Histories

Stories, biographies, novelettes, and collected works exploring different branches of the family tree.

• The Massachusetts Bay Colony: A City Upon a Hill

  The full story of the colony — from the Winthrop Fleet in 1630 to the Revolution of 1783 — with the Stratton family woven through every generation.

• Samuel Stratton Sr.: Pioneer of the Massachusetts Bay Colony

  The story of the family patriarch who arrived in New England in the 1630s.

• Two Generations, One Cause: The Strattons at War

  Francis and John Stratton in the American Revolution.

• Farmer, Lawman, Doctor, Spy: The Four Faces of Francis Joel Stratton

  The remarkable life of Francis Joel Stratton — farmer, constable, physician, and Civil War agent.

• The Scar He Carried

  Isaac William King and the 88th Indiana Infantry in the Civil War.

• On My Mother's Side

  A four-book chronicle by Eleanor Schneider Cockerline, telling the family story through historical fiction.

• Stories from the Past: Pulp Fiction of the Early 20th Century

  Collected short stories by Frank Nelson Stratton from early 20th-century magazines.

• Frank Nelson Stratton: Original Magazine Stories

  Scanned originals of Frank Nelson Stratton's published magazine fiction.

• From Sawdust to Short Stories: Frank Nelson Stratton

  The life of Frank Nelson Stratton (1860–1905) — self-taught attorney, state prosecutor, and nationally published short-story writer.

• Fred's Story

  A novelette based on the life of Fred Stratton.

• Sgt. Frederick N. Stratton

  A vignette of Sgt. Frederick N. Stratton's military service.

• Lucy's Story

  The life of Lucille Dee King Hendrickson Stratton Hunter Rhinehart, from a son's perspective.

• George Washington Hollabaugh I: A Soldier's Promise

  Civil War service with the 57th Ohio Volunteer Infantry — and the promises the government failed to keep.

• The Odds Were Never in My Favor (But I Played Anyway)

  Memories and recollections of Wm. F. Stratton.

• A Life in Full: Karen Sue Schneider

  Navy nurse, Family Nurse Practitioner, and William's wife since 1980 — from Detroit to Guam to the Kitsap Peninsula (b. 1945).

• The Man Who Built Ligonier

  The life of Elias Baron Gerber — pioneer, surveyor, merchant, and statesman who helped build Ligonier, Indiana.

• The Quiet Man: Volney William King

  Farmer, soldier, grandfather — the life of Volney William King (1876–1966) on the Brush College Farm near Ligonier.

• She Ran the Household: Bertha Lena McConnell King

  The life of Bertha Lena McConnell King (1878–1972), who held the King family together through decades of hardship.

• Uncle Ike: Isaac William King

  The youngest King — farmer, carpenter, well driller, horseshoe champion, and all-around troublemaker (1915–2002).

• Uncle Addie: Adrian Lamont Biddle

  Artist, salesman, fisherman, and the uncle who always brought the crayons (1902–1973).

• Cousin Jack: Jack D McConnell and the USS Knudson

  The story of Jack D McConnell (1926–2013) of Green Township, Noble County, who served aboard the USS Knudson in the Pacific during World War II.

• Uncle Sam Patton: The Steady Hand in Ligonier

  Samuel William Patton Sr. (1909–1989) — career Indiana State Trooper at Post 2 in Ligonier, bloodhound handler, bank courier, and the uncle who gave William's sister Marilu a home.

Notes

Research notes, biographical sketches, and clippings attached to individuals in the family tree. Click a note to expand it.

• Sandra Lou BIDDLE — Sandra Lou Biddle was born on February 7, 1937, in Elmhurst, Illinois, to Adrian and Louisa (King) B

  Sandra Lou Biddle was born on February 7, 1937, in Elmhurst, Illinois, to Adrian and Louisa (King) Biddle. Known to family and friends simply as Sandy, she grew up a King descendant twice over — through her mother Louisa — and carried that heritage into her own family. She married Cornelis den Hartog Jr., and the two made their home in Milford, Indiana, raising a daughter, Cristina, and a son, James Adrian.
  Cornelis preceded her in death in April of 2000. Sandy lived another twenty-one years as a widow, cherished by her children and by her granddaughter Megan. She was also preceded in death by a granddaughter, Faith, and by her brother, James Biddle.
  Sandy died on Tuesday, February 16, 2021, at Kosciusko Community Hospital, age 84. In keeping with her wishes, she was cremated, with a graveside service held later at Oak Park Cemetery in Ligonier — the same quiet ground where so many of her King-line kin are buried.

• Irene E COCKERLINE — Irene's life has already been told — and told well. Her story is the subject of the third book in El

  Irene's life has already been told — and told well. Her story is the subject of the third book in Eleanor Schneider Cockerline's historical fiction trilogy, "On My Mother's Side — Emily." Eleanor drew on family memory and her own research to build a portrait of Irene that no summary here could match, and the book is worth reading on its own terms. A copy lives in the family histories corner of this website, and another in the local archive folder I have assembled from scans and electronic files. — Wm F Stratton, January 20, 2015.

• Martha Jane CRUIKSHANK — Martha "Marty" Cruikshank was born on April 23, 1921, in Leipsic, Ohio, to John Clarence Cruikshank

  Martha "Marty" Cruikshank was born on April 23, 1921, in Leipsic, Ohio, to John Clarence Cruikshank and Gertrude Bell Cruikshank. She graduated from high school in Columbus Grove, Ohio, and went on to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where she joined the Alpha Omicron Pi sorority.
  During World War II, Marty served in the Army Air Corps Personnel Office, first in Albuquerque and later in Carlsbad, New Mexico. It was in Albuquerque, on June 28, 1942, that she married Wilbur Jonathan "Bill" Ginader of Cleveland, Ohio, a Warrant Officer stationed there with the Army Air Corps.
  After the war, the couple moved to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where Bill began his long career with Provident Life & Accident Insurance Company. Marty devoted herself to raising their family and to the civic life of the community. In 1954, Bill's company transferred them to Charlotte, North Carolina — a move that proved permanent, and that Marty embraced as home.
  In Charlotte her commitment to civic engagement flourished. She served as a Girl Scout leader, a Civil Defense Monitor, a Gray Lady with the American Red Cross, and a Precinct Election Judge for Mecklenburg County. Her affiliations included the Charity League, First United Methodist Church, the Mint Museum of Art, Friends of the Mint, the Harris YMCA, the Charlotte City Club, and Carmel Country Club.
  Marty's personal passions were as rich as her public life. Books and music were among her greatest loves — she was an accomplished organist and pianist, and in her younger years a master of the accordion. In later life, reading became a particular joy, and she found daily pleasure in her yard, tending its flowers and watching the birds. Together she and Bill traveled the world, and she delighted in learning about other cultures.
  Bill preceded her in death on February 14, 2001.

