There are so many ancestors I would like to meet. It’s difficult to choose just one. What would be my reasons to pick any one particular ancestor? My first thought is, I would choose a grandmother because they are mostly silent through time.
One 2nd great grandmother I would like to meet is Lucia Wouters. She faced many challenges in her relatively short life, adapting and making the best of the life that she was given.
Lucia Wouters, born in Holland about 1834, married William Vandeven in Eersel, Noord Brabant, Holland on May 27, 1865. Lucy and William had a son, John Anthony, my great grandfather, born in Holland on May 21, 1866.
The family immigrated to the United States when John was still a baby. They made it to Missouri where William is said to have died working on the railroad in Bollinger County soon after their arrival in Missouri.
Lucy had to make a decision. An immigrant widow with a young son had few options. She married a Jacob Vandoren, a man with four children, most likely a widower. Jacob was also an immigrant from Holland and probably lived in the same community of Dutch immigrants.
Lucy and Jacob had a daughter, Mary, and they lived in Cape Girardeau.
Jacob passed away and Lucy again found herself in need, now with two children of her own.
Husband #3 was Burghard Juengling, a German immigrant. Burghard died just months after his marriage to Lucy.
Lucy’s last husband was John Henry Sander, also a German immigrant. John had two children, Anna and Hermann. Mr. Sander was a merchant in Cape Girardeau. It seems likely that John A. Vandeven, Lucy’s son, started his education in business at the Sander’s store in Cape Girardeau. I like to think that Mr. Sander was kind to my great grandfather. John A. was able to attend business college probably thanks to Mr. Sander’s interest in his future. In fact, John A. went on to have his own business, the Vandeven Mercantile, which continued to operate for many years, closing in 1969.
22 December 1888 at the age of 54. She is buried in Old Lorimier Cemetery in Cape Girardeau, Missouri.
On the way home from a long road trip to El Paso, Texas, we stopped in eastern Tennessee to do a little genealogy research. We arrived at Logan’s Chapel Cemetery outside of Maryville, Tennessee, late on a Wednesday morning in October. Thanks to the photo I found on FindaGrave.com it was very easy to locate the gravestone of Elizabeth Daniel Thomas, my 3rd great-grandmother. To see the line of descent from Elizabeth to me, click here.
ELIZABETH THOMAS, BORN AUG.9 1803, DIED JAN 20 1886
Next to Elizabeth’s stone is the marker for her husband, John Thomas.
JNO. THOMAS, U S SOLDIER, WAR OF 1812
On the other side of Elizabeth is Marion Thomas, their son.
MARION THOMAS, CO E., 3RD TENN CAV
After waiting for the sun to move long enough to illuminate Marion’s gravestone and take a picture, we were ready to head to the Blount County Public Library to look for some more information about these Tennessee ancestors.
There is a series of books in the library entitled, Gone So Soon: the Cemeteries of Blount County, Tennessee by Robert A. MacGinnis. In volume III, there is a list of interments in Logan’s Chapel Cemetery. Elizabeth, John and Marion are in the list and Elizabeth’s entry refers to an obituary included in the book. The obituary is a transcription of an article in the 27 January 1886 issue of the Maryville Times. Below is an image from the Maryville Times. The obituary appears on page 1, and the death notice is on page 5. This obituary tells us so much about Elizabeth.
The Maryville times. (Maryville, Tenn.), 27 Jan 1886. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress. https://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn89058370/1886-01-27/ed-1/seq-1/
There is no obituary in Gone So Soon for John or Marion. I searched the Library of Congress collection of historical newspapers and found this death notice for John Thomas. Unfortunately there isn’t as much detail about him as there is in Elizabeth’s obituary. I have seen other family trees that say he was born in Virginia in 1798, but so far this death notice is the only source for that date.
I looked online for records about Marion Thomas and I found this image of a card for a headstone supplied by the government for Union veterans of the Civil War.
The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General; Record Group Number: 92; Series Number: M1845 . Headstones Provided for Deceased Union Civil War Veterans, 1861-1904.
When I saw the gravestone of Marion with the military information on it I assumed he was a soldier in the Confederate Army, but I was wrong. Company E in the Tennessee Cavalry was a Union regiment. For more information about the 3rd Regiment click on this link: https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/search-battle-units-detail.htm?battleUnitCode=CTN0003RC.
In the description of the database with the headstone cards on Ancestry.com, I saw that there were also some veterans of the War of 1812 whose headstones were provided. Considering the similar shield design on John’s and Marion’s stones, I looked through the ‘T’ section and found this:
The National Archives at Washington, D.C.; Washington, D.C.; Record Group: Records of the Office of the Quartermaster General; Record Group Number: 92; Series Number: M1845 . Headstones Provided for Deceased Union Civil War Veterans, 1861-1904.
Now, you will notice that in the cemetery field it says ‘Crooked Creek’ and it sure looks like ‘Texas’, not ‘Tennessee’. Otherwise, the rest of the information on the card, however scant, is the same that is on the stone. Well, there is no Blount County in Texas, and there is no Crooked Creek Cemetery in Blount County, Tennessee that I could find. There is another piece of evidence that corroborates my conclusion that this card does refer to John Thomas in Logan’s Chapel Cemetery.
The next step to find out more about John Thomas is to look at records of the War of 1812. If only he had a more distinctive name, the search would be much less difficult.
To find Elizabeth’s parents, I will search the records of Carter County, Tennessee, and hope I find some folks with the name Daniel.
Lucia Wouters came to America around 1867 with her husband, Wilhelmus Van de Ven, and young son, John Anton. Leaving home to emigrate to a faraway land and surviving the journey was a challenge that many European immigrants faced and endured. Lucia was destined to face many difficult challenges in her life.
