Thompson, Carolyn Brewer, 1860 - 1908

Born: 24 Aug. 1860, Champaign Co. IL
Died: 30 March 1908

Identified as Carolyn Thompson's stone

This name and the dates originally came from okcemeteries.net, managed by Sherry Springer. The data given there are precise: "Mrs. Carolyn Thompson, 24 Aug 1860 - 30 Mar 1908." Though Sherry no longer has the letter she received, it is clear that such precise information came from a family member.  

For many decades, the identity of this person was a mystery, but this grave was visited by family members sometime around 2005, and their conclusions are now posted at Ancestry.com.  They identified and photographed the stone above. The mystery for me, as virtual caretaker of the cemetery, was complicated by another Carrie Thompson who died in Lincoln Co. in early April 1908. She is buried in Clematis (a.k.a. Victor) Cemetery.

It is now known that Carrie Brewer Thompson was born in Champaign County Illinois, the daughter of Lenzo D. and Mary Bonebreak Brewer. Her husband was Perry T. Thompson (1860-1927), a worker in railroad bridge construction who passed through Chandler in the early 1900s. At that time it appears that Perry stayed in town to be on-call for the railroad, and that Carrie and the children resided  northwest of Chandler.

The known children of Carolyn and Perry Thompson are:

• David Lorenzo Thompson, 1881-1968
• John Thompson, 1883-1960
• Jessie Clifford Thompson, 1888-1981
• Mary Belle Thompson, 1889-1977
• Fairy May Thompson, 1891-1962
• Thomas Benjamin Thompson, 1894-1966
• Minnie Ethel Thompson, 1897-1977

The photo above is posted by permission.

Moreland, Henry, Jr., 1888-1896

A Missouri Birth Record shows that Henry Jr. was born in Atchison Junction, Platte Co., Missouri, on 4 March 1888. He appears on no census, since the 1890 census is largely lost, but the Missouri birth record, which lists both his father and mother, is unmistakable.

There is no way to ascertain when Henry died, but since his mother died in March 1896, it had to be before this date. That is, if we believe the Chandler News. The obit published there said that Ardell Moreland left three girls and one boy. As the other son, Charles, lived until the 1960s, Henry must have died before his mother.

There is no marker for this son.

Smith, Lydia Luisa “Liddie” Miner, 1840-1894

Born: Ohio, 1840
Died: 1894

She was the wife of John Best Smith, whose entry appears immediately below. The names of their thirteen known children are:

• Charles R., 1856-1861, died Black Hawk County IA.
• Rhoda Ann Marie, 1857-1934, married Arthur Pember, died Ness City KS.
• Elizabeth, 1859-1933, married Charles W. Tarman, died Ness City KS.
• George Washington, 1861-1927, died Caddo Co. OK.
• Almira Melvina, 1864-1895, married Elisha Samuel McCorkle, who homesteaded the McCorkle farm where this cemetery is located.
• Lucy Jane, 1866-1938, married Ivin Pember, died 1938, probably in Kansas City MO.
• James Henry, 1867-1947, died Clatsop Oregon.
• Luly A., 1869- ?, no data after the 1885 Iowa census.
• Laura Luisa, 1871-1944, married 1) John Benjamin Zickefoose, 2) James Monroe Christison, 3) Jesse William Zickefoose, died Coffey Co. KS.
• Eugene Edward, 1874-1874, died Dickinson Co. IA.
• Rosa Eveline, 1876-1856, married Herman L. Mellies, died Lacrosse Co. KS.
• Friend Arthur, 1878-1961, died Caddo Co. OK.
• Myrtle Iva, 1881-1906, married Frank Miller Profitt, died Caddo Co. OK.

Judging by the solid granite of Lydia’s stone, the Smiths must at one time have had an imposing monument. Vandals must have taken it to use for the foundation of a shed or chicken house. The native stone in Lincoln County is sand rock, too soft to be of use in building. Abandoned cemeteries are a convenient source of harder rock.