• Eunice DALLAS — Eunice was a relative of George M. Dallas, Vice-President of the USA under James K. Polk, 11th Presi

  Eunice was a relative of George M. Dallas, Vice-President of the USA under James K. Polk, 11th President of the US, 1845-1849.
  Source: A Book of Strattons, Vol. 2, 1918, Harriett Russell Stratton

• Isaac William MCCONNELL & Oma DIFFENDARFER — On a Thursday evening in February 1906, a good piece of Churubusco's social calendar loaded itself o

  On a Thursday evening in February 1906, a good piece of Churubusco's social calendar loaded itself onto a single train to Fort Wayne. The occasion was the production of Ben Hur at the Majestic Theater, and the Fort Wayne Daily News of February 22 printed the guest list as though it were a small town census.
  Among the party were Harry Brown; Nettie Shirley; Rev. Murray and wife; Prof. Hall and wife; Mrs. W. A. DeVault; Marvin Smith; Fred Miller; Bessie Madden; W. Z. Smith and wife; Mrs. Sanford F. Ort; Isaac McConnell; Arthur McGuire; Clark Smith and wife; Orpha Madden; Lois Deardorf; Miss McCormick; Sidney Ort; Ursula Magers; Ella Cotterly; Mrs. F. M. Magres; Alta Fogle; Marvel Smith; Neva Slagle; E. E. Gandy and wife; Oma Diffendaffer; Flossie Early; and Alta Chapman.
  Two names in that list are family: Isaac McConnell and Oma Diffendaffer. A little over a year later — on May 3, 1907 — the two were married. It is worth noticing the other small family signal tucked into the list. Mrs. Sanford F. Ort is the mother of Sidney Ort, also present that evening; Sidney, in turn, would in 1911 marry Mary Charlotte McConnell, Isaac's sister. What we have here, then, is a single newspaper notice that captures two McConnell marriages in the making — a theater outing, a small-town social event, and very quietly an engagement party for two couples-to-be. — Ed.

• Nelson DONNELLAN — Dr. Nelson Donnellan was born in Virginia, the son of a wealthy Irish-born planter who had establish

  Dr. Nelson Donnellan was born in Virginia, the son of a wealthy Irish-born planter who had established himself among the aristocracy of the "Old Dominion." Though raised amid privilege, Nelson's life took a dramatic turn in his youth when he fell in love with a young woman his father deemed unsuitable. When the elder Donnellan refused to grant his blessing for the marriage, Nelson chose love over inheritance. Leaving behind his family's wealth and the comforts of Virginia society, he married his sweetheart and set out with her — penniless but resolute — for the frontier of Ohio.
  The couple settled in Preble County, where Nelson built a new life from nothing. He established a medical practice and, through years of dedicated work and careful management, accumulated considerable property, proving that he could thrive entirely on his own merits. His family grew in Ohio, and among his children was Hester A. Donnellan, who would later marry Francis Joel Stratton.
  After many years in Preble County, Dr. Donnellan relocated his family to Indianapolis, and in time made a final move to Anderson, Indiana, which would be his home for the remainder of his life.
  Though advanced in years by the time the Civil War broke out, Dr. Donnellan answered the call to defend the Union when Confederate forces threatened Cincinnati. He joined the ranks of the famed "Squirrel Hunters" — the hastily assembled body of Ohio and Indiana civilians, many of them farmers and frontiersmen armed with their own hunting rifles, who rushed to the city's defense under General Lew Wallace in September 1862. Their presence helped deter the Confederate advance and preserve Cincinnati from capture.
  Dr. Nelson Donnellan lived to the venerable age of eighty, leaving behind a legacy of independence, perseverance, and civic courage. Through his daughter Hester, his line continued into the Stratton family, and his grandson Frank Nelson Stratton would carry forward his memory and name.

• Hester A DONNELLAN — Hester Ann Donnellan was born around 1836 in Preble County, Ohio, the daughter of Dr. Nelson Donnell

  Hester Ann Donnellan was born around 1836 in Preble County, Ohio, the daughter of Dr. Nelson Donnellan — a prominent physician whose practice and prosperity on the Ohio frontier had been built from nothing after he abandoned a Virginia inheritance for the woman he loved. Hester grew up in the comfort of an established medical household, surrounded by her father's professional network and the cultural and political currents that flowed through it. By family tradition, that network reached as far as Governor William Henry Seward and a young Springfield lawyer named Abraham Lincoln.
  She came of age as a striking, blue-eyed young woman — poised, intelligent, and quick-witted by every account of those who knew her. In the summer of 1847, at a garden gathering where Senator Seward spoke on the subject of universal education, Hester made the acquaintance of Francis Joel Stratton, a young man of restless ambition who had set his sights on medicine. Their meeting ripened into a romance, and on February 21, 1850, the two were married in Preble County. By that summer's census, the couple was keeping house next door to her parents in Lanier Township, with Joel's young daughter Julia — from his earlier marriage to Mercy Ann Warner — living under their roof as Hester's stepdaughter.
  Hester's father almost certainly served as Joel's medical mentor, a customary requirement for licensure in that era, and the Donnellan home in Preble County became the launching point for the Strattons' early married life. The couple eventually moved on to Madison, Indiana, where their son, Frank Nelson Stratton, was born on September 18, 1860. A daughter, Susie, was also born to them; she did not live to adulthood, dying in childhood.
  Widowhood came too soon. After Francis Joel's death, Hester remained a widow for some time before marrying Samuel Edgerton Stratton, who at the time of their union held the office of County Commissioner of Howard County, Indiana. When Frank was about six years old, Hester and her new husband moved the family to Monroe Township in Howard County, where she would live out the remainder of her life.
  Her second marriage produced at least one child — an infant who died unnamed, with no surviving vital records to mark the birth. A later biographical sketch of Samuel, published by F.A. Battey & Co. in 1883, refers instead to two children, "both deceased" — a phrasing that has long puzzled the family. The most reasonable reading is that the second child counted in that sketch was Susie, Hester's daughter from her first marriage, whom Samuel raised as his own and who likewise died young.
  Hester died on September 18, 1894, at the age of fifty-eight — on what would have been her son Frank's thirty-fourth birthday. She left behind a legacy carried forward through Frank Nelson Stratton, and through him into the generations of Strattons who followed.

• Jacob J GERBER — Jacob was a prisoner of war at Andersonville — Camp Sumter — the notorious Confederate stockade in s

  Jacob was a prisoner of war at Andersonville — Camp Sumter — the notorious Confederate stockade in southwest Georgia. A pen built for ten thousand held more than thirty thousand men in the summer of 1864. Overcrowding, contaminated water, lack of shelter, and starvation rations turned it into a charnel house. Jacob starved to death there on September 3, 1864, at the age of twenty-four — one of nearly thirteen thousand Union prisoners who perished at Andersonville.
  He was the brother of Christiana Lena Gerber, future wife of Isaac William King of the 88th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, who at that very moment was fighting in the Chattanooga campaign — a campaign that came too late to free him. For the full biographical context, see NOTE @N61@.

• Jacob J GERBER — Jacob J. Gerber was born in 1840 in Canton Township, Stark County, Ohio, the son of David and Susann

  Jacob J. Gerber was born in 1840 in Canton Township, Stark County, Ohio, the son of David and Susanna (Buechtel) Gerber. He grew up on the family farm as one of eleven children, among them his older brother Elias Baron "E.B." Gerber (1831–1915), who would later become a prominent citizen of Ligonier, Indiana. In 1855, when Jacob was about fifteen, his parents pulled up stakes and moved the large family from Ohio to Indiana, where the Gerbers established new roots.
  When the Civil War broke out, Jacob answered the Union's call without hesitation. In 1861 he enlisted as a private in Company C of the 30th Indiana Volunteer Infantry, joining a regiment that would see hard fighting throughout the Western Theater. For two years he marched and fought with his comrades, until fate caught up with him in the dense woods of north Georgia.
  In September 1863, the 30th Indiana was thrown into the Battle of Chickamauga, the bloody engagement fought just south of Chattanooga in terrain so thick that, as one veteran recalled, "you couldn't see twenty yards." When Confederate forces under General Braxton Bragg shattered the Union right flank, thousands of Federal soldiers were swept up as prisoners. Jacob was among them.
  The Battle of Chickamauga ran almost without pause into the larger campaign for Chattanooga that followed. While Jacob was being marched south into captivity, other regiments tied to his family's history were drawn into those same hills. Isaac King's 88th Indiana would soon be hauling sixty-pound crates of artillery shells up the slopes of Lookout Mountain in support of General Joseph Hooker's troops in the famed "Battle Above the Clouds," and then up Missionary Ridge, where the Union assault finally broke the Confederate line and sent Bragg's army into full retreat. The campaign that liberated Chattanooga, however, came too late for Jacob.
  He was sent to Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prison camp in southwest Georgia, where overcrowding, contaminated water, lack of shelter, and starvation rations turned a stockade meant for ten thousand into a charnel house holding more than thirty thousand. Jacob endured the camp's worst summer. On September 3, 1864, he died there at the age of twenty-four, one of nearly thirteen thousand Union prisoners who perished at Andersonville from disease, hunger, and exposure.
  His loss struck the Gerber family hard, and it would not be their last sorrow — another brother, Benjamin, drowned in 1881. Yet through it all, E.B. and the surviving siblings carried the family's name forward, building lives and civic legacies in Indiana that quietly honored the brother who never came home.

