In 1902 John and Mary Ann took a journey "home" to Liberty Twp, Wells, Indiana. We have this news item:
Warren Tribune Fri. 24 Jan 1902
Family Reunion
Hiram Jackson Entertains at his home near Liberty CenterA reunion of unusual interest to members of a large family was held at the home of Hiram Jackson near Liberty Center Sunday. The occasion was in honor of his daughter and her husband Mr. and Mrs. John McFarren of Oklahoma who are making their first visit to the old home after an absence of thirty-eight years. Mr. Jackson has reached the advanced age of eighty-five but is a hospitable entertainer and the large crowd hope again to meet around his table.
Those present were Mr. Smith and Mr. Gerwig and family of Liberty township, Hiram Jackson and wife of Poneto, Joseph Jackson and wife of Mt. Zion, H. Jackson and family of Dillman, Mrs. Andy Ramsy of Ft. Wayne, Samuel Jackson and wife, Joe Loudenback, wife and baby, Mr. Johnson and wife, Charles Jackson, Ada Coles, Tillie Elliott and Mr. Daniel of Warren. All the children were present except two who were detained by sickness.
The last feature of the afternoon was the taking of several groups by Mr. Daniel of Fetters' Gallery.
They were, indeed, able to “meet around his table” again. There is another news item from July, 1908:
A reunion was held in the home of Hiram Jackson and wife, near Liberty Center, Sunday, in honor of Mr. Jackson, who will soon be ninety-two years old, and also his son Hiram Jackson and wife, of Poneto, who will soon leave for Oklahoma to reside. Mr. Jackson, Sr., is a pioneer settler of Liberty township having resided in the township over seventy years, being one of the first white settlers.
Hiram had remarried in 1872. His 2nd wife was Mary Jane Osborn, born 1836 in Ohio. She bore him 2 daughters, but only one survived. Cora Jackson Gerwig died in 1960 in Wells County. Hiram had 14 children in all but only 9 lived to maturity. I understand there are a number of small stones in the Jackson plot at McFarren Cemetery. Both Mary Ann Logan and Mary Jane Osborn are buried beside Hiram. We have a lengthy obituary relating the significance of Hiram’s life in Liberty Twp, entitled
Pioneer Died At Age Of Ninety-three, Hiram Jackson's Death This Morning Due to Stroke of Paralysis.
--THE EVENING NEWS, Bluffton, IN Aug. 4, 1908At first there were no other white men within several miles of the place, but as settlers began to settle and the public life of the community began to develop, Hiram Jackson, as one of the foremost of the settlers and earliest resident, took an active part. His career has been connected with the growth of the county very closely for he had grown with the community and it has only been with the encroachment of advancing age that in the last few years his activity along this line had fagged. He was ever held in high respect and esteem by all who knew him and most revered by a wide circle of relatives.
Much private business was public in the community it seems, for here is another item, on the heels of the obituary:
Hiram Jackson Will, Leaves Home and 30 Acres to Widow for Lifetime
--THE EVENING NEWS, Bluffton, IN, Monday, August 10, 1908, p.2, col. 5-The will of the late Hiram Jackson Sr., was filed today for probate with County Clerk Lessinger. By its terms the widow, Mary A. Jackson, is left 30 acres of land on which are sitting the home buildings for her liftime and in addition received a bequest of $500. After her death the 30 acres of land is to be divided equally among his sons and daughters.
Samuel, Jr., Joseph, Hiram Jr., and George Jackson, Mrs. Mary Ann McFarren, Mrs. Nancy Ramsey, Mrs. Mattie Gooding and Cora Gerwig, and the heirs of Mrs. Margaret First, a deceased daughter of Mr. Jackson. Sixty acres of land will be divided equally among six children and the heirs of Mrs. First. One son, Samuel, and a daughter, Mrs. McFarren, are to have no share in this sixty acres but receive one dollar each in lieu thereof. They had received advancements. Mr. Jackson named William Eckhart as executor of the will.
No note of another visit to Wells County for John and Mary Ann McFarren has been found to my knowledge. I take from this will that Hiram must have staked them for a previous investment at some point before his death, perhaps making a gift of the land owned by John and Mary Ann in Wells County before they moved to Nebraska.