Smith, John Best, 1831-1902

Born: New York, 1831

Died: 8 January 1902

Chandler News, 9 Jan. 1902

The History of Lincoln County gives this account of the John Best Smith family: "John Best and Lydia Miner Smith were two pioneers, who traveled from the eastern U.S. and ended their trail at Chandler, Oklahoma Territory, soon after the Run. ...John and Lydia were married Jan. 1, 1854. During the years between 1854 and 1881 they lived all over Iowa. They had twelve children....one of who was Almira." The Smiths with their grown children and in-laws moved to Douglas, Butler Co. KS in 1881. Then in 1886 most of the family went to Ness Co. KS. "Their daughter, Almira, had remained at Douglas, where she married Elisha McCorkle, son of Joel and Mary Earls McCorkle. They also became part of a wagon train that went to Chandler in 1892, after the men had gone there previously, bought 'squatters rights,' built houses and returned to Douglas."

       Curiously, the article doesn’t mention John’s Civil War service, usually a matter of family pride. He fought with the 179th Pennsylvania Infantry, according to his pension-application records.

For the names of the children of John Best and Lydia Miner Smith, see the entry for his wife.

        The death notice in the Chandler News raises one interesting question: Who was Friend Cook?

Smith, boy, 1920-1924

Son of John William and Myrtle Croft Smith. Died in the same fire as his sister. His name is not known. See the entry below for details. The same considerations of age apply here. He was born after the 1920 census.

Smith, girl, 1920-1924.

Born: after 3 January 1920
Died: 1924

This child, who burned to death in Depew with her brother, was the daughter of John William Smith (1890-1947) and Mary Croft Smith. John William was the son of George Washington Smith (1861-1927) and the grandson of John Best Smith (1831-1902), buried along with his wife in this cemetery. Their family is the subject of a long article in the Lincoln County Oklahoma History (pp. 1269-70). 

Since there’s no child unaccounted for on John William Smith’s 1920 census, and since the girl is referred to as a child rather than an infant, she would have had to be born within a year or two after the 1920 census (taken 3 January in North Keokuk Township, where the family was living). This would make her three or four years old. Her grandfather, no doubt, brought her body to the McCorkle cemetery, where his parents were buried. In 1962, the DAR could read the inscription on her stone: "small child of Mr and Mrs Smith."

         This is the story that ran in the Lincoln County Publicist on On 10 January 1924 :

Child Burned To Death

The body of a young child of Mr. and Mrs. John Smith was brought to Chandler today, from Depew, for burial in the McCorkle cemetery northwest of Chandler.

According to reports the accident happened as follows: The Smith's reside in a small house in Depew, on Wednesday, Mrs. Smith went out for a pail of water, leaving the two small children in the house. While she was out, an oil stove caught fire. George Smith, father of John, rushed in and carried the little boy to safety and had returned for the little girl when the stove exploded and, in an instant, the whole place was as a "roaring furnace." The girl was burned to death and George sustained "severe burns". The little boy, too, was seriously burned and his recovery is doubtful.

The Smiths formerly resided in Chandler, operating a dray line here.

          

Rice, Infant Son, 1923-1924

Born: November 1923

Died: 9 Feb. 1924

Just uncovered today 29 Mary 2014 by Eugene Stidham, like the site 
manager a relative of the Rice family.

    This marks the grave of a third Rice infant, name unknown, child of Gus and Addie Rice. For details about the parents, see the entry for Glenn Rice below.  

       A short obituary notice appeared in the Lincoln County Republican for 14 February 1924: 

The little four month old son of Mr. and Mrs. Gus Rice died at the home, north of Chandler, last Saturday, after a very brief illness. Funeral services, conducted by Elder Cansler, were held from the home on Sunday afternoon. Interment was made in the McCorkle Cemetery. The bereaved family has the deepest sympathy of the entire community.

Rice, Lonnie, 1917-1918

Lonnie and his twin brother Glenn died as infants in the flu epidemic of 1918. Ray Stidham’s 1992 notes give this child’s name as Loanie rather than Lonnie. For details, see his brother Glenn’s memorial above.

This is one of the Rice children's stones, unearthed by Eugene Stidham 29 Mary 2014.

Rice, Glenn, 1917-1918

Born: 1917
Died: 1918

Note the circle of Irises, probably planted at the time of the burial.
Photo taken 29 March 2014 by the excavator, Eugene Stidham.

