Three Generations

Week 3: #52 Ancestors – Namesake

By Eilene Lyon

This is the story of a granddaughter named in memory of the grandmother she never met. And of the woman between them who outlived them both.

We’ll begin with Mary Frances Stephens, the young woman in the feature image above. She was the eighth of nine children born to Granville Allen Stephens and Sarah Frances Poor in Fleming County, Kentucky, in September 1881.¹ Mary Frances’s mother died when she was about seven and her father two years later.

Because she was still a minor, it’s probable that she went to live with her oldest brother’s family in Ford County, Illinois. That is where she met and married Arthur Lewis Gee. The marriage took place in Wall Township on December 21, 1898.² Arthur was a farm laborer.

For some reason, after the 1900 census, Arthur and Mary Frances relocated to Stuttgart County, Arkansas. That is where Mary Frances gave birth to her daughter, Cleo Mae Frances Gee, on August 20, 1902.³ Mary Frances had two other children, a son who died in an accident in 1899, and one whose story is unknown.

On September 10, 1905, Mary Frances (Stephens) Gee died in Arkansas. She was taken to Ford County, Illinois, for burial.⁴ Cleo eventually had a step-mother and half-brother.

The family moved to Missouri for a time, then back to Illinois. Cleo married Carl Struss in Peoria about 1921 (no record). There she gave birth to her only child in 1922, a daughter she named Frances Mary Struss (Fran), almost certainly after her mother who died much too young.⁵

I’ve introduced Fran and Cliff Lyon before. Though Fran was primarily a housewife, she did help Cliff with his business. After they sold that and retired, they moved to Mesa, Arizona. Fran developed a severe form of scleroderma, and passed away in 1986 at age 63.⁶ She was survived by her mother, Cleo M. (Gee) Struss Frisby.

Cleo and her second husband, Jesse H. Frisby, moved from Illinois to Missouri, and that is where Cleo died in 1988, outliving both her mother and daughter.⁷ All three women have strong facial features that clearly passed down through the generations.

Feature image: Mary Frances Stephens Gee (1881-1905) (Family collection)