• Benjamin F GERBER — Benjamin F., the youngest of the family, was a tinsmith by trade and had charge of that department i

  Benjamin F., the youngest of the family, was a tinsmith by trade and had charge of that department in E. B.'s hardware store until the 5th of June, 1881, when he and his wife were drowned in the Reservoir at Rome City. They were married in 1878. Her maiden name was Maxwell.

• Asenath M HAWKS — Asenath M. Hawks was Francis Joel Stratton's first wife, and she died young. When the news appeared

  Asenath M. Hawks was Francis Joel Stratton's first wife, and she died young. When the news appeared in the Gates, New York papers on the 28th — she was only twenty-three — Joel himself took up the pen to mourn her in print. What he wrote gives us one of the few direct glimpses we have of his voice:
  "DIED. In Gates, on the 28th inst., Mrs. Asenath M. Stratton, aged 23 years, wife of Mr. Francis J. Stratton. By this death, a fond husband is bereaved of an amiable and lovely companion, and his only child — but six months of age — of a kind and watchful mother. Her sickness was but short. Death came, but was shorn of his terrors. Neither will the grave achieve a victory."
  The six-month-old child she left behind was Julia, who would later be raised in Indiana by Joel's second wife, Hester Donnellan.

• Arthur Elton HAYNOR — Arthur Elton Haynor — "AL" to those who knew him — was born and raised in Detroit. He served his cou

  Arthur Elton Haynor — "AL" to those who knew him — was born and raised in Detroit. He served his country in World War II as a Master Sergeant, earning the Commendation Ribbon, and after the war returned to Detroit to take up a place on the line at the Chrysler Corporation, where he would work faithfully for thirty-nine years. In 1976 he and Verna moved to Beverly Hills, Michigan, and by June of 1986 they had resettled in Sterling Heights.
  Arthur left behind his wife, Verna Haynor; two daughters, Carole Kornak of Dearborn, Michigan, and Sandra Genrich of Dallas, Texas; a brother, Albert Haynor of Sebring; two stepdaughters, Sandra Lefengon of Oregon and Karen Schmude Stratton of Washington State; seven grandchildren and four great-grandchildren; and two step-grandchildren.
  In a characteristic gesture, Arthur wrote his own obituary and laid out his own wishes. He asked to be laid out briefly at the Feno Funeral Home, long enough for friends and relatives to come by. He wanted his burial service at Good Hope Lutheran Church, Pastor Clark presiding, with three hymns sung — "Jesus Loves Me," "Amazing Grace," and "The Old Rugged Cross" — by the choir or by any one singer willing to carry the tune. Interment was to be at Beverly Hills Cemetery. Afterward, at Luther Hall, there would be cold cuts, potato salad, baked beans, coleslaw, bread and butter, cake and ice cream, and coffee or tea — all of it to be picked up from a local deli. Any donations were to go to the pastor, the choir, and the folks helping in the kitchen, through Verna. He asked that the obituary itself run for one day each in the Detroit Free Press and the Detroit News. Written out in his own hand, June 27, 1986.

• Fred George HENDRICKSON — Fred George Hendrickson was born around 1894 into a large family that had put down roots in northeas

  Fred George Hendrickson was born around 1894 into a large family that had put down roots in northeastern Indiana. He grew up in Smith Township, Whitley County, where the 1910 census found him as a young man on the cusp of his career. His siblings — brothers Elmer and Arthur, and sisters Florence (later Mrs. Sheldon), Mrs. Walter C. Miller, Lesta, and Della (later Mrs. Koch) — would scatter across the country in the years to come, settling in Columbia City, Churubusco, Montana, and beyond, but the family's center of gravity remained in the small towns of northern Indiana.
  Fred's working life began in the one-room schoolhouses of his home county. His earliest teaching post was at Green Hill School, District No. 3, in Smith Township, Whitley County — an unassuming start that would launch a career spanning nearly four decades in Indiana education. On June 5, 1917, with America newly drawn into the Great War, he registered for the draft in the West Smith Precinct of Whitley County.
  In late 1918, while teaching, Fred met a bright sixteen-year-old student named Lucille Dee King. On November 23 of that year, the two slipped away together to Pontiac, Michigan, and were married. Both falsified their ages on the marriage license — Fred, then twenty-four, shaved a little off his own, while Lucille added two years to claim eighteen. The union, born of impulse and escape, would prove troubled. Their daughter, Winifred Ellen — known to the family as "Peg" — was born before 1930, and by that year the small family was living at 404 Martin Street in Ligonier, Indiana. The marriage, however, did not endure. On January 18, 1932, Lucille's father Volney King successfully pursued a divorce through the courts, regarding the match as improper from the start owing to the falsified ages. What had begun as an elopement ended in a courtroom.
  Through it all, Fred's professional life held steady. Around 1926 he joined the Ligonier school system, and would remain associated with it for the next twenty-five years. He also spent time teaching at North Manchester, broadening the experience he would carry back to Ligonier. In 1946, his colleagues and the community recognized his quiet competence by elevating him to Superintendent of the Ligonier city schools, a post he held with distinction for the final five years of his life.
  On August 26, 1951, while visiting at the home of friends, Fred suffered a sudden heart attack and died. He was about fifty-seven. He left behind his daughter, Mrs. Marshall Wallace of Phoenix, Arizona, and two grandchildren. Funeral services were held that Wednesday afternoon at the Methodist Church in Ligonier, the town he had served for a quarter-century, and he was laid to rest at Oak Park Cemetery.

• Daniel HOFFER — Daniel Hoffer does not show up in his father's will, so he must have died earlier. Daniel is mention

  Daniel Hoffer does not show up in his father's will, so he must have died earlier. Daniel is mentioned in Charlotte (Hoffer) Hollabaugh;s Civil War letter to her husband George Hollabaugh. In the letter, she refers to one of her children getting shoes from her brother, Daniel Hoffer.

• Charlotte Matilda HOFFER — Charlotte Matilda Hoffer came to Seneca County, Ohio, from Perry County, Pennsylvania, in 1833, a fi

  Charlotte Matilda Hoffer came to Seneca County, Ohio, from Perry County, Pennsylvania, in 1833, a five-year-old riding west with her parents as the family resettled on the Ohio frontier. She would live out her life as a member of the German Reformed Church in Seneca County — the same congregation that in 1845 became Lutheran, a shift that doubles as a small clue to her dates: sixty-six years added to the change-over points to the year of her death. Three of her children — Amanda, Louisa, and Jacob — were baptized in that German Reformed Church, records preserved in her widow's pension file.
  Charlotte was semi-literate. Nearly every page of her pension file is signed not with a name but with her mark — an X that stood in for the writing she had never been taught. That small detail casts a long shadow over her life story: in an era when vital records were kept haphazardly, she was still expected to furnish sworn proof of her children's birth dates to the US Bureau of Pensions in order to keep the small monthly stipend owed to a Civil War widow with dependents under sixteen. She did it, one affidavit at a time, relying on the baptismal register of a church she had belonged to all her life.
  One affidavit in her file was written by Colonel Americus V. Rice, commander of the 57th Ohio, who had himself been severely wounded at Vicksburg — a small, human cross-connection between Charlotte's paper trail and the war that had made her a widow.
  Source: Biographical History of Putnam County, Ohio, p. 239, paraphrased; see also the article "Other Sons, Jacob F. Hollabaugh," and the Widow's Pension Records.

