Recent Grove Family Photos from Parker, Kansas

John Edwin Grove Intermediate Class Parker, KS School

Parker School Intermediate Class ca. 1915

John E Grove behind the horses clearing the land for Parker High School ca. 1920.

 

Charles Miller Grove Drummer Parker Coronet Band 1907.

  Grave of William and Sarah Grove

Goodrich Cemetery, Linn County Kansas

Images Springfield, Urbana Ohio & Richmond, Centerville, Indiana

Images Fayette County, Pennsylvania

Images Williamsport, Ft. Frederick, Maryland

Images Martinsburg, Darkesville, West Virginia

Images Hagerstown, Sharpsburg, Maryland

Images Lancaster County, Pennsylvania

Museums, Historical Societies, National Parks, Courthouses Visited

Township Offices East Earl Township, Lancaster County Pennsylvania
Amish Mennonite Museum and Library, Lancaster, Pennsylvania
Martinsburg, West Virginia Convention & Visitors Bureau
Berkeley County West Virginia Historical Society, Martinsburg, West Virginia
Antietam National Battlefield, Sharpsburg, Maryland
Falling Waters Battlefield, Falling Waters, West Virginia
Chesapeake and Ohio Canal Williamsport, Maryland Visitors Center Cushwa Basin
Fort Frederick, Maryland
Fayette County Courthouse Uniontown, Pennsylvania
Clark County Historical Museum, Springfield, Ohio
Historic Centerville Inc., Centerville, Indiana
Wayne County Historical Museum, Richmond, Indiana
Old National Road Welcome Center, Richmond, Indiana
President Harry S Presidential Home, Independance, Missouri
Parker Community Historical Society, Parker, Kansas

Cemeteries Visited

Weaverland Mennonite Cemetery East Earl Twshp PA
Ranck Family Cemetery East Earl Twshp PA
Grove Family Cemetery Hagerstown MD
State Line PA Cemetery State Line PA
Reformed Cemetery Sharpsburg MD
Antietam National Cemetery Sharpsburg MD
Darkesville Cemetery Darkesville WV
Jacobs Lutheran Church Cemetery Masontown PA
Goodrich Cemetery Goodrich KS
Osawatomie Cemetery Osawatomie KS
Lakeview Cemetery Wichita KS
Old Mission Cemetery Wichita KS
Council Christian Church Peck KS

Eastbound Day 3 Carlisle PA to Norwood MA 399 miles

I arrived in Norwood at 2:30 PM EST.  My total mileage since leaving on this genealogical journey January 4, 2010 is 4,281.1 miles. I was in 12 states over the past 19 days.  I crossed the following major rivers Connecticut, Hudson, Delaware, Susquehanna, Potomac, Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Arkansas and Ninescah (not major but family members will know why I crossed it).

I slept at Hampton Inns, Residence Inns, La Quinta, Comfort Suites and Drury Inn.  I ate at Cracker Barrel, Steak & Shake, Ruby Tuesday, Starbucks, El Patio, Freddy's, Picadilly, Old Town Cabaret Theater, and One Stop. I visited 13 cemeteries, 2 county courthouses, 3 historical societies, 4 museums, 1 antique shop, 1 university, 1 sign company, 1 camera store, 3 health clubs.  I bought 5 t-shirts, 5 post cards, 3 pencils, 1 camera battery, 1 antique apple crate label, 1 historical CD, 1 DVD, 1 genealogical pedigree chart, 1 gallon of windshield washer fluid,  2 toys for grandkids, and a lot of gasoline.  I attended 1 wedding, and 1 college basketball game.

I visited or spoke with my mother, stepfather, 1 stepmother, 2 sisters, 3 aunts, 1 uncle, 3 first cousins, 2 second cousins, 2 third cousins.  I visited all the places I called home in and around Wichita, KS plus the homes of both my paternal and maternal grandparents.

I have taken 466 digital pictures.

I will be posting a link to all the pictures and my Grove pedigree chart as soon as I can compile all my notes.  For those without access to a computer I will try to get this blog in hard copy form at some point.

Thanks for following me.

JMG

Eastbound Day 2 Indianapolis IN to Carlisle PA 523 miles

After a wet and, in some places, icy start from Indianapolis the drizzle stopped and for a few minutes in Ohio and Pennsylvania the sun was out.  On Day 1 eastbound I filled up with the least expensive gas on the trip, $2.40 in Kingdom City MO.  It has gradually crept up to $2.59 here in PA.  I am averaging 24 miles per gallon since leaving Boston on January 4.  My average speed has been 63 mph.  I succumbed to the lure of Cracker Barrel for breakfast this morning since I was waiting for the temps to rise so the roads would dry.  I think Cracker Barrel has replaced Stuckey's and Nickerson Farms as the most frequently seen eatery along the interstates.  I will admit the food at Cracker Barrel surpasses Stuckey's and Nickerson Farms.