The allure of the land available in Oklahoma must have dimmed for John, or conditions were not to his liking. We find that he had returned to Arkansas by 1910, but not to familiar climes. This time he chose the Ozarks. By that year he was 69 years old and Mary Ann was 66. What might have been his motivation for this move? In order to try to understand, once more it’s helpful to find the rest of the family to see where they were and what they were doing. We think of people having more mobility today, but lack of ease did not seem to stop this clan from moving about. Perhaps the difference in now and then is that there is less clan movement today. People are more independent. In those days families lent a lot of support to one another sowing and reaping, and all that goes with that, and so often moved together to new locations, several families in tow.
John’s sister, Mary Esther Mendenhall died in Noble, Oklahoma Territory in 1903. She is buried in the IOOF Cemetery there. Was this John’s impetus to leave OK? Elizabeth Fifer in Nebraska was his one remaining sibling. He must have continued to rely on his children to some extent. But, who, where, and how?
By 1910, Hattie and John Archer were still in OK, now in Tuttle, Grady County, which was the adjacent county to Cleveland. A couple of their grown children were there too. Martha had married Noble Glenn, and had a son. John Archer Jr., 16, was living with his sister Martha and brother in law, Noble, in 1910 as a farm laborer and doing odd jobs. The middle daughter Jessie (affectionately called “Bug” in later years) had married Fox Epperson and moved to Missouri, where much of that family remains today.
Joining her sister in Tuttle, Phoebe Brodie and family came about 1904 from Arkansas. Did they pass the parents, John and Mary Ann, going the other way? The last five Brodie children were born in Oklahoma.
Phoebe and Lewis Brodie were still in the Holtville area in 1926, but moved to San Diego sometime after that. Their youngest son, Lewis Cecil was still living in Holtville when his daughter, Pat, was born. Pat and I have been in touch and have shared some stories, pictures and information. More to come! Some of Phoebe’s children also went to San Diego, others moved to Tulare. One adventurous daughter, Anna Belle Brodie Zinniger, eventually moved to Eugene, Oregon, a much cooler and wetter clime!
Frank McFarren was also still in Oklahoma. Dan Hancock told me that after Frank divorced Cora,
Franklin and Nellie were married in Chandler, Lincoln Co., OK, on 5 Feb1907. They then moved to the Sapulpa oil fields where he acquired a cleaning, pressing shop--and a pawn shop on the side. This was a busy place with all the men working the oil fields and quick money needed for their gambling, etc. They stayed there one year, and then moved on to Coweta.
Franklin and Nellie went into the same business in Coweta and stayed there until 1910. They lived near Porter, Wagoner Co., OK, in 1911. Eugene was born there. Jessie was born three years later in Ponotoc Co. Jewel was born in Haskell, Muskogee Co., OK, in 1916.
Are you dizzy yet with all this movement? I know I was. Evidently putting down roots was not part of the plan! I have had to rely on Microsoft Streets & Trips to visualize all of this. The McFarrens alone have made it a worthwhile program to own.
As I mentioned earlier, Della and James Williams stayed in Noble, OK, during these years, farming and having babies.
Will and Becky McFarren were also in Noble, OK in 1910. Will’s occupation was listed as simply “labor, odd jobs.”
Three brothers, all possibly single, are not found on the 1910 census. They are Benjamin, who had been widowed before 1900, Edward, who married in California in 1920, and Theodore, probably single then. He married later but his wife, Eva, was younger and would only have been 11 years old in 1900.
Where were these guys? Were they hunting in the hills? Footloose and evading the census taker. Single people not listed with families were often missed in census it seems.
Ben’s daughter was living with John and Mary Ann that year, in Searcy, Arkansas. Was he nearby, or working or traveling elsewhere?
We do know that Exie was in Red River Township located in the National Ozark Forest Reserve, near John and Mary Ann, in 1910. We know that he and Cornelia had married in September 1909. She was pregnant with Elmore at the time of the census in 1910. They would have Elmore and Dovie before leaving Arkansas.
Our question about what brought John and Mary Ann and son, Exie, to the Ozarks has not really been answered, and we are left wondering. The fortunate results for us was the union of Exie McFarren and Cornelia Patton.
By the way, I remember asking Grandma about the origin of Aunt Dovie’s name. She told me that the day of her birth she awoke to the sound of Dove’s cooing which inspired her to name her new baby girl Dovie. Pat Oletta confirmed the story saying she had always heard this too. The puzzling part of it to me is that I recall Grandma saying Dovie was born in a wagon on the way west. Could that be true? How did they travel in 1912? One would think they had come to California by train. Perhaps that part of my memory is faulty. I really don’t want to start new family lore here! If anyone knows, please tell me. An automobile would have been possible, but it seems a little unlikely they would have owned one then, but I really don’t know.