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.