• George Washington HOLLABAUGH — The 1850 Agricultural Census — a schedule kept alongside the more familiar population census — offer

  The 1850 Agricultural Census — a schedule kept alongside the more familiar population census — offers a rare, grounded snapshot of George Washington Hollabaugh's working life. The schedule recorded each farm's owner or manager, the improved and unimproved acres, the livestock by breed, the year's crop yields, and the cash value of the land, machinery, livestock, and slaughter. Small farms producing less than one hundred dollars' worth of goods were left out altogether.
  George made the cut. That year he farmed 20 acres and brought in 80 bushels of wheat, 350 bushels of corn, and 17 pounds of wool. By today's yardstick — modern corn averages about 175 bushels to the acre — that is almost nothing. But we have to read these numbers by the standards of 1850, not ours. In his own township, among his own neighbors, George's output was on par with what the families around him were producing. He was, in other words, a working farmer of his day — no more and no less — raising enough grain, corn, and sheep to keep a household going on twenty Ohio acres.

• Lilly KING — A family story (Lore) passed down to me by Lucille Dee King was that she thought her Aunt Till ran a

  A family story (Lore) passed down to me by Lucille Dee King was that she thought her Aunt Till ran a bordello, possibly disguised by the fact that she did run a boarding house. Lucille visited her in Toledo, Ohio, and stayed overnight. From her perch at the top of the stairs, men were observed, and drinks were at hand, so the story goes. Whether true, or not, the story needs to be passed along with the hope no one is offended. Aunt Till was known to have a white Poodle, and a photo of William Johnson McConnell's first automobile shows her in the rear seat with the dog. Apparently, she was a sharp dresser and wore only the latest in stylish apparel. Wm F Stratton, 2020

• Evelyn Lillian KING — Evelyn Lillian King — known in later life as Evelyn (Schwab) Rimmell — died Thursday, November 17, 2

  Evelyn Lillian King — known in later life as Evelyn (Schwab) Rimmell — died Thursday, November 17, 2005, at Lakeland Specialty Hospital in Berrien Center, Michigan, at the age of ninety-nine. A lifelong northern-Indiana woman, she had long been associated with Albion before her final years in Michigan.
  Her granddaughter Elaine Schwab reported afterward that Evelyn was cremated, with a memorial service and burial of her ashes held the following spring, in 2006.

• Louisa Christina KING — Louisa was born at the home of her parents, near Columbia City, Thorncreek Township, Whitley County,

  Louisa was born at the home of her parents, near Columbia City, Thorncreek Township, Whitley County, Indiana. No birth records are available in Whitley County for her or the other King children, due to a fire in thecourthouse.
  Her middle name was supposed to be that of her grandmother, Christiana Gerber, but no one in the family knew how to spell it; thus, Christina

• Isaac William KING — Isaac W. King was born on December 14, 1915, in Whitley County, Indiana, the son of Volnie King and

  Isaac W. King was born on December 14, 1915, in Whitley County, Indiana, the son of Volnie King and Bertha (McConnell) King — a union that bound together two of the families at the heart of this tree. He grew up in the small-town rhythms of northern Indiana and graduated from Ligonier High School in 1937.
  On December 27, 1936, in Merriam, Indiana, Isaac married Pearl M. Harshbarger. Their marriage lasted more than sixty years, until Pearl's death on May 29, 1998. Isaac was a man of working hands — through the years he made his living as a swimming-pool installer, a farmer, a carpenter, and a mechanic, turning his skills to whatever the work required. When he was off the clock, he liked nothing better than pitching horseshoes and tending his garden. He belonged to the Kendallville Church of Christ, where his memorials would later be directed.
  Isaac died at 4:00 a.m. on Saturday, December 7, 2002, at Oak Leaf Village Nursing Center in Ligonier, age 86. He was preceded in death by his parents, his wife Pearl, a daughter — Patricia Ann King — a brother, Clayton King, and three sisters: Lucille Rhinehart, Louisa Biddle, and Mary Patton. He was survived by a sister, Evelyn Rimmell of Niles, Michigan, and by ten nieces and nephews.
  Services were held at Orr Funeral Home in Ligonier, with Rev. Arvil Brown officiating, and burial followed at Oak Park Cemetery.

• William Johnson MCCONNELL — Great Grandpa McConnell is remembered in the family as much for his small, everyday rituals as for a

  Great Grandpa McConnell is remembered in the family as much for his small, everyday rituals as for any grand achievement. He always took his Serutan — the name is "Natures" spelled backward — with a glass of milk at his evening meal. And on some evenings, after supper, he would retire to the living room for a shot or two of Scotch whiskey laced with rock candy. Grandma Bertha King kept a small dish of rock candy on the table next to his chair for just such occasions.
  There is a McConnell land reserve at Round Lake and a McConnell Road in Whitley County, Indiana — both, family tradition holds, named for him, though I have not been able to confirm it in the record. In addition to his farm near Round Lake, he kept a summer cottage on the lake itself, and it was there that McConnell and King family reunions were held for many years.
  One family story reaches back to his earlier farm in West Leipsic, Ohio. He ditched the fields by hand, using native wood — not clay tile — to carry off the water, and when he was done he swore he would never do that kind of work again. He promised that when the wood rotted out, he would pack up and move. Apparently a man of his word, when the day came he did exactly that, relocating to the farm near Round Lake in Thorncreek Township, Whitley County, Indiana.
  Inside the Bible imprinted with his name is a small handwritten inscription: "Dear cousin William. Side by side, we stand at the same little door. /s/ Jean Sigafoos, Mendota, Illinois, May 25, 1888." Written in, of all places, at Bertha and Volnie King's farm outside Ligonier, Indiana — a reminder that the two families shared more than marriages and neighbors.

• Bertha Lena MCCONNELL — Bertha Lena McConnell's birth date and birthplace come to us through an unassuming but remarkable ar

  Bertha Lena McConnell's birth date and birthplace come to us through an unassuming but remarkable artifact: a sheet of lined paper written in the hand of her brother, Isaac McConnell. On that single page Isaac set down his own birth information along with that of his siblings — Mary Charlotte, George Franklin, and Bertha Lena. All four entries agree with the other records we have, which gives the sheet unusual weight as evidence, and it is the source for the date and place of birth used for Bertha here.
  Those details do not entirely match a parallel family tradition handed down by Mrs. Adrian Biddle — Bertha's own daughter — concerning her mother's origins. Where the two accounts differ, I have chosen to follow Isaac's lined-paper record on the strength of its internal consistency. The lined sheet itself has been preserved through Ruth Arehart, wife of Philip Arehart, to whom the family is indebted for keeping so modest a document safe across the generations. — Ed.

