Floyd Shilts (1894–1947), probably around 1910. Louis was a veteran of World War I, and he worked as an auto mechanic in a Chippewa Falls garage. Mae taught in the local schools.

     C. Arthur J Ickstadt (1890–1927) grew up in Chippewa county, and worked at the State Home - what is now known as the Northern Wisconsin Center for the Developmentally Disabled. He married Louisa Rosalie Krenz (1894–1959) around 1925, and she was pregnant with their second son when he died in March 1927. The state later awarded her $7,000 in settlement, one month before the birth of that second son.


Found on Newspapers.com

       1. Donald W Ickstadt (1927–2013) graduated from Chippewa High School in 1945, then served one and ½ years in the Navy aboard the USS Chara and the USS Parikutin. He matriculated at Wisconsin State College at Eau Claire in 1947 and graduated in 1951 with a Bachelor of Science degree in Social Sciences, Physical Education/Secondary Education. He then attended the University of Southern California graduate school in 1952. Married in 1954, his wife, three sons, and two daughters are all still living. Don worked in employment services for the state of Wisconsin his whole career, retiring in 1987.

       2. Arthur Joseph Ickstadt Jr (1928–2013) was a Veteran of WWII and the Korean War. After leaving the Army, he settled in the Seattle, Washington, area. His mother, Louisa, died there in 1959. Art was survived by his wife, son, three daughters, and "16 Grandchildren, 13 Great-Grandchildren, 1 Great-Great Grandchild and numerous nieces and nephews."

     II. Helen J Gallaher (b. 1862) and her husband, Wesley J. Gregg (b. 1851) presented a few challenges to this researcher. First, there is a marriage record for a Helen Gallagher in 1879, which, even though the database does not link the bride record to the groom's record, seems to imply that she married a man named Amasa Nichols. Until I found Jerome's obituary, I did not know to look for Mr. Gregg, but once I did, I found Helen and Wesley in the four Census records (1900-1930), which indicated they were married in 1885. The birth record for their younger daughter, Jennie, lists Helen's maiden name as "Nichols," so I assume that 1879 record is correct. (And looking through the Chippewa county marriage records, Amasa Nichols seemed to marry quite often; there may be a whole other story there!)

But, Wesley appears to have farmed and worked for the railroad as a clerk for a time; and they raised two daughters. As of 1930, 79-year-old Wesley and 69-year-old Helen were retired and living on their farm. I have not been able to determine when they died or find any records of their burial, but I know from some mentions in the Eau Claire Leader that they were living in the area in the 1920s, and the 1930 Census shows them in Arthur, in Chippewa county.

     A. Ruby Gregg (b. 1883) grew up in Chippewa Falls, and appeared on the 1900 Federal and 1905 State Census in her parents' home. She would have been 21 in 1905, and the 1907 Chippewa Falls city directory indicates that she lived at home while working as a domestic servant for the Mcgilvary family. After that, however, the trail of records dries up, and I can't tell what happened to Ruby.

     B. Jennie H Gregg (1887–1931) married George Jerome Cardinal (1887–1963) on 9 December 1905 in Bayfield, Wisconsin. George was a musician and decorator, and was listed as a painter in the Census and city directories. The couple had nine children before Jennie's death in 1931 at the age of 44.

      1. Wesley G Cardinal (1906–1982) married Katherine Quinlan (1910–??) in about 1930. Wesley was listed in the 1930 Census in his family home, working as a painter/decorator, like his father. In 1940, he and Katherine and their two sons were renting their own place in Chippewa Falls, and Wesley was a musician in an orchestra. They may have had more children after the 1940 Census, but I have only managed to track down the eldest. I assume any other children they had are still living, or my searches would have turned up something. (Though, searching through results for people with the name "Cardinal" is surprisingly difficult.)

       a. Peter Paul Cardinal (1931–1997) served in the U.S. Navy during both the Korean and Vietnam conflicts, according to his grave marker. Based on the incomplete information I have found, I would guess that he enlisted in the early 1950s. He was married by 1959, when he is listed in the city directory for Memphis, Tennessee, which is near the Naval Support Activity Mid-South Naval Base in Millington. And he received a commission as an ensign on 1 July 1963. He attained his highest rank as a Lieutenant on 1 January 1967, and retired 1 August 1978. When he died, he had been living in Pegram, Tennessee.

      2. Linus Cardinal (b. 1909) is another minor mystery, in that I lose track of him after 1930. There are two items in the November 1921 Eau Claire Leader newspapers that describe how he was wounded when a gun discharged, and was later rushed to the hospital with "lockjaw" (probably tetanus) from the resulting infection. That happened when he was 12, and we see him listed at home in the 1930 Census, when he was 21, so we know he survived that episode, at least.

