Archive for the ‘Sherry’s Family Tree’ Category

by Sherry Stocking Kline
March 19, 2011

At first no one knew what the little red,  itchy, dots were. They thought it might be allergies and that being the case, my three nephews were exposed right after I came down with “it”, whatever “it” was.

And then they thought it might be measles.

But it was not measles.

It was Chicken Pox.   By the time our parents figured out what I had, the boys, my nephews, 2 1/2, 4 1/2 years, and 6 1/2 years younger than I, were coming down with it, too.

So we were  miserable together.  We didn’t have air conditioning in our little farm home. It was summer in Kansas. It was Hot.  How in the world did we ever live without air conditioning, anyhow?

We had what was referred to as a squirrel cage cooler that ran air over water from an outdoor hose. It just barely cooled the air down, and it moved it around fast enough to blow your hair, and you had to talk loud to be heard over it.  It also added humidity to the air, so on hot, humid, muggy, days it was like trying to breath under water with that thing running.

No one wanted four miserable whiny kids in the house…

Anyhow, no one wanted four miserable itchy, whiny, hot kids in the house with them, so our parents set up old green Army cots under the shade tree by the water hydrant in the back yard, just a few feet from the back door in the shade and the south wind.  They probably gave us some books and coloring books,  and then they parked us outside in the breeze.

If we had a television then, and I can’t remember if we did or not, there were only three channels and few things that kids would be interested in watching.  I don’t remember much more about that time, except that we were sick, itchy, and bored beyond distraction.  We were close to a sand pile and a water source and we didn’t feel like playing, so we laid on the cots, scratched, and whined.

Fortunately for me, I got it first, so I got over it first, and so I was able to escape our exile sooner than my nephews could!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
March 17, 2011

Many of my childhood sounds still surround me.

I grew up on a wheat and dairy farm in south central Kansas and I’ve not moved so very far from where I grew up, so the turtle dove that sings in the evening near my city home reminds me of nightfall on the farm.

When I visit friends or family in the country I hear bobwhite quail calling their mates, cattle lowing as they crop the grass, and occasionally the mournful midnight howl of a  coyote.

We actually have fox, deer, and coyotes that roam in our little  area of our small city at night, especially near the creek that runs through town. Wander around near my neighborhood after midnight, and you may spot a deer family grazing in someone’s yard or a fox or coyote hurrying to get out of the headlights of your car.

In the spring, summer, and fall in the country you can hear the sounds of tractors running in the fields, and see the dust they stir up blowing in the wind. It reminds me of when I used to ride on the fender of the tractor with  either Mom or Dad while they worked in the field,  or when I ran barefoot in the furrow behind the plow with our collie dog, Lassie.

In June and July, if you drive by Kansas wheat fields with their golden stalks blowing in the south wind, you can hear the sounds of wheat harvest: combines running and spewing out the spent stalks from the back and trucks traveling in low gear to get out of the field as they hurry to deliver the grain to the nearby elevators.

It reminds me of hot, sweaty, but fun days riding the combines first with my daddy, then with my brothers, and later my husband as they kept an eye on the clouds, worried about the weather, and hurried to get the wheat cut before the rain or hail came.

It brings back memories of the field picnics we had, much like today’s tailgate parties, with sandwiches and potato chips on paper plates and trying to catch the potato chips that were blowing off your plate.  Nothing tasted as good as the cold iced tea from the gallon field jug and no picnic was as much fun as eating in the field when the men stopped for a few minutes to eat, talk about the harvest, eye the clouds for rain, and predict the yields before climbing back on the combines and cutting late into the night.

At night, the combine’s lights shine on the golden stalks as the reel pulls each one hungrily, whooosh, whooosh, whoossssshhhhhh into the combine’s auger and then threshes out the grain and dumps it into the bin behind the driver.

I loved to ride the combines, especially at night, when the heat of the day was gone and the breeze combed your hair with its fingers and cooled your skin with its touch.

And the wheat beards whispered secrets in the wind.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
March 17, 2011

Scrapbooking for the Family Reunion

We are having a family reunion this summer, so I’ve spent quite a bit more time lately working on my family trees, building digital scrapbook pages, and creating the album covers for the post-bound albums that the pages will fit into.