• Sidney E ORT — Sidney E. Ort was born in Churubusco, Indiana, on March 17, 1889, to Sanford Fernando Ort and Vietta

  Sidney E. Ort was born in Churubusco, Indiana, on March 17, 1889, to Sanford Fernando Ort and Vietta (Krider) Ort, and Churubusco remained his home for all of his life. On September 6, 1911, he married Mary McConnell. He served in World War I and, after the war, took over Ort's Department Store from his father — the store that dominated the east side of Churubusco's business district for forty-two years under his hand.
  Sid was a joiner and a good-humored man. He belonged to the First Methodist Church in Churubusco, to Masonic Lodge 515 and the Scottish Rite, and for many years he played with the Shrine Band in Fort Wayne. He was a charter member of the American Legion, Gilbert Davis Post 157 of Churubusco. And he loved to play cards — at most family reunions at Round Lake, Whitley County, held at Grandpa McConnell's cottage, Sid was the first to suggest a friendly game.
  He died as he was preparing to go to the lake cottage of some friends. His funeral was held at the Krider Funeral Home; burial followed at Sparta Cemetery. Sid was survived by his wife Mary; a daughter, Mrs. Robert Creadick of Wilmington, Delaware; a son, Richard of Northbrook, Illinois; nine grandchildren; and a brother, Dr. Robert K. Ort of Fort Lauderdale, Florida.
  Source: Noble County, Indiana, Obituaries — O, p. 9.

• Samuel William PATTON — My Uncle Sam was a character, and most of what I know about him comes from my own memory and from st

  My Uncle Sam was a character, and most of what I know about him comes from my own memory and from stories passed along by cousin Jim Biddle.
  He was, improbably, the household ironing expert — highly proficient at running an electric mangle, he could press everything from shirts to bed sheets with the same easy competence. Not every story about him was so domestic. One family favorite involves his two sons, Sam Jr. and Ron, taking it upon themselves to paint the neighbor Louis Levy's black Cadillac with white paint. The tale has gathered mileage over the years for one reason: Louis Levy was the wealthiest man in Ligonier, if not in Noble County.
  Another story I loved — because Uncle Sam told it on himself — was the time he was out ice fishing, spudding a hole, and the spud slipped. It cut clean through his boot and shoe, passing neatly between his big toe and the next, without so much as scratching the flesh. He took a good deal of kidding over that one.
  I was fortunate enough to be invited along a few times to the Indianapolis 500 with him. On his off-duty days I slept at the Indiana State Police headquarters at Stout Field, Indianapolis. On his duty days I slept in the police car. He was a super uncle, and every now and then he needed a break from his household — Aunt Mary was on him about his pipe, not without reason, but he had too many years invested to quit. He would drop in at my parents' house for a quick puff and, sometimes, a bottle of beer. He and Aunt Mary rarely missed a Christmas party at my parents' home, often joined by his sister Kathryn and her husband "Bunt" Reed.
  Uncle Sam always took off in his police cruiser in second gear, predating the automatic transmission. A little more foot on the gas, a little clutch slip, and the car would start to move smoothly. He'd only shift once more, into third, and that was it. He loved furniture refinishing, too, and was good at it — he used lye water to strip the old finish off.
  He served on the Ligonier Board of Zoning Appeals and belonged to the Ligonier Elks. And his favorite saying was that he only liked two kinds of pie: hot pie and cold pie.

• Alonzo Thomas PRENTISS — Alonzo T. Prentiss was born on May 4, 1819, in Youngstown, Ohio, and trained to the carpenter's trad

  Alonzo T. Prentiss was born on May 4, 1819, in Youngstown, Ohio, and trained to the carpenter's trade. When the Civil War came he was already past forty — well above the usual age for enlistment — but on September 3, 1861, he volunteered all the same. He took a commission as First Lieutenant and was mustered that same day into Company I of the 49th Ohio Volunteer Infantry.
  His time in the field was short. On March 10, 1862, at Nashville, Tennessee, he resigned his commission. He survived the war and — by 1886 — had made his way to Brooklyn, California, where he was listed among those attending the 20th Annual Encampment of the Grand Army of the Republic in San Francisco: a carpenter from Ohio, a one-time lieutenant, still answering muster calls a quarter-century after the guns fell silent.
  Sources: Historical Data Systems, comp., U.S. Civil War Soldier Records and Profiles, 1861–1865 (Provo, UT: Ancestry.com, 2009); Official Roster of the Soldiers of the State of Ohio; 20th Annual Encampment GAR, San Francisco, 1886.

• Norman Melvin PUTNAM — Norman Melvin Putnam's Civil War service is best told through the story of his regiment — the 6th Ne

  Norman Melvin Putnam's Civil War service is best told through the story of his regiment — the 6th New York Heavy Artillery, known to its men as the "Anthony Wayne Guard." The regiment's own history, preserved in the Cyclopedia of Battles (Federal Pub. Co., Madison, WI, 1908), lays out a war that carried Norman through some of the hardest fighting of the Eastern Theater.
  The regiment was recruited in the summer of 1862 in Putnam, Rockland, and Westchester counties of New York, and organized at Yonkers as the 135th Infantry. It was mustered into United States service for three years on September 2, 1862, then converted to an artillery regiment in October 1862 and redesignated the 6th Regiment of Artillery. Two additional companies were mustered in that December.
  The colonels who led the regiment during Norman's service were William H. Morris, J. Howard Kitching, George C. Kibbe, and Stephen D. Baker. Ten companies left New York on September 5, 1862; Companies L and M joined at Baltimore in December. The regiment served with the 8th Corps at Harper's Ferry and in the defenses of the Upper Potomac until July 1863, when it was attached to the 1st Brigade, 1st Division, 3rd Corps, and took part in an action at Manassas Gap. That August it was transferred to the Reserve Artillery of the Army of the Potomac and employed as an ammunition guard, then rode through the Mine Run campaign of November 1863.
  From early 1864 until July of that year, the regiment served as infantry and heavy artillery with the 5th Corps, Army of the Potomac, and was active in every battle leading to the investment of Petersburg. The names on that list are the names every Civil War reader knows by heart: the Wilderness; Spotsylvania, where casualties came to 18 killed, 131 wounded, and 6 missing; the North Anna — 17 killed, 99 wounded, 17 missing; Totopotomoy; Cold Harbor; and the assault on Petersburg in June, which cost the regiment 92 men.
  In July 1864 the regiment was attached to the 1st Brigade, Hardin's Division, 22nd Corps. A month later it was ordered to Washington for garrison duty, stayed five weeks, and was then sent to join the Army of the Shenandoah as part of the 1st Brigade, Kitching's Provisional Division. At the Battle of Cedar Creek the regiment was heavily engaged, losing 94 killed, wounded, and missing — among them Colonel Kitching and Major Jones, both mortally wounded. The regiment was later assigned to the 2nd Brigade, Ferrero's Division, Army of the James, at Bermuda Hundred.
  The regiment was present at the fall of Petersburg on April 2, 1865 — the beginning of the end. On June 28, 1865, the men whose terms were to expire on October 1 were mustered out at Petersburg under Colonel Kibbe. The veterans and recruits were consolidated into a battalion of four companies, augmented on July 19 by the remaining members of the 10th and 13th Artillery, and mustered out on August 24, 1865, near Washington, D.C., under Colonel Baker.
  During its service the 6th New York Heavy Artillery lost 420 men by death: 6 officers and 130 men killed or mortally wounded in action, and 6 officers and 278 men who died of disease, accident, or in prison. Norman Putnam came home.

