Skip to main content

Thomas Gardner (1840-1909), Emeline Denning (1848-1925)


 

Thomas Gardner, b. 1840 in Wales, came to the United States with his parents, Francis Gardner of South Wales and Hester (Esther) Hoppes Gardner of England in 1843, sailing into the port of New York. As would be a common theme among our ancestors who mined coal, Tom’s father Francis tried to make a living by farming, but had to fall back at times to mining.

The family first settled in Strabane, Pennsylvania where Tom’s father is listed as a collier (coal mine) in the 1850 census. Though I could not find them in the 1860 census, from other census records, the family likely moved to Iowa in 1860 or 1861 where it appears Francis succeeded in farming. This family has ties, including many burials, to Black Hawk Township, near Fairfield, Iowa.

Tom enlisted as a soldier in the Civil War in Company D, 19th Iowa Infantry in August, 1862, until July, 1865. I have not yet researched this company’s record to know where he might have gone or fought.

In 1866, Tom married 18-year-old Miss Emaline Denning of his former county of Washington, Pennsylvania. Emaline’s parents were Charles and Jemima (Toland) Denning, her father being a lifelong coal miner who immigrated from England. Someone has traced the Dennings’ family history in England back several generations, but I have not yet.

It is not known when or where the Dennings and the Gardners made their acquaintance, in England, Wales, or Pennsylvania, but the families had coal mining and the United Kingdom in common. It is also not known if Thomas traveled back to Washington County, or whether Emaline traveled to Iowa for the wedding. Emaline’s parents remained in Washington County, PA where they died, while the Gardners had moved to Iowa several years before the marriage.

The photo of the couple is possibly commemorating their wedding.

From family stories, it is possible Tom Gardner worked in the coal mines in northern Missouri and southern Iowa in what may have been lean times for farming, but he was always listed as a farmer in census records.

The Gardners relocated to Linn County, Missouri by 1884, and it is there that their daughter Hester Ann (named for her grandmother) met and married Orval Henry Stark. Tom Gardner died in 1909, leaving a life estate to his farm to his wife who died in 1925. She owned several lots of land in her own right, and at the time of death had many bushels of wheat and corn, a cow, and a lot of hens.

There is much more research done on the Gardners in Iowa (while I was in Fairfield visiting David!), and possibly on the Dennings in England by others. These are interesting people for many reasons, and they deserve further attention. (David? David?) I wish I knew more about the Gardner siblings of Hester Ann, because they and their children always kept in touch with and looked after my beloved grandmother, Jennie May Stark DuBois.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Jennie May (Stark) DuBois (1891-1965)

Grandmother (I never called her Grandma or other nickname) lived next door to us in Marshall, MO for a few years. What I can’t work out is exactly when; I’m guessing about 1959 or 1960. My telescoped recollection of my grandparents fits into Before Granddad Died and After Granddad Died And I Stayed With Grandmother From Time to Time. Granddad passed on in 1962, Grandmother in 1965, so I had her undivided attention for about two and a half years. My favorite activity with her was playing Scrabble which we started doing maybe when I was about eight. I will always be grateful for that game, and for Dad and Grandmother prompting us kids to spell or name the continents or point to a place on a map or answer a question about American history. Scrabble gave me a fine appreciation for words. We used an old Webster’s dictionary for challenges which did not have a lot of Scrabble-inspired words in it. We didn’t challenge each other often, because we were both excellent spellers. Oh! How I lived ...
Post a Comment
Read more

James Knox Stark

JAMES KNOX STARK James Knox Stark was born 23 May 1839 in Grantsville, MD to Peter Stark and (probably) Elizabeth Wright or (possibly) Elizabeth Dean. His father was born in Ireland, emigrating about 1832 as a part of the (ethnically) German protestant Stark families who came to America and Australia between 1810 and 1870. It is possible that one family first established themselves, earning money for subsequent siblings to leave Ireland for what they no doubt believed would be a better life. I am documenting the Stark family from their immigration from Germany about 1709 to Ireland. Because of the destruction of records in Ireland at a time of unrest, most civil records were destroyed. Piecing together what information I can is a herculean task. What I do know is that James’ father Peter was born in Ireland, coming from a settlement of Germans who intermarried for over 100 years, rarely marrying outside of their protestant faith to a non-German-surnamed individual. According to the 184...
Post a Comment
Read more

Orval Henry Stark (1866-1952), Hester Ann Gardner (1872-1897)

  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 Maryl...
Post a Comment
Read more