It has been so much fun that I just wanted to share one of the 12 x 12 post bound album covers and one  of the pages that I created for our family scrapbook!

I just love this photograph of my Mom and Dad, so I’m using it for the cover of the scrapbook album that I will be ordering this week!

I just love putting digital copies of these treasured old photographs into an album so the whole family can enjoy them.

You Can Personalize the Album Cover…

I also like being able to personalize the covers of my Heritage Maker’s scrapbook (affiliate link) to match the photographs inside the album!

I can’t wait to show it to this mom!  I think she will really love it!   (It might make an awesome Mother’s Day gift, but I don’t think I can wait that long to show her!)

Scrapbooking Links:

Make Wanted Posters for Your Scrapbook

Scrapbooking Your Family History

Make Your Own Handwriting Font (no longer free)

The Journal That Began a Lifetime of Journaling

Grandpa – Tell Me ‘Bout The Good Old Days…

Journal Your Photos – Now!

Make Your Own Heritage Albums with Heritage Makers

by Sherry Kline
15 Mar 2011

A copy of the following letter was e-mailed to me by cousin Valerie, whose grandfather was Herbert Deffenbaugh, and I have to confess to not knowing a great deal about this, my husband’s mother’s family.

I very much appreciate Valerie sharing not only this letter, but also several family photographs with me so that I can send them to the branches of the family who would most cherish them!  What an awesome, kind, genealogy-friendly thing to do!

Milan, Kansas
May 17, 1908
My Dear Brother,

I will write you a few lines today as it is rainy and not many coming in to bother me, I would of written sooner byt we have been very busy trying to get straightened up.  Lou has been staying with us and has helped a great deal.  We are just getting things now so we can live.  The girls are so tired at night they can hardly sleep.  I will be glad when they get things fixed up to suit them so they can rest a little.  I wish you could have been out here and seen the way (they) did us when we got home of course Pa can tell you all about it but that isn’t like as it you could see it your self.

I was very mutch disappointed  that there wasn’t more of you folks come I rather expected you to come if none of the rest did.  You know you always seemed a little nearer to me than the rest of my brothers did any way and for that reason I was more disappointed than I would have been. We had a very quiet Wedding there was only about 35 there but they made up for it when we got home.  The people certainly gave us a warm welcome and we appreciated it very mutch.

I don’t remember whether I thanked Mr. and Mrs. Sandy for their Picture or not but I intended to and you tell them if I didn’t that we thank them many times for it I think it just fine it looks as tho it had ought to talk it is so natural.

Well Hurbert I suppose you will come out to see us this summer won’t you?  We want you to be sure and come and bring Ma with you I don’t expect she would like to come by her self but there is no use of that you can come and bring her with you. 

We were so glad to have Pa come out to the Wedding and I think it did him good to get away from home a little while to.  It was so good of Harvey to let Pa have the money to come out here on.  I am so glad Harvey is good to the folks and hope he always is. 

I tell you we can never do to mutch for our folks the more we do to please them the better we will feel when they are taken from us we know they have worked hard to raise us and it has cost them lots of money and that isn’t all it has cost them lots of worry and hard work so we had ought to do all we can to make life a pleasure to them now when they are old and lifes pleasures are most over for them.

About all the satisfaction they get now it to see us children do what is right and get along well.  I do hope that none of us ever do anything to disgrace them in their old age.  Pa seemed to be so well pleased the way you boys all do.  He thinks you and Harvey are sutch good boys and how nice it is that you are it is sutch a pleasure to him to feel that you boys are thought so mutch of and to know that you are always ready to do what is right by everyone.

Now Hurbert I hope you won’t think I am saying to mutch but it does me so mutch good to know you are so good to the folks I can’t help but tell you about it.

My wheat is looking some better than it was when Pa was out here we have got lots of good rain and that has helped the wheat wonderful we will have to start the binder about the 10th of next month.  I will be glad when that time comes then I can tell about how my wheat is going to turn out.

Well I will close for this time as it is just about dinner time come and see us as soon as you can and give my best regards to all of my friends.