Soon after arriving in Missouri, Wilhelmus found work on the new Iron Mountain Railroad in southeastern Missouri. In the brief biography of John A. Vandeven, written in 1975 by his grandson, George, it says that Wilhelmus died working on the railroad.
As a widow with a young son, Lucia sought a new husband. She soon found Jacob Vandoren (Van Doren). The 1870 U.S. Census for Cape Girardeau, Missouri, lists Jacob, a laborer from Holland. It also lists children Lina, Herarda, John, Jacob and Mary, all born in Holland except for 2 year-old Mary. Below the names of the Van Dorens is John Vandeven, 4 years old, born in Holland.
‘Lucy’ took on Jacob’s household and little Mary came along in October 1867. After this census, I haven’t found any other information about Jacob. There are records for Mary Vandoren up until her death in 1936.
From 1870 U.S. Census, Cape Girardeau, Missouri
The next time we find Lucia she is married to Burghard Juengling. Burghard died in 1875.
Her fourth and last husband was John Henry Sander. Mr. Sander was a merchant in Cape Girardeau. In the 1880 U.S. Census seen below, there is John H. Sander, age 55 years; his wife, Elizabeth, 46 years old, born in Holland; daughter, Anna, 2 years old; son Hermann, 10 months old; son, John Vandervent [sic],14 years old and working as a clerk in the store; and Rebecca Sander, 75 year-old mother of John H. Sander.
It is likely that ‘Elizabeth’ is Lucy, given her age and the inclusion of John Vandervent as a son. If this all holds true, Lucy gave birth to at least three children in America. It is not yet known why Lucy’s daughter Mary Vandoren was not listed in the Sander household. She would have been 13 years old. Perhaps she was already employed and living elsewhere, possibly as a servant.
From 1880 U.S. Census, Cape Girardeau, Missouri
After a life filled with many challenges, Lucy died in December 1888, at the age of 54 and she is buried in Old Lorimier Cemetery in Cape Girardeau.
Nancy Thomas Gross Turk was born in Pope County, Illinois 3 September 1873, daughter of Daniel Thomas and Amanda Vandegriff. In 1888, at the age of 15 years, she married William Perry Gross and over a period of 18 years gave birth to seven children, six of whom survived to adulthood. 1
If her age in this newspaper article is correct, and she was 80 years old, and she died in 1965 at the age of 92, the undated article would have been written in 1953. It might have appeared in the Poplar Bluff newspaper. Searching for the reporter and photographer, Velma and Al Daniel, might lead to the name of the publication.
Quilt made by Nancy Thomas Gross Turk
This is one of the quilts made by Great Grandmother Nancy. In many places the pieces don’t quite match up and the stitching is rather irregular so it seems that this was probably one of the last quilts she made well into her nineties when her eyesight had become poor and her old hands didn’t work so well.
An older quilt that Nancy made.
The quilt pictured above is a lot older, maybe from the 1940’s or 1950’s. This was used at our house on South Walnut Street in Belleville, Pennsylvania. I wonder which fabric pieces were donated by her neighbors.
Lee Gross, Nancy, Alice Vandeven & Gerald Gross.
In the photo above, we see Nancy, second from left, with three of her children: Leander (Lee), Lavona Alice, and Alvin Gerald. This picture might have been taken in Williamsville, Missouri. If someone could give me approximate dates for the cars, I would appreciate it. That would help to give a date for the photo.
Nancy, great-granddaughter, Patricia Vandeven, and grandson, John William Vandeven in Florissant, Missouri
In the summer of 1964, we went to Chicago to attend the annual meeting of the American Veterinary Medical Association. After the convention, we drove to Florissant, Missouri, to visit my father’s relatives: Uncle Gerald, Aunt Eva and Nancy, Daddy’s grandmother.
I can’t remember hearing her speak when we were there. Maybe she suffered some dementia late in life or maybe she was hard of hearing.
Grave marker in Poplar Bluff City Cemetery, Poplar Bluff, Missouri
Nancy is buried next to her son and daughter-in-law in Poplar Bluff City Cemetery in Poplar Bluff, Butler County, Missouri. Although I only heard him referred to as George, the stone is engraved with the name ‘Alvin G.’. Eva’s maiden name was Middleton.
Here are my brother and sisters: John, Jr. (Bud), Virginia, & Mary Anne Vandeven on Walnut Street in Belleville, Pennsylvania in 1953. Belleville is in the Kishacoquillas Valley in central Pennsylvania.
I love these pictures of my brother and sisters. They look like they’re having so much fun. Our father was the photographer and you can see that he really had an eye for a good picture. He worked long hours and didn’t get to spend much time with his children, so I’m sure they were especially happy to have his undivided attention!
Bud & Virginia on rollerskates.
Rollerskating was a fun pastime in those days. We strapped them on to our shoes, tightened them up with the rollerskate key, and then trudged through the gravel driveway to the street. Walnut Street was less than ideal for rollerskating – it was very rough and the section that was level was rather short. For a really fun and exciting experience we toiled up the hill and zoomed back down. The vibration from that rough surface made your feet feel like they would never recover from that pins and needles feeling.
One reason the road surface was, and is still, so rough is that a lot of the ‘traffic’ on the roads in this rural valley is composed of the horse drawn buggies driven by the Amish residents. The horseshoes cause the center of the road to be rutted and pitted, making for a bumpy ride. Another problem were the ‘deposits’ left on the road by the horses. This just added obstacles to the already dangerous trip down the hill. If you got going too fast and attempted to avoid a pile of horse manure, you might have to come to a stop and fall down before hitting a barbed wire fence.
