Ella’s Kids

Week 41: #52 Ancestors – Passed Down

By Eilene Lyon

There’s no question that my favorite family to write about is the Ransom family. What a great name! The Ransoms loved to stand out: ambitious, adventurous, tragic, a bit crazy at times. Never dull. This is probably one of the more sedate stories, but a little sad.

My great-great-grandparents, Emma Jenkins and Robert Ransom, had 13 children, but lost seven of them to childhood diseases. The eighth child to pass away lived to 28. Her name was Emma Luella Ransom, but she went by Ella. When Ella died, only one daughter remained—my great-grandmother, Clara Pearl Ransom, the 13^th child.

Ella was born in Trenton, Indiana, in 1871, Emma and Robert’s tenth child.¹ She joined three surviving older brothers: Jim, William, and Arthur. When she was about eight, her father and uncle lost everything in a bank failure. Robert decided to start over in Independence, Kansas. Emma and the children joined him in 1881. By that day, the trip could be made via railroad from Muncie.

There was no high school at the time, so Ella likely finished her schooling by age 14. Her father died in 1883, but Emma and the older boys kept the family afloat. When Ella was 17, she married Henry Harrison Hockett.²

The Hocketts were a large and influential family in southeastern Kansas. The patriarch, Phineas Vestal Hockett, made his fortune trading in livestock during the Civil War. In Kansas, he was one of the founders and long-time president of the Commercial Bank in Independence.³

When Arthur Ransom’s railroad job resulted in his relocation to Moscow, Idaho, in 1889, Ella’s mother and all of her siblings eventually moved to Idaho as well, leaving Ella and Henry Hockett behind in Kansas.

Henry and Ella had two children together, Robert Vestal born in 1890, and Clara Ransom in 1894.⁴ Tragedy for the family came suddenly in April 1899 when Ella fell ill and soon perished from spinal meningitis.⁵

Word of Ella’s death quickly reached Emma in Moscow, thanks to the telegraph, and she soon arrived back in Independence and took custody of her now-motherless grandchildren.⁶ Neither was an infant, so I’m not certain why Henry chose to let them go.

But Emma was not long for the world, either. Upon her death in 1902, the responsibility for Bob and Clara fell to Ella’s younger sister, Clara Pearl Ransom. Clara was 25 and still single at the time. Her brother Arthur no doubt helped her out.

Clara ensured that her nephew and niece received a college education at her alma mater, the University of Idaho. Bob played on the basketball team there (he went by his middle name, Vestal, while in college).⁷ He served in the military during WWI, but apparently did not go overseas. He eventually moved to Los Angeles and worked as a commercial artist and civil engineer.⁸ His first marriage ended in divorce. He later married Edith M. Proctor. They had no children.

Bob’s sister, Clara, was involved in the music program at the university and graduated in 1915.⁹ She met Eldon Myrick in school and they married that same year.¹⁰ Eldon had a long, storied career in the U.S. Forest Service in Montana. They had four children: Clara Leona (known as Peggy), Eldon Jr. (who died before his second birthday of pneumonia after a bout of measles), Marvin (known as Mike), and Roberta.

I have not found any records to indicate that Bob and Clara visited with their father, but I think they probably did. Henry had lived with his family in Idaho for about a year in the early 1890s, and I think he had investments there. He likely traveled to Idaho see his growing son and daughter on occasion.

Henry did eventually remarry and moved westward through Kansas up until 1930. Find A Grave indicates he died in Baca County, Colorado, in 1933, but I have not been able to find any news report or other record to verify this.¹¹ For now, Henry Hockett’s fate is still a mystery.

Feature image: Robert Vestal Hockett and Clara Ransom Hockett c. 1895 (Courtesy of Stanley Smith)