Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Ella Myrtle Nower


Described by her daughter as "little, but mighty", Ella Myrtle Nower was born May 7, 1884 into a very, for the time, affluent family. Her father, Samuel J., was a respected banker in Dover, a small town on the Ohio River in Mason County, Kentucky.

The third child and only daughter, Myrtle, as she was known, had four brothers. Earnest and Clarence were born in 1877 and 1880, respectively. Baby Samuel Judd, born February 28, 1888, lived for only four months. Myrtle's youngest brother, Paul, was born in 1890. Their mother, Phoebe Jane Judd Nower, hired a nanny to help in the raising of her young children.

In 1907, Myrtle married Frank Bernard Clark and soon started their family which would consist of six children, four girls and two boys. Her daughter, Frances, remembers her mother as a hardworking woman, "pumping water from a cistern or well, scrubbing clothes on a washboard, canning all our food, sewing clothes". While life was not as comfortable as her childhood had been, Myrtle was known to give parties where as many as seventy-five chickens were fried and served along with the commercial bought ice cream for dessert. Her younger children, Evelyn, Frances, and Irma, dressed alike for these occasions, would serve "goodies" to their guests. Other times would see Myrtle managing her family on very little. No matter the circumstances, however, her determination and strong will earned her the respect of her children and grandchildren.

Frank and Myrtle spent most of their married life in the towns of Dayton, Fort Thomas, Covington, and Dover in northern Kentucky. Toward the end of their lives, they lived on Second Street in Ripley, Ohio. It was at this residence that Myrtle became a widow on September 20, 1960. In June of the following year, with her health rapidly failing, Myrtle was moved to the Georgetown Nursing Home (Georgetown, Ohio) where she died of liver cancer on December 7, 1962. She is buried in Locust Grove Cemetery in Dover, Kentucky.


Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Frank Bernard Clark


On October 16, 1875, Frank Bernard Clark was born in Bradford, Kentucky. He was the firstborn of John Joseph and Belle (Stairs) Clark. By the time he was four years old, the family had moved to Grant's Lick, in Campbell County, Kentucky.


The 1890 census was destroyed by fire, and Frank cannot be positively identified in the 1900 census so there is some question as to where he was located during that time. It is known that he was in the military in the very late 1890's, but his particular place of service is unknown.


In 1907, he and Ella Myrtle Nower were married. Frank and Myrtle did not stay in Kentucky. Their first son, Richard Covell was born in Illinois on March 31, 1908. The 1910 census shows the family living in Kansas City, Missouri, although family members today believe that Juanita, the second child, was born in Indiana in September of that year.


At this time, it is unknown where the next two children, Ernest William (1913) and Evelyn Lucille (1915) were born. However, Frances Irene was born in Covington, Kentucky in 1918 and her sister, Irma Elizabeth, was born in 1920 in Fort Thomas, Kentucky.


Frank was a painter and carpenter, although it is known that he was once a marshal in the town of Augusta, Kentucky. During the early days of his marriage, the fingers of his right hand were cut off in a corn shredder late one night after a long day's work leaving him with only a thumb on that hand.


In their later years, Frank and Myrtle lived on Second Street in Ripley, Ohio. On September 18, 1960, Frank entered the Veteran's Hospital in Cincinnati. Six days later, he died there of heart failure. He was 84 years old. He is buried in Locust Grove Cemetery in Dover, Kentucky.



Friday, July 10, 2009

The Clark Family


It's hard to imagine giving birth to twelve children and having only six survive past their twenties, but that is what John J. Clark and his wife, Belle, experienced.
John and Belle were married in 1874 at the home of her father, Noble Stairs in Kentucky, most likely in Bracken County. On October 16, 1875, their first child, Frank Bernard, was born. At that time, the family was living in Bradford, Kentucky. Frank lived until he was 85 years old, dying in 1960. It is unknown where Edgar Perry, their second child, was born in 1877, although his World War II draft notice states that Franklin County was his place of birth. Nothing else has been found to indicate the family was ever in Franklin County. He died one month before his brother Frank.
In 1879, a daughter, Bessie, was born and a year later, in 1880, she and her family are listed in the Campbell County, Kentucky census. They were living in the town of Grant's Lick. In August of the same year, Bessie died and just a month later, baby Jennie joined the family. She lived until 1900, possibly dying in childbirth.
On April 11, 1882, Belle gave birth to twin boys, Omar and Homer. Little Omar lived only five months. His brother's death date is not known at this time, but from the above photograph, he was still alive in the late 1950's.
Named after his maternal grandfather, Noble Clark was born October 31, 1883. His sister, Vella, arrived two years later on February 22, 1885, but lived only a short time. She died on July 15, 1885. On September 10, 1886, Charles Taylor was born. He would live to the age of 83.
Mary Sudie Clark joined the family on March 30, 1888. She lived until November 25, 1893. Her death is possibly the one that was written about in the Kentucky Post newspaper on November 28 of that same year. The article states that the six year old daughter of J. J. Clark, of Kane Post Office, Kentucky in Campbell County was burned to death. She had been playing near a burning stump close to her home when her dress caught fire. More evidence will need to be found before it can be said for certain that this was Mary Sudie's fate.
Another boy, Carl, was born in May of 1892. He lived only until July. John and Belle's last child was Nelva Ruth. Born on May 2, 1895, she is the only daughter to have survived past the age of twenty. Like her brother Homer, her date of death is unknown at this time.
I would like to thank Ronald Clark, grandson of Edgar Perry, for some of the information about the children of John and Belle Clark.

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

A Kentucky Genealogy

The roots of my family straddle the Ohio River following the creeks and roads into southwestern Ohio and northern Kentucky. This blog will concentrate on the Kentucky side of those roots.

The early members of these families did not, all of a sudden, find themselves living in the counties of northern Kentucky. They came from places like Maryland, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. Some crossed the river from Ohio and settled in Kentucky.

Some of the families that share these Kentucky roots and will be discussed in this blog are

Clark, Dean, Judd, Miller, Nower, Stairs, and Wayson.

I look forward to sharing their lives with you.