Shattered and Scattered

Week 39: #52 Ancestors – Road Trip

By Eilene Lyon

The Putterer’s great-grandmother, Mary Frances (Stephens) Gee, was orphaned at a young age. She was the eighth of nine children of Granville Allen Stephens Sr. and Sarah Poor. (Sarah was a descendant of Revolutionary War patriot, Amos Poor.) Mary Frances had seven brothers and only one sister.

It seems that the Kentucky deaths of Sarah and Granville ended the family ties to that state. Even before their passing, some of their children had relocated, but they all died in different places around the country. Mary Frances died in Arkansas, but she is buried in Ford County, Illinois, the one place central to most of the Stephens siblings.

Here are some brief bios on the scattered family:

Horizon Lewis Stephens

Born at the close of the Civil War and named for his maternal grandfather, Horizon Jewett Poor, and his paternal grandfather, Lewis Stephens. He usually went by Horace, Harvey or H.L. He moved to Paxton, Ford County, Illinois, where he wed Alice Belle Morgan in 1885. Their first child, a daughter, died as an infant. They had a son and four more daughters, who all lived to adulthood.

H.L. worked as a farmer in Illinois for many years and also sold real estate. In the spring of 1915, he took a job as general manager of the Lund Land Co. in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. There he fell ill with acute nephritis (then called “Bright’s disease”) and died the day before his 50^th birthday. He is buried in Paxton.¹

Granville Allen Stephens Jr.

Very little is known about this son. He apparently died in Kentucky sometime between 1880 (age 12) and 1900. Unsourced trees give the year as 1885.²

Hugh Wilkens Stephens

Hugh was born in 1869 in Pendleton County, Kentucky. He remained there after the deaths of his parents, and married Eva Fields in 1893. They moved to Iroquois County, Illinois, in time for the birth of their second child, Sadie. They had eight children, though two died as infants and a daughter at age seven.

Eva died of cancer in 1914. Hugh moved to Minnesota shortly after, farming as he had in Illinois. He married again to a woman named Lula, who also predeceased him. In 1920, Hugh and Lula were living in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, where Hugh worked for a creamery supply company. They then moved to an unincorporated area called Westview in Pocahontas County where Hugh took a job at the grain elevator.

This final employment resulted in Hugh’s gruesome death at age 57 in 1926, when his shirt snagged on equipment.³

Hattie Belle Stephens

Hattie was born in 1870 and married very young to James W. Cook. She was only 16 when the first of her 11 children was born. The last came when she was 49. Around 1899, the Cooks moved to Chicago where James worked as a janitor. They quickly decided big-city life was not their cup of tea and returned to farming in Kentucky.

They tried Illinois again in 1919, settling in Ross, Vermillion County, a rural area bordering Indiana. Hattie died a few years later in Vermillion County. James lived another 27 years.⁴

George Winters Stephens

George was born in 1872. In his early 20s, he relocated to Champaign County, Illinois and married Bertha A. Grandey. They had five sons and five daughters. By 1910, George and Bertha moved to Lowell, Michigan. George farmed for many years in both states, then later worked as a machinist at a commercial laundry.

Bertha died of pneumonia in 1918 (possibly influenza?). George remarried in 1922, to a divorcée, Mary E. (Baker) Lewis. George died in Lowell in 1934 of heart disease, age 62.⁵

John Stephens

Born in 1874, John married Myrtle Fields in Kentucky in 1892. Myrtle was the younger sister of Hugh’s first wife, Eva Lena Fields. Their first child was born in Kentucky, but they moved to Ford County, Illinois, about 1895, where the other five children were born. John worked as a railroad engineer for many years, until he had to retire after being injured on the job.

His WWII draft registration indicates John was 5’ 6” with gray eyes, gray hair, and a light complexion (he was 63 at the time). John outlived all the other Stephens siblings, passing away in Urbana, Illinois, in 1957. Myrtle lived until 1964.⁶

Albert G. Stephens

Albert was about 14 when he became orphaned. He moved to Ford County, Illinois, to live with eldest brother, Horizon. He married Martha Lintner in 1898, and their daughter, Frances Sarah, was born that same year. They had eleven children who all survived to adulthood.

Albert worked at farming, first in Illinois, then moved on to Murray County, southwestern Minnesota, about 1903. He then went to the far north part of the state and settled in Middle River, Marshall County. He continued farming for a time but worked as a laborer for hire by 1920. In 1930, he was a dray line operator (moving merchandise to and from the railroad). In 1940 he worked as a carpenter in the construction industry.

His oldest son, Walter E., died in Yakima County, Washington, in 1946. Albert went to Yakima, the farthest from their origins of any of the siblings. Perhaps he wished to help his daughter-in-law and his many grandchildren. There he passed away in 1948.⁷

Edward Stephens

The youngest sibling, Edward, was just ten when orphaned. He lived with his brother, John, in Kentucky for a time, then moved in with the eldest brother, Horizon, in Illinois. At 19, he worked as a farm laborer at the Kenney property in Wall, Ford County. He married Anna Kief in 1901 and their only child, Geneva Pearl, was born the following year. The family relocated to farm in Calhoun, Iowa, in 1911.

The beloved only child died following a stillbirth, just shy of her 24^th birthday. She left a husband and two young children.

Edward filled out his WWII draft registration on April 27, 1942. It indicates he was 5’ 10” with gray eyes, brown hair, and a dark complexion. He was also blind in his right eye. I have not found any notation about the cause of this blindness or when it occurred. Edward passed away soon after, in October that year.⁸

Feature image: The Albert G. Stephens family portrait c. 1920. (Shared by Pat Brown on Find A Grave)