The Hyphen Family Lineage

Some relatively thorough research on my part was complemented quite well by work done by Jim Flack to try and come up with a more accurate history for John Thomas Beaber Sr. - what follows is a summary of some of his life events and an introduction to his children. (Note also excerpts from a biography written by Quentin Robinson, courtesy of Jim Flack.)

John Thomas Beaber Sr. was born to Abraham Gimmens and Anna Mary (Thomas) Beaber, the fourth of eight children, in Tuscarawas Cty, Ohio, in 1838. By 1850, his family had moved to northeastern Indiana, settling in the vicinity of several of his mother's siblings and their families in Wells Cty, Indiana. At the age of twenty-three, John enlisted in the Indiana 157th Volunteer Infantry, Company G, and served for just over a year before his discharge in 1862. At various times after this, he is found in census records and city directories with his occupation indicated as a teacher or laborer.

In October 1862, five months after his discharge, he married Isabel D. Robinson in Tippecanoe Cty, Indiana. They had six children: son Reuben, who died at eight years of age; daughter Mary Oella; son Edwin, who died at ten months of age; daughter Jennie; son John Thomas Jr.; and daughter Matilda Isabelle, who lived only twelve days, and whose birth appears to have brought about mother Isabel's death five days after the birth.

Quentin Robinson writes that in November 1873, John filed a petition to allow him to sell property inherited by his three surviving children, land left to them by his wife; after the grant of the petition the land was sold and he moved his family to Allen Cty, Indiana. In 1876, John remarried to the much-younger Sarah McCormick in Fort Wayne, Allen Cty, Indiana. She bore two children: son William; and daughter Golda Mae. Sarah died in delivery of Golda Mae in early April 1879, at the age of twenty-five.

Being twice a widower before the age of forty-one, and having lost three of his children by this time, must certainly have been difficult for John, and especially so for his surviving children. His eldest, Mary, left home to marry at the age of fourteen, less than two months after the death of her step-mother. The infant Golda Mae was sent to live with John's brother, Daniel Beaber, and his family. In the 1880 US Census listing for John's household in Lake Twp (near Fort Wayne), we find only John, his daughter Jennie (age ten), his son John Jr. (age nine), and his son William (age two).

A short handful of years later, in Adams Cty, Indiana, John was working as a foreman at a lumber mill when he was killed in an accident in February 1884, at the age of forty-five. It is presumed that his middle three children (Jennie, John Jr., and William) were still living with him at that point, though this is not confirmed. It seems likely that Jennie was placed in the role of caring for the younger two, especially William, in the years following the death of Sarah.

What happened with the children in the immediate aftermath of John's death is not known. Jennie, a teenager at the death of her father, became pregnant and married in September 1888, delivering her first child barely three weeks later and all shortly before her nineteenth birthday; she would marry at least three more times, divorcing three of her husbands and the fourth marriage ending with Jennie and her husband living apart until their deaths. John Jr., a young man of not quite thirteen, likely found himself working and heading west; in 1898 he married in Humboldt Cty, California (where he was likely involved in logging and lumber), and he and his wife had four children and remained married until her death in 1953. William enlisted in the same Infantry unit (157th Indiana, Company G) in which his father had served, and was a casualty of the Spanish-American War in August of 1898.

John's oldest child, Mary, who'd married at fourteen, was a widowed mother of five before she turned thirty-one, having lost a son to infant death and soon to lose a young daughter not long after the death of her husband. She remarried a few years later, and divorced in her early forties, moving to North Dakota and Michigan, marrying a third time and bearing or adopting one more child (a son) before being widowed again. Afterward, she was found living with one daughter in Oregon, and then another in Nebraska when she died in 1935.

John's youngest, Golda Mae, married at age eighteen and had two daughters; she divorced at the age of thirty-three, and then went on to three more marriages over next nearly forty years, each of these ending in the death of the husband. Her only children were the daughters from her first marriage, and she appears to have lived her entire life in northeastern Indiana.

[Obituary courtesy of Jim Flack, who credits Quentin Robinson.]

OBIT: Fort Wayne Sunday Gazette - 17 February 1884.

A SUDDEN DEATH.

John T Beaber, brother of Jacob Beaber, of this city, was killed by the falling of a log upon him last Wednesday afternoon. He was the foreman at Smith & Langdon's mill at Decatur, Indiana. While attempting to right up a log on a truck his clothing caught on the bark, which threw him off his balance, the log falling on his head and crushing his skull. His remains were brought to the house of his brother, in the city, yesterday. The funeral service will be held at the Wayne street M.E. church, at 12.45pm meridian time, Rev Dr Spellman having charge, and assisted by Revs Senger and Pierce.

Source: Quentin Robinson - 10 Sep 2014

[Biography courtesy of Jim Flack, who credits Quentin Robinson.]

BIOGRAPHY: "BEABERS IN TIPPECANOE COUNTY"
Isabella D. Robinson and John T. Beaber were married in October of 1862 in Tippecanoe County. Prior to that in 1860-1861 she was known to have been in Fort Wayne where she was teaching primary grades at the Fort Wayne Methodist College where her brother Reuben was the President. In July of 1860 she was enumerated with her parents in Tippecanoe County so her residence in Fort Wayne was apparently only through the school term. John was enumerated with his parents in the 1860 census living in Wells County, a short distance south of Fort Wayne. He is listed as a farmer. In 1864 John T. Beaber is listed in a City Directory for Fort Wayne, listed as a Teacher at Fort Wayne College. No address is given, however it is proable that he and his family lived at the College. Isabel was probably no longer working as a teacher as she had two infant children by the end of 1864.
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In 1866 William W. Robinson died and it is probable that Isabel and John went to Tippecanoe county to live at some point shortly after that and probably lived on the Robinson farm. The 1870 Census could be helpful in figuring out who all lived on the Robinson farm but it seems apparent that a section of the township was somehow "missed" by the census taker. Matilda Robinson is not listed and neither is her son William D. and his family although they were known to have been in that area at that time. I was able to locate Allison C. Harvey in that census and he would have lived next door to the Robinson home. It seems as if the census taker stopped at that point and did not continue on up the road, missing perhaps as many as a half dozen residences, but certainly missing two for sure.
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Isabel, and her children Reuben T., and Edmond G. are buried in the Burton Cemetery in Wabash Township, about one mile from the Robinson farm. In addition it is believed her last child, Belle Matilda Beaber was also buried there but no stone marks that grave. Infant Belle M Beaber died at 12 days of age, and 7 days after her mother died. Complications from the birth would appear to be the cause of Isabel D. Beabers death.
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In November of 1873 John T. Beaber, then a resident of Tippecanoe County filed a request/petition to sell lands inherited by his three living children from their mother. Said land was described as the northwest quarter of the northwest quarter of Section 34, Twp 24 north, range 5 west consisting of 40 acres and Beaber requested the sale in order to pay off a mortgage of $500 which had been taken out in 1870. The sale was granted and John left Tippecanoe County sometime soon after. He was married a second time in Fort Wayne to Sarah McCormick in 1876. In 1875 he is found in Fort Wayne at #10 Wall Street occupation Laborer. In 1880 he is still in Fort Wayne for the census.
Source: Quentin Robinson@ http://trees.ancestry.com/tree/21169004/person/1047936498 - 6 Sep 2014