Good bye write soon.
Your loving Brother and sister,
T.A. and Lynne Deffenbaugh

Deffenbaugh Link:

Herbert Deffenbaugh Graduates from the Eighth Grade

by Sherry Stocking Kline
December 1, 2010

It was really hard to decide what to write about, one of our one-of-a-kind family ‘characters’ or a one-of-a-kind family heirloom.  But sorting through the ever increasing number of digital photographs and scanned pictures on my hard drive, I saw the snapshot that I took of  “THE” family Bible.

On the front, it says “Holy Bible” and then inscribed below that “Mr. & Mrs. J. H. Stocking”.

Mr. & Mrs. J. H. Stocking Family Bible

Was it a Wedding Gift?

And until I wrote the words above, I hadn’t stopped to wonder at the circumstances that led to the purchase of the Bible.  Was it a wedding gift from one of their parents?  Did they purchase it themselves?  Which Mrs. J. H. Stocking does the inscription pertain to?

Whatever the circumstances were, the Bible was thumbed through, and the births, marriages, and deaths were added, one by one, in different colors ink, in different hands, down through time.

Mr. & Mrs. J. H. Stocking Bible

John Hurlburt Stocking was born in Sullivan Twp, Madison Co., N.Y., on 15, July 1821.  He married Betsy Jane Ames, who was born on 10 Jun 1820, in West Chenanco, Chenango Park, N.Y..

Betsy died on 15 Oct 1856 at the age of 36, just ten days after giving birth to her second son, Bishop Ames.  Bishop died not long after his mother, leaving John a young widower with a three-year-old son, my great-grandfather, Roderick Remine Stocking.

J. H. married Caroline Gates in 1860.  J. H. died on 14 Oct 1894, in Illinois, and I was fortunate to locate a small town history that stated that he was visiting friends in Illinois when he fell down the stairs and died so I hope to be able to verify that with a newspaper article or obituary at some future date.

The J. H. Stocking Family Bible was handed down from John Hurlburt to his son, Roderick Remine, and Roderick gave it to his son, John Lester and his wife Velma.  Velma was very interested in family history.  John and Velma had no children, so after John’s death, Great-Aunt Velma gave the Bible to my uncle, a son of Elmer L. and Maud (McGinnis) Stocking, and he was kind enough to loan me the Bible so that I might look through it and snap a few photographs, for which I am very grateful.  (The Bible was too frail to put on a photocopy machine, or my scanner.)

Adding One More Thing to My Bucket List…

Looking at the pages in this treasured family heirloom reminds me that I have not filled out the family tree pages in my own Bibles, so that is one more thing I need to add to my “Family History Bucket List,”  and I am well equipped with the acid-free pens that would be safest to use, and that would (should) last the longest with the least fading.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
November 2nd, 2010

The following paragraph is excerpted from the “History of Milan, Kansas, 1879 – 1978”, by Leslie “Bud” Yates.  The book is now out of print and the author has passed away, but there is a copy of the book in the Sumner County History and Research Center.  The book is small, but is packed with information about the area’s early residents and the town’s businesses.

“Teachers for 1908 – 1909 school year were Mrs. Gracia Kellogg for primary and Mr. Brooks for principal.  The following were awarded their 8th grade diplomas:  Mae Kline, Catharine Lee, Maud Perry, Chrystal Brown, Pearle Mears, Herbert Deffenbaugh, Sallie Bunker, and Ethel Bebee.”

Of the Eighth Grade Graduates, Mae Kline and Herbert Deffenbaugh are in my husband’s family tree.  Mae was his great-aunt, and I’m honestly not sure who Herbert is, but probably an uncle or great uncle.  Several of my husband’s aunts and uncles (and his mother) went by their middle names, and sometimes kept their first names a closely guarded secret, so I will have to ask a cousin who is the keeper of the Deffenbaugh Genealogy to find out how he fits into our tree.

Sallie/Sally Bunker, who graduated with them, is the granddaughter of Eng Bunker, one of the famous Siamese (conjoined) twins, Chang and Eng Bunker.