• Philip Lorenz REAM — Philip Lorenz Ream — given here as "Lawrence" in the original Noble County obituary, but corrected t

  Philip Lorenz Ream — given here as "Lawrence" in the original Noble County obituary, but corrected to Lorenz by Carolyn Riehm Steinhaus — was born on June 19, 1817, in Lachen, in the Rhein Province of Bavaria. In 1833 he crossed the Atlantic with his parents and settled with them in Seneca County, Ohio, where, in 1846, he married Elizabeth Hoffer.
  The union was blessed with eight children. Two preceded him to the spirit world. The remaining six — Jacob, Henry (Philip Henry), Mrs. Charles Carter, Mrs. Jacob Rinebolt, Mrs. Henry Auman, and Mrs. Bert Sawyer — all attended his funeral. All but Mrs. Auman, who lived in Indianapolis, were residents of Kendallville, Indiana, and vicinity.
  In 1853 Philip moved his family from Ohio to LaGrange County, Indiana, settling on a farm a few miles east of South Milford. There he stayed until May of 1881, when he removed to the farm east of Kendallville where, on March 22, 1895, he was bereft of his life companion Elizabeth. There too he ended his own earthly career, on May 27, 1899, at the advanced age of 81 years, 11 months, and 8 days.
  At the age of fourteen Philip had been confirmed in the German Reformed Church, and he held to that faith to the end. He left behind the six children already named, twenty-two grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. His funeral was held at the home on May 29, and he was buried at LakeView Cemetery. — Noble County, Indiana, newspaper, June 2, 1899.

• Frederick J SCHWAB — Frederick J. Schwab, at fifty-one, was president of the Albion National Bank — a career man at the c

  Frederick J. Schwab, at fifty-one, was president of the Albion National Bank — a career man at the center of his small Indiana town's financial life — when fate intervened on a country road. Late Thursday, about two miles north of Albion, he was caught in a two-car crash and suffered a ruptured spleen. He was taken to McCray Hospital and underwent surgery late Friday night, but the loss of blood was too much. He died there on Saturday.
  Fred left behind his widow and his son, Don, along with two granddaughters. He was further survived by his mother, Mrs. Jessie Schwab of Wawaka, Elkhart Township, Noble County, Indiana; two brothers, Johnnie of Ligonier and Earle of Fort Wayne; and one sister, Mrs. Ruth Johnson, also of Wawaka. Funeral services were held Monday afternoon at the Bonham & Miser Funeral Home in Albion.

• Charles C SMITH — Charles "Chuck" Smith was born on February 5, 1950, in Detroit, Michigan, the pride and joy of his p

  Charles "Chuck" Smith was born on February 5, 1950, in Detroit, Michigan, the pride and joy of his parents Clark and Elva Smith. He grew up in Highland Park, Michigan, and it was in the halls of a Highland Park middle school that he first met the love of his life, Linda P. Burgess. Their sweethearts' bond lasted the rest of his life; to those around them the Smiths were an example of devotion.
  Chuck graduated from the University of Tampa in 1972 and went on to earn his MBA from the University of St. Thomas in 1983. A man devoted to God and country, he served on active duty in the United States Marine Corps from 1973 to 1976, deploying overseas during the evacuation of Saigon and later touring the Mediterranean as a communications officer aboard a naval warship. He continued his service in the Marine Corps Reserves, ultimately retiring with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.
  Following his military career, Chuck joined the Ford Motor Company and then the Chrysler Corporation before going into business for himself — in 1994, he opened Hamilton Fairfield Dodge Jeep, which he ran with an unrivaled work ethic until his retirement in 2009. Along the way he became, by the testimony of everyone who knew him, a family man, a patriot, a warrior, a dear friend, and — not least — a very fun person to have around.
  The greatest joy of Chuck's life was his family. He died peacefully at home in Cincinnati, Ohio, on February 27, 2023, with his wife Linda and his nephew at his side. He was survived by Linda; his daughter Lauren Doyle and her husband Ryan; his son Stephen Smith and his wife Ashley; his beloved grandson Brooks Hart Smith; his sister Cheryl Larkin; his niece Kelly Larkin Beecher; and his nephew Jeremy Greer, whom Chuck considered a son. He was preceded in death by his daughter Melissa Ann "Missy" Rumeliot and by his parents.
  Visitation and funeral services were held on Saturday, March 18, 2023, at the Norman Chapel on the grounds of Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati.

• John STRATTON — John Stratton was born around 1388 and died around 1439, the son of Walter Stratton. He is considere

  John Stratton was born around 1388 and died around 1439, the son of Walter Stratton. He is considered the earliest reasonably solid ancestor in the Shrivenham-Podington chain, with his existence and connections based on medieval legal and property documents rather than parish registers. His importance in the pedigree rests largely on his marriage to Elizabeth Luttrell, which ties the Stratton family into the high-status Luttrell line active in Norfolk and Suffolk. This connection provided the social standing that runs through the family into the Tudor generations. He is named in sources drawing on A Book of Strattons and related genealogical compilations.

• George STRATTON — George Stratton was born around 1450 and died around 1498. He is regarded as one of the earliest rel

  George Stratton was born around 1450 and died around 1498. He is regarded as one of the earliest reliably documented ancestors of the Shrivenham, Berkshire branch of the Stratton family. Compiled genealogies describe him as having solidified the family's status in the Shrivenham area, implying that by his generation the family was well established as landholders or important tenants. He is said to be the son of Elizabeth Simon Fiske, linking the Strattons to the Fiske family, which appears in East Anglian and southeastern English contexts — though no father's name is recorded in accessible sources. His son John Stratton, Esquire (c.1480–1560) carried the line forward into the Tudor period.

• John STRATTON — John Stratton was styled Esquire, indicating status just below knighthood and placing him among the

  John Stratton was styled Esquire, indicating status just below knighthood and placing him among the minor gentry of late medieval and early Tudor England. He was born around 1480, likely in or near Shrivenham, Berkshire, and died around 1560. He married Agnes Webb (born c.1487), linking the Strattons to another gentry-level line. His life spans the transition from late medieval England into the Tudor period. Some genealogical sources attach him to Shotley in Suffolk rather than Shrivenham, which may represent conflation with a distinct county branch of the Stratton name. In modern reconstructions he is the key gentry-level ancestor of the Shrivenham-Podington Stratton line, bridging the earlier George Stratton (c.1450) and the yeoman Thomas (c.1507) who follows.

• Thomas STRATTON — Thomas Stratton was born around 1507 in Shrivenham, Berkshire, the son of John Stratton, Esquire, an

  Thomas Stratton was born around 1507 in Shrivenham, Berkshire, the son of John Stratton, Esquire, and Agnes Webb. His designation as yeoman implies solid middling status — enough landholding or tenancy to appear in manorial and subsidy records of the period. He married Joan Gonshall Mundy around 1529, early in the reign of Henry VIII, anchoring the family in Shrivenham at the start of the parish register era (Shrivenham registers begin in 1575). Thomas stands at the transition from late medieval document types — manorial rolls and subsidy lists — to the early modern parish and probate records that underpin the family's documented history. He died around 1587 in or near Shrivenham.

• William STRATTON — William Stratton was born around 1530 in Shrivenham, Berkshire, the son of Thomas Stratton and Joan

  William Stratton was born around 1530 in Shrivenham, Berkshire, the son of Thomas Stratton and Joan Gonshall Mundy. He married Joan Arden around 1555. Compiled genealogies describe him as a prominent local figure in the Shrivenham area. It was William — or his son John — who made the move from Shrivenham to Hinwick in the parish of Podington, Bedfordshire, establishing the family in that county. His son John of Podington (c.1562–1627) appears in a will proved 23 August 1627, the key document tying the family to the Podington parish. William died around 1604. He stands at the hinge point between the Shrivenham Strattons and the Bedfordshire branch from which the Massachusetts Bay Colony emigrant Samuel Stratton Sr. descends.