      3. George P Cardinal Jr (1910–1997) appears to have served in World War II, but like his older brothers, left little in the way of records, and his obituary does not seem to be online. I have not been able to find anything between the 1930 Census and the records of his death in Elk Mound, Wisconsin. His wife is still living, and I assume any children they have are, too.

      4. Jane Rosemary Cardinal (1914–1991) married Lloyd A Fransway (1910–1966) and they had five sons and seven daughters, in total. Most of them are still living. Lloyd was a painter, employed by Mikesell's Painting contractors for 25 years; he was the union president of Painters Local 259 from 1958 to 1964. He and Jane took in her three youngest siblings some time after the death of their mother; Lyman, Betty Mae, and the brother who is still living were all listed as Lloyd's foster children in his 1966 obituary.

       a. Mary Jo Fransway: died in infancy.

       b. Patricia Jane "Patty" Fransway (1935–2012) was married to Arthur Sedani (1935–1978), and they had two sons who are still living. Patty worked at the Chippewa Woolen Mill, Creamland Dairy, and the Northern Center for the Developmentally Disabled in Chippewa Falls until she retired. She mentored students through the Chippewa Falls Mentoring Program, headed up the spring and fall suppers for Our Saviour's Lutheran Church, and oversaw funeral luncheons. Patty was a beautiful seamstress and was a member of the Quilters and the Altar Guild.

       c. Lloyd Archie Fransway Jr (1937–1998) was a veteran of the U.S. Navy, serving from 12 May 1954 to 14 November 1957. He married at the end of 1960, and his wife and three sons are still living. They also had a daughter.

      i. Robin M Fransway (1961–2011) attended Northwest College in Powell, Wyoming. She lived in the Powell/Cody area and worked as a secretary and bookkeeper, raising her daughter, who is still living. Robin married on July 7, 2001, and her husband is still living, also.

       d. Anthony L "Tony" Fransway, Sr (1945–2009) served in the U.S. Army National Guard for eight years after he graduated high school. He married in 1968, and his wife, son, and daughter are all still living. He worked at Amoco-Pactiv for 39 years until he retired in 2004. He lived in Chippewa Falls his entire life.

       e. Laura Fransway (1946–2013) grew up in Chippewa Falls and graduated from Chippewa Falls Senior High in 1965. She married in 1977. One daughter and one son are still living. Over her lifetime, she worked for Amoco Chemicals, Whitetail Golf Course, Viking Bowl and retired from the Myrtle Werth Hospital. She was a member of Barum Lutheran Church in Elk Mound.

     i. Chad T Brown (1977-2002) was the oldest son of Laura Fransway. He graduated from Colfax High School in May of 1995, and was employed at Big Timber Saw Mill in Colfax until the time of his death from cancer. He was 25 years old when he died.

       f. Samuel Cardinal "Sammy" Fransway (1960–2003) was employed by Markquart Motors for the 14 years before he died. Sam was also a Chef at a number of local Wisconsin restaurants, as well as in Florida. He owned and operated Sammy's Saloon in Chippewa Falls from 1983 to 1987. He left behind one son.

      5. Kathryn Arlene Cardinal (1916–2007) married Fenton Norman Goss (1914–1999), and they left three sons and two daughters, still living. Fenton served in the U.S. Army during the last few months of 1946.

      6. John Samuel "Jack" Cardinal (1919–1990) served in the U.S. Army throughout World War II, from 6 April 1942 through 18 October 1945. He married in October 1946, and settled in the Detroit area with his wife, who is still living.

      7. Lyman Eugene Cardinal (1921–1977) served in the U.S. Army during World War II, and in the U.S. Navy during the Korean War. If I'm reading the records correctly, he enlisted in the Army in 1940, before Pearl Harbor, and switched to the Navy ten years later, retiring after twenty years in October of 1960. He and his wife settled in Westmoreland county, Pennsylvania. They had at least one son, who is still living.

      8. (Still Living) Cardinal - there is one son from this family still living. Here's hoping I don't need to update this entry until he is good and ready!

      9. Betty Mae Cardinal (1926–2015) graduated from Chippewa Falls High School and worked at the A & P Store, where she met her future husband. On April 18, 1948, the two were united in marriage in Chippewa Falls. They resided in Chippewa Falls where Bette worked at the Northern Center as the food service supervisor, retiring from there in 1986. She left behind her husband and two daughters.


And there you have it: just one timely find can add dozens of people to the family tree!