This child and his twin brother Lonnie (or Loanie) died as infants in the flu epidemic of 1918, which killed 50 to 100 million people across the world between 1918 and 1920. A third Rice child who died in 1922 is believed to be buried with them, making three burials marked by an outline of field stones. At the top right appears the base of a broken marker.
      They are the sons of William Augustus "Gus" Rice (1878-1951) of Kentucky and Addie B. Stone (1879-1952) of Arkansas, who lie under a common stone in Chandler's Oak Park. Gus and Addie were the parents of Lennie Loudella Rice, who in 1918 married James Henry Stidham of Lincoln County and left many descendants, including their second son Ray Stidham. 

Ray, a lifetime resident of Chandler, identified the twins' stones in 1992. He remembered the cedar trees and the sandstone markers. He gave his notes to his son Eugene Stidham, who shared them with me. Twenty years later the stones were not readily identifiable, but Eugene has persevered. After the Dec 2013 cleanup he was able to identify the Rice stones.

Moreland, Ardell Cook, 1866-1896

Born: Platte Co. MO, 1866

Died: 4 March 1896

Ardell Cook was the daughter of Franklin and Lydia McClain Cook, and her mother is buried in this cemetery. Born in Platte County MO, she married Henry C. Moreland there in 1883. According to the marriage license, she was 17 at the time. Her mother had to give be present to give her consent.

Marriage License for Ardell Cook and Henry Moreland. 

       Ardell and Henry lived just across the Cimarron River to the north in Ripley, Payne County, where Henry had bought 79.7 acres in 1895. It was there that Lydia went to visit Ardell, visits which were tracked in the Chandler newspapers. The stone says she died in 1894, but the newspapers make it clear that the year was 1896. The stone must have been placed decades after her death, when the year had been forgotten. The writing is too clear to be from the 1890s.

Chandler News, 2 March 1894

The snippet gives Pleasant Ridge as Lydia’s residence because it was the nearest church and school (thus a named community) to the area where the McCorkles and their neighbors lived. (Oak Grove may have been a little closer, but it had no cemetery and thus was never as important as Pleasant Ridge. At various times the two Chandler papers carry a sub-section of local news headed Pleasant Ridge, but there was never any such sub-section for Oak Grove. Apparently the editors of the paper did not regard Otoe Township as part of their readership.) 

Ardell and Henry C. Morland had six children that are known, though only three survived into adulthood:

• Myrtle: born 1884, died before the 1900 census. 
• Nelly Ardell, born 1886, married John Davis and the couple were living in McKinley Township in 1920, but I have found no record of them thereafter.
• Henry: born 1888, before March 1896. His mother’s obit said she left three girls and one boy, which means that of these six children Henry died before his mother, as the other son lived until the 1960s. He is probably also buried in McCorkle.
• Maude C.: born 1889, married Jasper Christy before 1910.
• Charles A: born 1895, died 1969.
• Dark-Eyed Daughter: born 1895, died before 1900.

The last child has a poetic name because the only reference to her is a two-line notice in the Chandler News that says Henry Moreland has another “dark-eyed daughter.” She is not in the 1900 census, so she’s buried in McCorkle also.

One year after Ardell’s death, in March of 1897, Henry married Lilly Alma Beasler, with whom he had five children. He died after 1930, but his grave is unrecorded. If in his old age he was living with one of his children, who had mostly settled around Wellston, he should be interred in Star Valley or Rossville Cemetery like his Moreland kin, but nothing more is known. (To see some Wellston kin, go to the site for Henry's son Oscar and click on the left-sidebar link that says "All Morelands in Lincoln County.) The situation for genealogists of the Moreland family is complicated by the fact that until a few days ago (10 March 2014), Ardell’s married name was misspelled as Morehand, making it impossible for internet searches to locate her. 

McCorkle, Nellie Mae, 1890-1894

       Born in Lincoln County 11 October 1890 according to the Find-a-Grave index, but it’s unlikely her parents were in Lincoln County as early as 1890, which would have been before the land run. Old records also sometimes report her to have been the child of Joel and Mary Ann, but this is hardly possible as in 1890 Mary Ann was 63 years old. Nellie Mae is their grandchild, the oldest child of Elisha Samuel McCorkle and his wife Almira Smith. The latter’s father, John Best Smith, is buried here and has a memorial below.

According to Bessie McCorkle Gibson (“Mrs. Joe Gibson”), the body of Nellie Mae was moved to Oak Park, where she was buried in the McCorkle lot, so the present memorial probably records an empty grave. No notice of her death has been found in the Chandler newspapers.  