Sally’s father was James Montgomery, son of Eng Bunker.  Eng and Chang married sisters and each couple had several children.  You can read more about them by following the links below:

Wikipedia: Chang and Eng Bunker
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chang_and_Eng_Bunker

Chang and Eng Bunker
http://www.cojoweb.com/siamese%20twins.html

Find a Grave Memorial for Chang and Eng Bunker
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=125

Sumner County (Kansas) History & Genealogy Research Center
Box 402; 208 N. Washington
Wellington, Kansas

Sherry Stocking Kline
October 20, 2010

Dorothy Jones Stocking, May Breneman Jones Willey,Carrie Breneman Jones, Warner Jones, Harold Jiggs Stocking, in front of the Stocking Home

I love this old photograph of my parents, my mom Dorothy Stocking on the left, & dad Harold Stocking on the right, with my mom’s Aunt May (Breneman) Jones Willey, and Mom’s parents, Carrie (Breneman) and Warner Jones sandwiched between them.

After attending the KCGS Conference with Maureen Taylor, I find myself looking for clues in my photographs.

First, the photograph had to be taken before November 1st, 1947, because Grandpa Jones passed away on that date.  (I could look up the car makes, models and years, too!)

Second, either they had been somewhere, or were getting ready to go, because Dad is wearing his ‘good’ overalls.  In other words, he and Grandpa had on new and clean overalls.  (As opposed to faded by the sun, ‘everyday’ overalls that Dad worked the fields and fed and milked the cows in!)

It wouldn’t have been church or a funeral, because the men would have worn suits for that, so maybe they went to town shopping for the day, to visit someone in the hospital, or to visit family or friends in another town.

And it’s in the colder months, as the women all have on heavy wool coats, and scarves to keep their ears warm, and maybe just to ‘tie their hair down’ to keep it from blowing in the Kansas wind.

And now I need to ask my mom, to see if she remembers the occasion that prompted the photograph sixty-plus years ago!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
October 19, 2009

Randy Seaver of GeneaMusings issued this challenge on Saturday night!  I’m a bit late, but I don’t want to miss out on all the fun, so here goes!

Hey geneaphiles – it’s Saturday Night, time for more Genealogy Fun for all Genea-Musing readers.

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (and we need more of you to do this, otherwise it may end…), is to:

1)  Read Brenda Joyce Jerome’s post Who or What Do You Blame? on the Western Kentucky Genealogy blog.  She asks these questions:

*  Can you identify person or event that started you on this search for family information?

*  Did you pick up researching where a relative had left off?

*  Did your interest stem from your child’s school project on genealogy?

*  If you have been researching many years, it may be hard to pinpoint one reason for this journey.

2)  Write your responses on your own blog, in a comment to this blog post, or in a note or comment on Facebook.

Maybe I was always a little interested in family history, but after Hobart Stocking, a professor from Oklahoma researched, wrote, and published the Stocking Ancestry, I became more interested, and shared the information with my husband’s family.  And that’s when my father-in-law, Melvin Kline, stated that he wished someone would research their family tree.

And He Kind of Hoped They Wouldn’t, Too…

And, he said, he kind of hoped maybe they wouldn’t, too.  He said that he was afraid of “what we might find.”

The story that he had always heard went like this, “three brothers came west, fought along the way, and never corresponded again.”

And because there wasn’t any correspondence between Pop’s family, and his grandfather’s family, at least that he knew of, he believed the story to be true, and he was afraid that we’d find out that his grandfather might have been the the person who caused the problem.

But still, he really wanted to know.

Who could possibly resist a puzzle or a challenge like this?

Not me, for sure, so I took up the quest and along the way became  ‘hooked’ on genealogy and preserving family history.

I was woefully ignorant of how to get started, so it was quite a long time before I learned about at least one ‘family feud’, learned where the family had migrated to Kansas from, and ‘met up’ with some distant cousins.

Unfortunately, by that time, my father-in-law had passed on, and I really wish he were here so that I could say “Thank you” to him for starting me on such a fun and addictive hobby/pastime/obsession.

But I’d like to think that somehow, he knows.

Sherry Stocking Kline
August 30, 2010

Lindsay, (Lindsey) John

Born – June 11, 1800 in Enniskillan, Ireland.
Died – October 14, 1885 in Sumner County, Kansas, buried Anson Cemetery (Tombstone Record and his direct communication to George Clarence Lindsay).  See 1880 Census Record.