• Samuel STRATTON — Samuel Stratton was born in England and came to Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1647 with his father, h

  Samuel Stratton was born in England and came to Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1647 with his father, his mother, and his brother John. He was young when he crossed the Atlantic, still young when he married, and the record that survives of his life is brief but firm.
  On March 25, 1651, he married Mary Frye — probably a daughter of the John Frye who died in Andover in 1693, though no record of Mary's birth has yet been found. About four years after their marriage, Samuel and Mary moved from Watertown to Concord, where Samuel owned land and where his descendants would live for many generations. Mary died on October 27, 1674.
  The following year Samuel married Hannah Wheat, daughter of Moses Wheat. The date of Hannah's death is not recorded, but Samuel's own death is set down very plainly in the Concord books: "Samuel Stratton, sr., the husband of Hannah his late wife, dyed December ye 5th day, 1707."
  The title "Sr." is applied here because Samuel's own father — the original Samuel Sr. — had died in 1672, and Samuel himself now had a son, Samuel, who was Jr. in his own right. — Ed.

• Francis STRATTON — Francis Stratton — son of John Stratton and Annah Stratton — was born on February 7, 1780, in Warren

  Francis Stratton — son of John Stratton and Annah Stratton — was born on February 7, 1780, in Warren, Worcester County, Massachusetts. Around 1807 he married Asenette Jackson, who had been born about 1790, also in Massachusetts. Francis died in 1834 in New York State, and Asenette outlived him by six years, dying in 1840 in Columbus, Columbia County, Wisconsin.
  These dates and places come from other researchers' family trees and have not been individually verified in primary records, but each is consistent with the other facts we know about Francis and his generation. Source: A Book of Strattons, Vol. 2, by Harriet Russell Stratton, 1918.

• Francis STRATTON — A second account of Francis Stratton — drawn from an 1898 county history — adds a different angle on

  A second account of Francis Stratton — drawn from an 1898 county history — adds a different angle on the same man:
  "Referring to the grandparents of Frank N. Stratton, we find that his grandfather Stratton was a native of Vermont, a farmer by occupation, and for many years a resident of New York State, where he died. He was a strict Covenanter. His family was composed of three children." (Biographical and Genealogical History of Cass, Miami, Howard and Tipton Counties, Indiana, Lewis Publishing Co., Chicago, IL, 1898, p. 124.)
  I read the Vermont reference with some caution. Direct evidence indicates that Francis was born in Warren, Massachusetts; that he had three siblings — John, born 1782; Lydia, born 1785; and Richard, born 1792, all of them born in Massachusetts; and that his father, John, died in Oneida, New York about 1799. The most plausible way to reconcile the two accounts is that Francis, as a young man in his late teens, moved to Vermont for some period before continuing on to New York State — and that is where the later sketch writer picked up the "native of Vermont" detail. Until a Vermont record can be found to confirm it, I treat the idea as a reasonable interpolation rather than proof. — Ed.

• Francis Joel STRATTON — Francis Joel Stratton graduated from medical college in New York in 1848 and, newly credentialed, mo

  Francis Joel Stratton graduated from medical college in New York in 1848 and, newly credentialed, moved to Frankfort, Kentucky, where he practiced medicine for a short time. From Kentucky he moved on to Ohio, and there he married Hester Donnellan. He almost certainly knew Hester — and quite possibly her father, Dr. Nelson Donnellan — before he arrived in Ohio. Nelson Donnellan, as a practicing physician, would have made a natural mentor to a young medical graduate, and mentorship of that sort was a requirement for obtaining a license in those years.
  By the 1850 Census the arrangement was plain to see: Francis Joel, Hester, and eleven-year-old Julia — Joel's daughter from his earlier marriage to Asenath Hawks — were living together in the dwelling next door to the Donnellans, Hester's parents, just as a son-in-law newly folded into a medical family might be expected to do.

• Francis Joel STRATTON — Dr. Francis Joel Stratton died on the night of February 22, 1864, at his residence at No. 393 Ninth

  Dr. Francis Joel Stratton died on the night of February 22, 1864, at his residence at No. 393 Ninth Street, Washington, D.C., age 47. The local notice was brief and formal: "Stratton. In this city, on the night of the 22d, Dr. Francis J. Stratton, formerly of Rochester, New York, aged 47 years. His friends are invited to attend his funeral at 11 o'clock a.m. tomorrow, from his late residence, No. 393 9th St."
  The funeral itself, however, was anything but ordinary. By the spring of 1863, the Civil War had pushed Washington into uneasy new ground — the diarist J. W. Horton observed at the time that "the capital of the nation is more anti-slavery than was Boston two years ago." Spiritualism, the reformist movement Joel had embraced, was likewise coming out of the parlors and into public view, and its followers had begun meeting in a boarding house on Ninth Street. At Joel's funeral, they gave him what Horton called "probably the first Spiritual funeral held in public here."
  Horton, who was Joel's friend as well as a fellow reformer, drew a pointed contrast between the Spiritualist service and a Methodist camp meeting held about the same time, at which a "fence dividing the blacks from the whites" still separated brothers of the same church. The scene at No. 393 Ninth Street — a public Spiritualist funeral, integrated and open — was, in its small way, a picture of the new capital Joel had spent his working life in, as a clerk at the Patent Office and a faithful Spiritualist, trying to bring into being.

• Samuel Edgerton STRATTON — Samuel Edgerton Stratton was born in Wayne County, Indiana, near Richmond. In 1833 he moved with his

  Samuel Edgerton Stratton was born in Wayne County, Indiana, near Richmond. In 1833 he moved with his parents to Rush County, and he lived there until 1848, when his father purchased a farm in Harrison Township, Howard County. Samuel received what he himself called a "limited" education, and early on he showed a marked love for mechanics.
  At sixteen he set up as a millwright and built a small mill on the creek. At seventeen he was already repairing the corn crackers and wheat mills at New London and Alto. Before long he had constructed the Stratton Mill on the Wild Cat Creek near West Middleton, and ran it successfully for fifteen years. For some years he was a senior partner of the Anderson Machine Works. In 1867 he was elected to fill the unexpired term of Mr. Kirkpatrick as Howard County Commissioner, and re-elected to the same office in 1868; during his term he superintended the building of the courthouse in Kokomo. He always took an active interest in public improvements, served for several years as a director on the Kokomo & New London gravel board, and became one of the owners and operators of the West Middleton Flouring Mills.
  Samuel married on April 10, 1852, to Sarah J. Hollingsworth. He had been reared in the Friends' faith, but when he married outside the denomination he was disowned by the Society. Sarah died, and in July 1868 he married Hester A. (Donnellan) Stratton — the widow of Francis Joel Stratton. That second marriage was blessed with two children, both deceased.
  Samuel was a strong believer in Spiritualism for thirty years, and a Republican. His father before him had been a strong anti-slavery Friend. — Genealogy of Counties of Howard and Tipton, IN, F. A. Battey & Co., Chicago, IL, 1883.