McCorkle, Mary Ann Earls, 1827-1899

Born: Ohio, 1827

Died: 1899

       Wife of Joel McCorkle. Born in Ohio, she may have been the daughter of Charles Earles of Virginia and Lawrence County OH, but there is no certainty. Charles Earles’ son Elisha was in the 1840 census for Hancock Co. IN, where Mary Ann was living in the 1850s. 

In 1962 the DAR saw Mary Ann’s stone and recorded the inscription, “wife of Joel,” but it is no longer visible. Mary Ann married Joel McCorkle in Indiana in 1849. They lived in Jackson, Hancock County, Indiana, in the 1880s, and sometime in the 1890s came to Oklahoma, where she died in 1899. For more details, see Joel McCorkle, below.

McCorkle, Joel F., 1823-1907

Born: 1923, Ohio

Died 1927

Son of Samuel and Elizabeth Simmons McCorkle of Adams Co. Ohio, he came with his son Elisha Samuel, who made the homestead, Joel being already advanced in years. The other children remained in Ohio and Indiana. 

        Joel married Mary Ann Earls in Indiana in 1849. After some years in Illinois and Kansas, they arrived in McKinley Township before 1900. The homestead patent was approved in1902, and they would have had to live on it for a minimum of five years, which puts their arrival at no later than 1897. 

Homestead Patent for Elisha Samuel McCorkle, 1902

Joel’s memory is firmly recorded here, but no stone has been found for him, nor for his wife Mary Ann (see above). His death is recorded as 2 June 1907, five months before Oklahoma became a state. His wife died in 1899.

The children of Joel and Mary Ann were:

• Elizabeth Charlotte, 1849-1910, married James H. Glasscock.
• Martha J., 1852-1910, married James Hendrickson.
• Lucinda C., 1854-1920, married Samuel Busell.
• Elisha Samuel, 1857-1953, on whom see below.
• Charles McCorkle, 1859- , no data after 1860.
• Mary J., 1863- 1890, married Elliot Thornton Billups.
• Sarah A., 1865- 1890, married Samuel B. Moore.

Joel and Mary Ann must have been accompanied by their son Elisha Samuel McCorkle, because it was Elisha who made the homestead. Elisha's daughter, Bessie Ann McCorkle Gibson, inherited the homestead and donated 40 acres of it for this cemetery. (The story is more complicated than that, however; see Robbie McComma, "McCorkle Restoration.")

Walker, Mr. ? - ?

At present the snow of oblivion has fallen on Mr. Walker. There is no data available. He exists only as a name in Bessie McCorkle Gibson’s notes of people she remembered being buried in McCorkle Cemetery. 

In time, we shall find out who he is, and a breath of spring will visit his frozen spirit.

December 2013

Matthes, Pauline Huder, 1855-1897

Born: Germany, 5 Nov. 1855

Died: 3 March 1897

Pauline and Carl Albert Matthes were German immigrants who came to the United States about 1882. It is not clear whether her maiden name was Huber or Huder. The only record of it comes from her son Albert’s death certificate. Let the reader decide:

The Mattheses had been married in Germany, and the first 2 of their 9 known children were born there. Their peaceful farm life northwest of Chandler was violently broken on October 19, 1898, when the youngest daughter, Allie, was killed by an accidental shotgun blast fired by her brother Otto. This happened during the parents’ absence. Pauline had died the year before and Carl was no doubt in the fields working. The children were being watched over by a woman who was deaf.

Chandler News, 21 Oct 1898 

Chandler News Publicist, 21 Oct. 1898

This event apparently caused the breakup of the family, as the 1910 census finds them scattered among their relatives. In 1901 Carl Matthes had married Mary C. Duffreys of Arkansas. This may not have been his smartest decision. He returned to Arkansas with her and in 1904 was murdered there under circumstances that have never been clarified.

The nine children of Pauline and Carl Matthes were: 

• Lena, born in Germany, 1873, no other data; 
• Mathilda, born in Germany, 1876, married William Spielberger, died Chandler, 1945; 
• John William, born 1885, married Louise, died Sapulpa, 1966; 
• Meta C., born 1885, married Harold Carson, no other data; 
• Ed: born 1888, died in Anderson TX, 1956;
• Otto Julius, born 1890, married Mildred, died Los Angeles, 1962; 
• Carl William, born 1892, married Pauline Stuewe, died Wabaunsee Co. KS, 1978;
• Alma, "Allie," born 1893, died 1898, in previous entry; 
• Albert Willis, born 1895, married Eva Dell Yarbrough, died in Clay Co. MO 1933. 