After crossing the Ohio River at Wheeling WV the route I am now taking is entirely different from the route I took westbound.

On the eastbound trip I have so far driven the width of Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Ohio.  Tomorrow I will finish crossing Pennsylvania and the width of New Jersey and Connecticut then the length of Rhode Island then home.  My GPS says I have 399 miles to go.  I should  be home by late afternoon.

Eastbound Day 1 Wichita KS to Indianapolis IN 665 miles

The longest day of driving so far.  At this rate I hope to be back in Norwood on Friday.  Weather in the heartland has been mild for January.  At a point today the temperature in Missouri was 55.  Fog was heavy from west of St. Louis all through Illinois.  By the time the sun went down I was in Indiana and it was clear but damp.

Last night I was lucky enough, thanks to cousins Joe & Sue Poston, to attend my first Wichita State Shockers basketball game in about 40 years.  Last nights game was a pivotal one for my alma mater since they defeated the #1 team in the Missouri Valley Conference Northern Iowa University.

Thanks to cousin Jimmy Smith, Lori Baronian, Sheila Lockwood, Patti Fanning , for the emails and following the blog.

Westbound Day 9 Parker KS to Wichita KS 174 miles

The migration to Kansas actually ends in Wichita since two of William and Sarah's grandchildren eventually migrated to Wichita.  This leg of my trip is to see the Wichita cousins and educate them about how they came to live in Kansas today.  It would be a big effort to document all the other places the descendants of William and Sarah live today.  I have been able to find their descendants living in Kansas, Oklahoma, Florida, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Alabama, Illinois, Mississippi, Nebraska, Oregon, Iraq, Hong Kong, Tennessee, and New York.  I am certain I have only accounted for a handful.



I intend to remain in Wichita for about a week then start the drive east.  There will be fewer stops and diversions going eastbound since I fulfilled the goal of the trip going westbound.  According to google maps I should be able to shorten the mileage to about 1400 miles versus the 2205 westbound.

I will be posting observations and impressions that have struck me as I make this trip that have nothing to do with genealogical research but more to do with what the county looks like from the road.  Watch for these posts beginning January 19, 2010.

Westbound Day 8 Overland Park KS to Parker KS 58 miles

Back in the 1940's and 50's cities like Overland Park, Lenexa, and Olathe KS were small burgs southwest of Kansas City and destinations for farmers' weekly shopping and supply trips.  They were self contained stand alone communities and considered to be quite a distance from Kansas City, the big city.  Today they are suburbs of Kansas City along I-35 with the typical assortment of malls and eateries that make them look just like any other interstate corridor around a larger city.

The improved four lane highways have shortened the commute to Kansas City which has further closed the distance to the even smaller communities down the highway from Olathe like Osawatomie and Garnett.  Consequently what I remember as a long distance when I was a child are today less than an hour away from Kansas City when you can cruise at a legal speed limit of 70 mph. No one is going less than that speed on clear, straight-as-an-arrow roads.  I tried to picture how William and Sarah viewed the approach to their Kansas homestead as they arrived in Parker Liberty Township in 1873.  It must have been daunting to William who at that time was a war veteran, not in ideal health, and 51 years old.  I presume 160 acres of farmland was too good to pass up, kind of a cash for clunkers government program to populate the west in the 19th century.

I had been to Parker KS many times.  The first trip I remember was probably in 1959.  We visited Parker for Memorial Day (they called it Decoration Day).  I remember the Grove obelisk monument at Goodrich Cemetery and I remember that the homes in Parker did not have indoor plumbing (that didn't come until 1962).  That left an impression on an 11 year old. I thought I had gone back in time.  After I became interested in genealogy in 1974 I was living in Warren, MI.  At that time I visited Kansas again and forced my father and grandmother to accompany me to Parker and tell me about the place.  It was in the fall and I remember my grandmother was worried that the roads would be impassable due to mud.  This seemed peculiar to me.  After we got closer to Parker she relaxed when she realized that all of the dirt roads she remembered when she left in 1939 had since been paved with asphalt and getting around was not hazardous.  My father was mildly interested in the family research I was doing but he did enjoy pointing out places he remembered.  We located the site of the apple orchards where they both remembered picking apples.  He pointed out a creek where he recalled hunting squirrels.  The house on Taft St. which they lived in and had moved from in 1939 was still standing in 1974 and there was a small cafe in town where we ate lunch and someone came in that my father had gone to school with in Parker in the 1930's.