• Lucius Warner STRATTON — Lucius Warner Stratton was born on March 25, 1844, in Batavia, Genesee County, New York, the son of

  Lucius Warner Stratton was born on March 25, 1844, in Batavia, Genesee County, New York, the son of Francis Joel Stratton and Mercy Ann Stratton. (The Wyoming Reporter, on his death, mistakenly gave his father's name as "Lucius" — a printer's slip for Francis Joel.) He spent the earlier part of his life in Batavia and received his education there. As a young man he moved to Stafford, New York, and entered the produce business, then relocated to LeRoy, where he partnered with his brother-in-law H. E. Walker in the same trade for a number of years.
  Lucius was married twice. On June 29, 1875, he married Miss Adell J. Moon, the ceremony performed by Rev. A. B. Moore, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Wyoming, New York. He and Adell made their home in Wyoming until 1891, when they moved the family west to West Superior, Wisconsin. Three years on the Great Lakes were enough; in 1894 they came back to Wyoming, where Lucius resumed his place among the community's responsible men.
  He was, by every account, a man of genial disposition — the sort who naturally drew friends — and his neighbors repeatedly asked him to serve. He held the offices of Justice of the Peace, highway commissioner, trustee of the Wyoming Free Library, secretary of the board of education, and secretary of the cemetery association. He was always ready to give his time and talents to anything that improved the town. He was also gifted with the pen: many were the brilliant poems and short addresses that delighted friends at social gatherings and public occasions. He was a faithful attender at the Presbyterian Church, where he and his wife sang together in the choir for thirty years.
  Lucius spent the last three years of his life in Rochester at the home of his only daughter, Mabel B. Quinn. He died there on June 24, 1913. A sister, Mrs. H. E. Walker of LeRoy, survived him. Funeral services were held at the home on Thursday, June 26, with interment at Wyoming, Attica, New York.
  Source: Wyoming Reporter, Wednesday, July 2, 1913.

• Martha STRATTON — Martha Stratton: Mattie was alive at the 1870 census on 14 Jul 1870, but deceased prior to 1883, whe

  Martha Stratton: Mattie was alive at the 1870 census on 14 Jul 1870, but deceased prior to 1883, when she was referred to as deceased in Samuel's biography.

• Susie STRATTON — There is very little information about Susie. She lived with Samuel, Hesther, Mattie, and Frank and

  There is very little information about Susie. She lived with Samuel, Hesther, Mattie, and Frank and was seven years old and alive at the 1870 census, 14 Jul 1870. She was mentioned in the 1883 biography of Samuel as one of two children then deceased. The other child would have been Mattie, who was 16 years old.

• Frederick Nelson STRATTON — Somewhere in the summer of 1919, my grandfather Fred Nelson Stratton sailed home from France, and th

  Somewhere in the summer of 1919, my grandfather Fred Nelson Stratton sailed home from France, and the most likely ship beneath his feet was the USS Huntington. She was an armored cruiser — five hundred and four feet long, thirteen thousand six hundred and eighty tons, mounting four 8-inch guns and fourteen 6-inch guns. Built at Newport News and commissioned in 1905 as the USS West Virginia, she was renamed Huntington in 1916 to clear the name for a new battleship.
  During the First World War she served as a convoy escort. After the armistice she was converted to a troop transport, and between January and July 1919 she made six round trips across the Atlantic, bringing home nearly twelve thousand American soldiers.
  That schedule lines up neatly with Fred's. The 42nd Rainbow Division demobilized in 1919, and the Huntington was making those return runs in exactly that window. In other words, Fred appears to have crossed the Atlantic twice on seized or repurposed warships — over on the German-built President Lincoln, and back on an armored cruiser that had been refitted to carry doughboys home. A fitting, if unsentimental, bookend to a young Midwesterner's war.

• Ferdinand Paul STRATTON — Ferdinand Paul Stratton enlisted in the United States Navy on November 5, 1917, at the age of ninete

  Ferdinand Paul Stratton enlisted in the United States Navy on November 5, 1917, at the age of nineteen, and served through the First World War as a wireless — that is, radio — operator aboard a Navy destroyer in the North Atlantic. His ship's assignment, repeated a hundred times across those months, was to screen merchant shipping and troop convoys against German U-boat attack. The specific destroyer, his rating, and his precise wartime billets have not survived in the records I have been able to find; for the Atlantic-destroyer detail I rely on the family oral history.
  What the war gave him lasted the rest of his working life. His postwar occupation as a Wireless Radio Operator, and the radio-and-television repair business he later built, both trace directly back to the wartime specialty he learned at sea. The service dates themselves are drawn from his Death Certificate and his Veteran's Hospital records.

• Kelli Lu STRATTON — STORY SUBMISSION

  STORY SUBMISSION
  Date: April 2, 2026 12:47 PM
  From: Kelli Stratton <[email protected]>
  About: William F Stratton
  Relationship: Daughter
  ------------------------------------------------------------
  My father has always been there supporting and loving me. More than any person in this whole wide world. When I was small I didn’t understand but now that I’m grown I understand he was teaching me to be courageous and brave. If not for my father I wouldn’t be the one to make it through the trauma and heartbreak this Earth School has presented. Now after reading these ancestral stories, I understand my roots and how they have shaped who I have become. I love my father with all of my heart. Kelli Lu Stratton 1958.
  ------------------------------------------------------------
  Attached files:
  - 2026-04-02_124757_kelli-stratton_file1.jpeg (IMG_1128.jpeg, 2711 KB)

• Tatsue TAKEDA — Tatsue Takeda was born on April 25, 1932, in Japan, the daughter of Utaro and Tamae Takeda. In Janua

  Tatsue Takeda was born on April 25, 1932, in Japan, the daughter of Utaro and Tamae Takeda. In January 1959, in Tokyo, she married her Marine Corps husband Richard Dodge, and eight months later the couple transferred to Oahu. After a four-year tour in Hawai'i they were reassigned through a string of other stateside duty stations, returning to Oahu for good in 1970. When Richard retired from the Marine Corps, Tatsue went to work in the mess halls at Barbers Point and West Loch, a job she held for the next twenty-five years.
  Off the job she took her pleasures in simple, faithful things. She loved dining out — Gyotaku was her favorite restaurant, hands down — and watching her Japanese TV shows at home. Above all she loved the Sumo Tournaments, which she followed from a special TV room where members of the family would join her to cheer for her favorites.
  Tatsue died on September 14, 2017, at Pali Momi Medical Center, age 85. She was survived by her husband Richard; her daughters Katharine and Mary; her sons Johnnie (Sherry), Jimmie (Kristy), and Richard; her grandchildren Crystal, Jarred, Kelsey, Stormy, Kawehi, Kylie, Johnnie, and Tommy; and her great-grandchildren Tyler, Nathan, Akahana, and Kalama. Family meant everything to her. Soka Gakkai Buddhist services and interment were held at Mililani Mauka Cemetery, with arrangements by Nuuanu Memorial Park & Mortuary.

• Victoria Ruth TINDALE — Victoria Ruth "Vickie" Tindall was born in Green Acres, Washington, in 1924, to Ernestine and Vaughn

  Victoria Ruth "Vickie" Tindall was born in Green Acres, Washington, in 1924, to Ernestine and Vaughn Tindall, and raised in Montana. Early in life she joined Northwest Airlines, and she stayed on for more than forty years — at one point the airline's longest-standing employee, and distinguished, as Northwest Airlines itself recognized, as the first woman to serve at an international airport as a military traffic officer.
  Her airline career carried her from Montana to Seattle, where in 1960 she met and married George R. Stumpf. Together they raised his son, Pete, in what everyone who came through their door remembered as a warm and loving household. Vickie made friends easily — on more than one occasion a wrong number on the telephone ended with the stranger being invited over for dinner, and it was not at all unusual to find the Stumpf home the center of activity for friends and family alike.
  Vickie was preceded in death by her husband George; their son Pete; her sister Fay Labrie; and her brother Ray Tindall. She was survived by her nephew Ken Tindall of Durham, North Carolina, and by nieces Kay Tindall of St. Louis Park, Minnesota, Cherie Jones of Harlowton, Montana, and Marcella Barnhill of Helena, Montana.
  Vickie spent her final days in Gig Harbor, Washington, and died on February 13, 2017. In lieu of flowers, the family asked that donations be made to a local hospice. Her spirit and her love of life will be missed by all who knew her.