Of these children, the one most repaying attention is the second daughter, Mathilda, who stayed in Chandler. About 1897 she married William Spielberger of Chandler, and in 1908 was the legal guardian of her minor siblings in the sale of their McKinley Township property (lots 5 & SE 1/4 of NW 1/4 of Sect 6 in twp 14). William Spielberger, born in Germany in 1869, was a baker whose ads appeared often in the Chandler newspapers. 

He died in 1946, one year after his wife, and the two of them are buried in Chandler’s Oak Park Cemetery.

Matthes, Alma “Allie," 1893-1898

Born: 1893, Kansas

Died: 19 Oct. 1898

The daughter of Carl Albert and Pauline Huber Matthes, her short life was tragically ended by an accidentally inflicted shotgun wound from her brother. The details are given in the two articles posted here. For more on her parents, see the page for her mother.

Chandler News,  21 Oct. 1898

Chandler News Publicist, 21 Oct 1898

        The DAR, in its 1962 survey of the cemetery, reported Allie's death date as 19 October 1896, but the newspapers agree that she was five when she died, which puts her death in 1898. Those old eroded sandstones were very hard to read. Likely, the DAR read an 8 as a 6. There is no mistaking the dates of the newspaper accounts.

        Note that Allie's mother Pauline had just died the year before, which probably explains why the children's play was unsupervised. Or, rather, left to the supervision of a deaf woman. 

       At some point, the family marker has been vandalized. Probably because like the Joseph Brown stone, it stood out. These are the only two markers at McCorkle made of granite. 

  

Hopkins, Mr., ? - ?

December 2013

At present the snow of oblivion has fallen on Mr. Hopkins. There is no data available. He exists only as a name in Bessie McCorkle Gibson’s notes of people she remembered being buried in McCorkle Cemetery. 

In time, we shall find out who he is, and a breath of spring will visit his frozen spirit.

Faultner, Stella Laverne, 1922-22

unmarked field stone

Born 18 Feb. 1922
Died 3 Mar. 1922

There are two Faultner infants buried in McCorkle cemetery, Anna Evelyne and her sister Stella Laverne, but it is impossible to know which if any of the sandstone markers or field stones are theirs, since for the most part they are illegible. 

See Anna Evelyne’s memorial for biographical details and links. The exact names and dates given here come from the late David Stidham's extraordinary database, Stidham Family Tree. He received the information from Lynne D. Nessmith between 1999 and 2001. See David’s site for details.

Faultner, Anna Evelyne, 1906-07

unmarked field stone

Birth: 31 Oct. 1906
Death: Dec. 1906

There are two Faultner infants buried in McCorkle cemetery, Anna Evelyne and her sister Stella Laverne, but it is impossible to know which if any of the sandstone markers or field stones are theirs, since for the most part they are illegible. 

John William Faultner (1880-1974) and his wife Mabel Ethel Smith (1887-1961) lived in this area between 1905 and 1920, and in 1910 their residence was next door to that of Samuel Elisha McCorkle, whose family owned this land and allowed it to be used for a community burial ground. John Faultner's wife was the daughter of John Best Smith, who is also buried in this cemetery and memorialized in these pages.

The Chandler newspapers reported that the Faultners lost two infants in this period, Anna Evelyne and Stella Laverne. Since no other Faultners or Faulkners lived in the area, these names must correspond to the two "Faulkner children" recorded but misspelled by the DAR in 1962. Though "Faulkner" is the usual spelling of this family name, John W. Faultner spelled it with a "t" rather than a "k," he did so consistently all his life, and his descendants followed suit. 

John Faultner was born in Jasper County MO in 1880, and his wife Mabel Smith in Ness County KS in 1877. They married in Chandler in 1905. Anna Evelyne was the first of their seven known children, and Stella Laverne the last. In the 1920s they moved to Depew OK and sometime before 1930 to Caddo County. From there they moved to Arizona and then to Nevada, where they both died and are buried.

John William Faultner's father was John R. Stidham (born in Missouri, 1852), who died in Oklahoma City in 1900. The Faultners are thus distantly related to the Kentucky Stidhams who came to Chandler in the 1910s and whose descendants are numerous in Lincoln County. Their common ancestor is Samuel Stidham, who died in Perry Co. KY in 1835.