Marriages

John Lindsay Married – 1st – Mary Rutledge – July 9, 1833 in Carroll County, Ohio. She was a daughter of Jane Crozier and William Rutledge and was born in Fermanaugh, Ireland about 1813.  Came to America with mother and siblings 1827. Died March 1856, six weeks after the birth of her last child. (Marriage Records Bk 1, p. 1, Carroll County, Ohio)

John Lindsay Married – 2nd – Harriet Barnes – about 1867 in Iowa.  She was born in New York in 1826. (Census Record 1870 Iowa Monroe County, Wautua Twnshp)

How the Lindsay Family came to Live in America…

John Lindsay quarreled with his father about religion and came to Canada in 1818, then to Carroll County, Ohio where he owned 76 acres of land more or less.  This was conveyed by patent deed bearing date at Washington City, D. C., November 18, 1833.

John and Mary sold 6 acres in 1837.  March 15, 1856 he sold the remaining land for $800. (Carroll County, Ohio Deed Bk Volume 15, p. 299)

Moved to Iowa where he is listed in the 1860 Monroe County, Union Township p. 342 with 3 sons and daughter Mary.

The other children remained in Ohio. Listed again in Mantua Township, Monroe County, Iowa, p. 367, year 1870, with wife and children and son Edward 24 by first marriage. Real estate $2800.

Came to Sumner County, Kansas in 70’s (as handwritten on the paper) 80’s and died there. He was a farmer, a reader, interested in books.  6 ft tall, light, looked like Thoreau. Read the Saturday Evening Post to his children by the light of pine knots.  Took great pains and trouble with teaching of youngest daughter, Callie.

A sister, perhaps named Margaret, came later to America, went south to nurse in a yellow fever epidemic and was never heard of again.

Naturalized in Ohio – spelling changed to Lindsey (with an e) by mistake at that time.

Children of John Lindsay

1.    James – b. 1834. Killed at Vicksburg

2.    Ann – b. 1835 or 36 married Ferdinand Wood (born July 11, 1841 d. January 20, 192? (the photocopy cut off last digit))

3.    William Rutledge b. December 28, 1837, married Julia Ann Miller, daughter of Henry Miller and Isabelle Warner, died May 27, 1907, daughter of (?) Ebenezer and Mary Smith. (some of the dates, and people in this part of the account it was difficult to decipher which belonged to who. Please see original on Pioneer Settler File Page 5.)

4.    Sarah – born 1839, married Henry Bracken (left-handed) October 18, 1860

5.    George – born 1842 – Company A 36 Regiment, Iowa Infantry, born Carroll County, Ohio. Enlisted February 1, 1863 at Ottumwa, Iowa. Taken prisoner at Marks Mill, Arkansas, died August 20, 1864 of disease at Camp Ford, TE (again, last letters cut off on photocopy.)

6.    Edward – born 1845 – married in Iowa, went to Woodford County, Illinois, Spring Bay Post Office after 1870.

7.    Mary Elizabeth – born May 7, 1846, Died: July 22, 1929. Married William H. Meuser, Born December 13, 1841, died November 17, 1911, son of George and Katherine Meuser.

8.    John – died in infancy.

9.    Margaret – died in infancy

10.    Eliza A. – born October 19th (or 17th, difficult to decipher), 1853, died May 1929. Married September 3, 1873, John Henry Brooks, born January 12, 1854, died November 4, 1913, son of Thomas and Elizabeth Crozier Brooks.

11.    Martha Malissa, born February 8, 1856, Married 1879, Robert McCort (1850 – 1909) Died September 21, 1909.  He was son of Henry and Margarite Johnson McCort.

12.    Calista – born 1868, married Don Camp. Died February 7, 1943, Long Lane, Wisconsin.

13.    James – died infancy. Born May 1870.

Transcriber’s Notes: The John Lindsay Family Information was transcribed on August 30, 2010 (by Sherry Kline)  from a hand written paper found in the Pioneer Settler/Family Files (originals numbered 4 and 5) at the Sumner County Historical & Genealogical Center in Wellington, Kansas.

