Sometimes, you get a sense of an ancestor through the records you find. Also, through the absence of talk about that ancestor from their closest relatives. Then, you find out that your ancestor gave his only items of any value—his saber and his rifle from the Spanish-American War—to a distant relative rather than one of his children. And you discover he remarried to a woman who was never mentioned by his daughter though she may have lived with the couple.
But, then, you remember one thing—that your great-grandfather hauled trash to help put his daughter through college.
This is what I had always heard about Jennie May Stark’s father: that he came down off the farm to move to Columbia, Missouri, so that his daughter could attend and graduate from the University of Missouri School of Agriculture.
But, to backtrack a bit… Orval was born in Allegany County, Maryland in 1866, just before his parents migrated (possibly not for the first time) to Missouri farmland. In that area of Maryland and nearby southern Pennsylvania were many relatives
Grandmother DuBois—as I always called Jennie May Stark DuBois—talked about her mother dying young and leaving behind four young children, the baby not living much past her first birthday. She talked about how her aunts from the Gardner side of the family helped out with the children, and that it was her grandparents, James Knox Stark and Sevilla Bittinger Stark, who raised her. She spoke of happy years with her grandparents and with her nearby cousins. Her Grandmother Gardner (Emaline Demming Gardner) lived by, also. Jennie is found in Laclede, MO, newspaper articles proudly speaking of her as a young Christian woman winning awards and making her family proud attending the university. The Chillicothe paper—where she apparently lived only briefly—barely and seemingly reluctantly mentions her high school graduation and later studies at the university.
The photograph of Hester Ann shows a beautiful young woman. Her husband Orval is handsome, as well. I got the impression that had Hester lived, life might have been different in some way. But maybe they would have been farmers, content with their lives, and their children might have been less ambitious.
Grandmother spoke lovingly of her grandparents, James K. and Sevilla Stark. In her photo album (which she maintained through the years and many moves as the wife of a Methodist minister are her parents), is a photo of her father in uniform, and anothre with another woman in what appears to be a wedding photo. More prominent were two of her Stark grandparents and one of her grandfather as a young man. Grandmother got this album out for me, pointing out her grandfather.
In researching Orval for a Stark family history (forthcoming), I found him traveling among several towns as a salesman, farmer, paper hanger, brick manufacturer, trash hauler. I found a 1902 marriage to a woman (Nancy Hetrick), a widow of eight children. The two both appear in a town directory in Chillicothe where Jennie graduated from high school in 1909. But in all census records, Nancy remains listed as a widow with the last name “Hetrick.” Was the marriage annulled? Was it a secret marriage? Was Nancy collecting some kind of pension for being married to Hetrick that she did not wish to give up?
I found only one mention of the presumed wife, a “Willie” (perhaps the other woman in the photograph, or maybe the photograph was of Nancy), and that was in conjunction with Jennie and her brothers living with them in Columbia in the 1910 census. Willie is not present in subsequent census records, but she is shown living with Orval in Carthage, MO in 1912, the year before Jennie graduated from college. Nancy, meanwhile, is listed in 1910 as being in Orval’s hometown of Brookfield.
The1940 census shows Orval living with his son John in Denver, unable to work, and having an 8th grade education. John is shown as having attended four years of high school and was working as a fire boss for the coal mining industry. Orval eventually died in a soldier’s pensioner home in Denver.
I do not believe my father ever knew his mother had a stepmother, or, if he did, there was something shameful and unmentionable about the fact.
Orval and Hester (also known as Esther) came from reputable Methodist families who were successful farmers and upstanding citizens. Did Hester’s death at a young age lead to Orval’s ruination but later redemption as the garbage man who saw to it his daughter obtain a college degree in 1913? (Her brothers did not attend college, though her brother Jay was a state champion debater in high school.)
There is a sad story here, but with a redemptive mid-point. Orval’s and Hester’s daughter, Jennie May,the college graduate of 1913 (the only college graduate in her immediate family), was a shining light in my life. Much more will be written of her later.
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