        Lincoln Countians who are interested in our history owe a debt of gratitude to John and Mabel Faultner’s daughter Inez Leoda (1910-2001), who late in her long life wrote an autobiographical essay that includes some pages about her childhood. It was published the same year by a descendant as An Autobiography of Our Beloved Inez Faultner Proffitt Hanes. A brief essay of some twelve pages, it can be downloaded gratis at Smashwords Editions. 
       The exact names and dates given here come from the late David Stidham's Stidham Family Tree. He received the information from Lynne D. Nessmith between 1999 and 2001. See David’s site for details.

Cook, Nancy "Nan" Williams, 1865 - 1899

Birth: April 1865, Platte Co. MO

Death: 6 Oct. 1899

This memorial presents a difficulty at the outset, for the deceased is identified only by her nickname Nan, the very common family name Cook, and her death date. The principal clue is her stone’s proximity to Lydia Cook’s. Cut in the same shape and style and facing the same direction, it strongly suggests she is related. 

Then in December of 2016 I received email from Wanda Wade at the Wyoming Archives, who knows and has traced this family. Nan is the daughter of William G. Williams and Mary Anna Smith of Platte Co. MO. She married Thomas Jefferson Cook in 1888 in Platte County. 

Nan appears on the 1900 census, whereas the death date on the stone is 6 Oct 1899. This can be variously explained. It often happens in census taking that a recently dead person is counted as alive, because family members speak of this person as though he or she were living. 

Her stone is similar to that of Lydia Cook because they died the same year and are buried close together. Lydia was her aunt. 

Cook, Lydia A. McClain, 1840-1899

Born: 1840, Pennsylvania
Died: 6 Oct 1899

Uncertainty surrounds the early life of Lydia A. Cook, but newspapers articles from 1895 and 1896 make one thing clear, and that is that she was the mother of Ardell Moreland, also buried in this cemetery. (Unfortunately the F-A-G site misspells Moreland as Morehand, and it has so far proved impossible to get this error corrected.) Several visits are recorded of Lydia making trips to Payne County to see her ailing daughter. Ardell died in March of 1896 and is buried beside her mother.

Lydia Cook visits her daughter, Ardell Moreland, March 1894.

Born in Pennsylvania, Lydia’s maiden name was McClain, according to the marriage recorded for her to Franklin Cook in Platte County MO, 3 May 1852. Platte County is a recurring name in the documentation for McCorkle Cemetery, suggesting that a number of friends and relatives from that county settled northwest of Chandler. The earliest firm record for Lydia and her family is the 1880 census, which shows them still in Platt County, where four of her five children were born. It also shows that she is a widow. No other record emerges until her death on 6 October 1899. She received no obituary in either of the Chandler newspapers.

Of her known children, the three oldest were boys, the two youngest girls. The first son was Benjamin Franklin “B. F.” Cook (1858-1945), who died in Chandler and is buried in Oak Park (with his initials unfortunately confused at the F-A-G site). He seems never to have married. The second child was Thomas Jefferson Cook (1864-1911), who married at least twice and had three children that are known. He died in Marlow, Stephens County, where he is buried beside his last wife. The third son was James A. Cook (1865-1943), who married Nancy Jane Green in Platte County MO but spent most of his later life in or near Ripley in Payne County They had eleven children that are known.   

The first daughter was Ardell Cook (1866-1896), who lies with her mother in McCorkle Cemetery. She has her own page on this website under her married name Moreland. The second daughter was Nellie May Cook (1875-1968), who married George G. Irvine (1866-1937) in Chandler in 1896. The couple lived in Wichita KS after the turn of the century, but had returned to Lincoln County by the 1930 census. George died in 1937 and is buried in Star Valley Cemetery near Warwick. Nellie May lived until 1968 and is buried in Chandler’s Oak Park. They appear to have had no children. 

Chinn, Beulah, 1895-1905

Born: September 1895, Missouri
Died: about 1905

Unmarked field stone

Born in Saline Co. MO, Beulah was the third child of George W. Chinn and Ella May McGuire, who married in Saline CO. in 1889. There appears to be no record of either parent's time and place of death, but the grandparents are known on both sides. Ella's father was Samuel Newton McGuire of Saline and Johnson counties in Missouri, and George Chinn's father was Hector Chinn of Lafayette County Missouri.