I have transcribed this paper as best as possible, though in a couple of  places it is a little unclear which death dates belong to whom, and in a couple of places the photocopy cuts off the edge of the words.

According to notes in this file, Mary Rutledge Lindsay died in 1856, six weeks after birth of last child, which would be Martha Malissa. So, Calista and James would (most likely) be John and Harriet’s children.

This file is part of the Pioneer Settler files that I have been working on transcribing. But John Lindsay’s daughter is also part of  my husband’s cousin’s family.  So, they are almost related!  There is quite a lot of family information and several family group sheets in this family file folder, and I will add more info here,  or create a new post with a little more info about the extended family as time permits.

When I am done transcribing and indexing this large file, it will go back ‘home’ to the Sumner County History and Genealogy Center in Wellington, Box 402, Wellington, KS 67152 for researchers to use.

For those I index and transcribe who are not family (or as in this case, almost family) you can read the transcriptions at the SCHGS blog at http://www.ks-schgs.blogspot.com.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
01 August 2010

Off and on for several years, I’ve tried to get started scrapbooking and journaling my photographs.  But it takes a lot of room to gather it all up, and spread it all out.

And I seem to be one of those people who have to change background papers and photographs over and over (and over) till I finally find the combination that I like.  Takes hours. (And usually two more trips to the scrapbook store!)

Then I found digital scrapbooking with a Twitter friend on-line.

So, instead of cutting up my photographs, and then wishing they were a different shape and size, or worse yet, wishing I had never cut them up at all,  now I can digitize photos, crop, re-size, and re-shape to my heart’s content, leaving the originals alone.

I love it!

Below are some of the 12 x 12 scrapbook pages for my family history book that I’ve created.  First, is the page for my great-grandparents, Roderick Remine and Frances “Fanny” (Hitchcock) Stocking and their four sons.

My grandfather is standing on the far right, Elmer Leverett. He passed away before I was born, and I never got to meet him.  (I sooo wish that I had been able to get to know him.)

The Roderick Remine and Frances (Hitchcock) Stocking Family

The photo below here is my great-grandmother, Maggie (Corson) McGinnis and her daughter and son-in-law, Maud and Elmer Stocking.

It looks to me like they are sitting on the east side of  Maud and Elmer’s home near Mayfield, Kansas.  Maud and Elmer’s home was on their farm on the NW 1/4 of 18-32-2W, where they had a quarter section of land. (160 acres).  Later, my parents bought this farm from Maud and Elmer and I grew up here as well.  The house burned down several years ago.

Maggie McGinnis with daughter Maud Stocking & husband Elmer Stocking

The photograph below is of my dad’s parents and his siblings.  What a great photograph! (I wish I knew when it was taken!!)  I really like the burnt sienna colored paper below with it’s hints of other shades, and I added just a few “starbursts” to it to ‘gussy’ it up a little.

My grandfather is seated on the left and my grandmother is seated on the right. My father, Harold Stocking, Sr., is standing on the back row, third from the left.

The Elmer Leverett and Maud (McGinnis) Stocking Family. Standing: Frank, Carl, Harold, Sr., and Alma; Seated, Father Elmer Leverett, Herbert, Frances, Peggy, Mary, and Mother Maud.

While researching and preserving history is very important to me, my scrapbooking is not all about preserving the past, it’s also about preserving and enjoying the present, too, and being able to enjoy it again and again for the future.

Below is the cover from “Giggles”, an 8 x 8 scrapbook that I created this summer for my two darling little granddaughters.  There are several of my favorite photos and fun times that we’ve had in the past few years, and the book is a favorite with the girls as well.  I also think it will help them remember all the fun times that we’ve had!

Jordyn Savannah "Savvy" & Chloy Celyse star in their own Book created especially for them.

Below is a photo of the girls reading their very own Storybook Scrapbook!

Jordyn reads their Storybook to her younger sister, Chloy.

Currently I am using a Family Photo Tree template at www.TurnMemoriesIntoBooks.com to create a 12 x 12 scrapbook page of our family tree. I am  also working on a Storybook for my mother, who is nearly 99 years old, so I’m working with some really neat old photographs, and preserving some fun stories!