Jump forward to 2010.  I arrived on a 15 degree morning and was met at the Parker Community Historical Society building by Barbara Hines.  I knew when I got into the building that I was about to find things no one in my family had ever seen. Barbara Hines and her husband were relative newcomers to Parker so she was as helpful as possible but really was learning Parker history along with me.

They have done a remarkable job of organizing and indexing the artifacts that have been donated by Parker families so it was surprisingly easy to immediately find Grove references.  I casually spotted a post card on a counter that showed a school class posed for a picture outside of the school building.  I looked at it carefully, flipped it over and there was listed all the student's names and John Grove and Cloyce Grove were in the picture.

The rest of the four hours I spent there were filled with other similar discoveries.  I was able to verify the date of the legendary tornado that destroyed my great grandfathers home by finding a news paper article that mentioned the damage done to his home in the April 11, 1893 tornado.  I found a framed picture showing my 14 year old grandfather behind a team of horses clearing the land for construction in 1920 of the "new" high school that he eventually graduated from in 1924.  This photo had been donated to the museum by Louise Dysart Stites who transcribed the information her mother had written on the back indicating it was Johnnie Grove behind the team of horses and WH Little's team of horses.  My host, Barbara Hines, offered to call Louise who had been the Parker postmaster for many years.  Louise was available and immediately came to the museum and pointed out pictures, newspaper articles, artifacts and anecdotes she knew about Parker and its history. 

Louise and Barbara gave me directions to find the actual 160 acres of land that William and Sarah farmed west of Parker.   Today it appears to be entirely farmland with no sign of residences or evidence of foundations or  any remnant of houses or barns from the 19 century.

When William and Sarah left for Kansas from Indiana in 1873 they were accompanied by their son John who was 24 years old and unmarried, their 20 year old daughter Cynthia Russell who was married in Indiana to Allen Russell in 1870,  16 year old son Franklin Shepherd, 13 year old son Edward and their 7 year old son Charles. Also accompanying them to Kansas was Sarah's unmarried older sister Ann Rebecca Miller.

I have always presumed that the lure of free land out west was what drew William and Sarah to Kansas.  I need to do further research about the Homestead Act to try to discover why their land was in Linn County Kansas. Unlike other communities they resided in from West Virginia to Indiana during their 36 year marriage, I have found no evidence of Grove relatives preceding them to Linn County

William lived until 1882 when he died at the age of 59, only nine years were spent in Kansas. Sarah lived until 1892 and her sister, Ann Rebecca died in 1893.  All three are buried about four miles south of Parker in the Goodrich Cemetery rather than the Parker Cemetery.  The Parker Cemetery was less desirable to the Grove family as it was said to have been subject to high water frequently.  It was on the eighth day of my trip, 2,205 miles from where I began that I reached William and Sarah's grave 128 years after William's death.  Over that period I had visited the church in Masontown, PA where William was baptized in 1822, the adjacent grave of his grandparents, the grave of his great grandparents in Sharpsburg MD, the courthouse where he got his marriage license in 1846 in Martinsburg WV, the spot where he enlisted in the Union Army in 1862 in Centerville IN, the town that each of their children had been born in and the land he farmed in Linn County Kansas in 1873.

William's will stated that the land was to be left to his sons Franklin Shepherd. John William and  Edward Dunlap.  It specified that there were 79 acres of farmland in Anderson County and on this expedition I discovered the county line divides the 160 acres almost exactly in half.  Charles Miller, his youngest son was 16 at the time of his father William's death.  William's daughter Cynthia was to be given cash that resulted from the sale of cattle at the time of William's death.  His widow Sarah was to be cared for by her children as stipulated in the will and upon Sarah's death their minor son, Charles was to be given $200 by his older brothers.  Not long thereafter Sarah was granted a widow's pension due to William's military service.  It was $12 a month plus an additional $4 for their minor son, Charles.

Charles, my great grandfather remained in Parker where all of his six children were born. He was Parker's town manager in the early part of the 20th century.  He served as a director of the Parker Telephone Company and participated in the 1907 Parker Silver Coronet Band.

He was also a jeweler and watch repairman.

Charles and his wife Kate Short raised six children in Parker.  Fern, Kenneth, Verle, Lotchen, John, and Cloyce.  I will post a pedigree chart at some point for those family members interested in seeing their lineage.