The only census on which Beulah appears is the 1900, when the whole family (including three siblings) are living in Monarch, Chaffee County, Colorado. By 1910, she was dead. Bessie McCorkle Gibson (Mrs. Joe Gibson) spoke of her as a child, so her death year would be about 1905.

Beulah's siblings were Roy G., Russel E., Jesse Harmon, and Laura, all born between 1890 and 1908. Russell died in Tulsa in 1924 and Roy died in Delta, Colorado, in 1979. Roy married Minnie Mae Bragg. 

The story of the Chinn family centers on Chaffee County, Colorado, which was mining country. In February of 1900 George struck it rich there, at least according to a letter he wrote to the Chandler News. The information appears to be confirmed by later articles in the Colorado Springs Weekly Gazette, one of which mentions that one Chinn's two partners sold his share of the mine for $250,000. Chinn's letter to the Chandler News says he's returning to enjoy his prosperity. 

Something is wrong with this story, however, as there is no sign that Chinn enjoyed any prosperity in Lincoln County. In August of 1901, Ella sued him for divorce, and the next month was awarded custody of the children. In December of 1903, both George and Ella are listed as delinquent in their tax payments. In January of the next year, the Chandler News is asking, no doubt ironically, where "Millionaire Chinn" has gone. The article states that he had started for New York to sell stock in his mines and never returned. In the records, he next appears on the 1920 census, living with his son Russell in Osage Co. His year and place of death are not known.

A few years after her divorce from George Chinn, Ella was living in Chandler working for the Barker House, a boarding house on Manvel Avenue run by James Barker and his wife. On the 1910 census Ella appears as a servant, her three boys as sons of James Barker, and her two-year-old girl as James Barker's daughter. Barker was also a reverend, so one supposes that this was a loose, familial arrangement by which he kept his boarding house staffed and took care of the children of his employees.

Brown, Sarah Brunk, 1825-1905

Born 1825, Kentucky

Died 1905

Sarah Brunk was married to Joseph Brown in Brown County, Illinois, on 20 July 1850. In 1860 the family was living in Bourbon, Kansas Territory and after that in Cowley KS. Although advanced in years, Sarah and Joseph were in Guthrie in 1890, apparently accompanying their sons Abraham and Jacob to the land run. Both Abraham and Jacob owned land in nearby McKinley Township in 1903.

     Joseph Brown died in 1903 and Sarah two years later. At that time they were probably living with their son Abraham, who remained on his land until at least 1930. Given that Sarah died two years after her husband and was living near this cemetery, she is surely buried beside him and his fine stone (the largest and best preserved in the cemetery).

For the children of Sarah and Joseph Brown, see his page, which follows this one.

  Sarah has no stone of her own, or at least none has been discovered.

Brown, Joseph, 1821-1903

Born: 1821, Illinois
Died: 1903

The parents of Joseph Brown are not known, and of his wife Sarah Brunk only her father can be identified. He was John Brunk, born 1795 in South Carolina and living as a widower with Joseph and Sarah in Kansas in 1860.  

Joseph Brown came from Brown County in the western part of Illinois, where he and Sarah married in 1850. They were living in Cowley County Kansas in 1880 and came to Oklahoma about 1890, where the state census of that year shows them in Guthrie with two of their adult children, Jacob and Sarah. It has proved impossible to find them on the 1890 census, and no later records are known.

The known children of Joseph and Sarah Brown are: John H. Brown, 1852 - ; Elizabeth J. Brown / Small / Riggs, 1853-1901; Abraham, 1854-1945; Jacob, 1857-1909, and Frederick 1858- . Both Abraham and Jacob Brown are buried in Star Valley Cemetery near Warwick, Lincoln Co. Jacob apparently had no children, but Abraham had a large number, and many of his descendants still live around Warwick and Wellston. 

The Brown stone appears to have been vandalized, probably because it stood out. It's visible from the road. It is one of the two stones in the cemetery made of granite, an excellent hard stone for building, probably very tempting for passing farmers.

Family links:

Spouse: Sarah Brunk Brown, 1825-1905

Son: Abraham “Abe” Brown, 1854-1945

Son: Jacob “Jake” Brown, 1847-1909