The Hyphen Family Lineage

Note: Lydia (Thomas) Mahan and family

Initially, nearly all the information I had for Lydia was from the notes in the files of Jane Anne Thomas, in which she had noted Lydia's vital dates and her marriage to "Samuel F. Mahon" (a misspelling that Jane Anne would use relatively consistently) on 30 Oct 1884. Jane Anne also noted only one son, Clyde, and no vital dates recorded for either Clyde or his father, Samuel. Outside of her notes, the only other items I found for this family in Jane Anne's files were a few photos and a clipping of a biographical article on S.T. Mahan from a history of the Auglaize Conference of the United Brethren Church. One of the photos appeared to be a wedding portrait of Clyde and his wife Ella Summerfeld, with handwriting on the back that I believe to belong to either Merle (Thomas) Paul (Clyde's second cousin once removed) or Mary Alice (Bayha) Thomas (wife of Floyd Thomas Sr., another second cousin once removed to Clyde). Another photo was noted "Clyde Mahan children" in handwriting I don't recognize, and shows four children ranging in apparent ages from around four years old to the late teens, while a third appeared to depict an older Clyde and Ella in front of their home. Additionally, Jane Anne had written (in the article for David F. Thomas for Huntington County, Indiana History and Families 1834-1993) that Lydia had married "the Reverend S.T. Mahon" of the Summerville Circuit of the United Brethren Church in Union Cty, Ohio.

Lydia's burial was noted on the FindaGrave.com website in Jones Cemetery in Zanesville, Wells Cty, Indiana. A walk through that cemetery found her in a group of family plots with her parents and four of her siblings (all but Samson, who is buried with his wife and many of his descendants in nearby Hoverstock Cemetery in Zanesville). Her husband does not appear to be buried there, nor have I found any confirmed listing for him online in any other cemetery.

Early records for Lydia and her family have been somewhat hard to find, as her married life lasted only about ten years - she was thirty-nine when she married, and was approaching forty-two when her only child (Clyde) was born, and just over the age of fifty when she died. I've found her marriage record, confirming the wedding date that Jane Anne had noted (and which indicates that the officiant was her father, D.F. Thomas), and Clyde's birth record for 2 Feb 1887 in Bokescreek Twp, Logan Cty, Ohio. I have found no indication that Lydia had any other children but Clyde, and given the late age at which she married, it seems unlikely that there were further children.

Her husband, Samuel Mahan, is very much a mystery to me at this point. His middle initial seems to be in some question, as I find it recorded or indexed alternately as "F" or "T" depending upon the transcription, though the preponderance of the evidence suggests it was "T." I am able to find records for a variety of men by that name that would be around the appropriate age, including marriage records and Civil War service and pension records. He would likely have been no younger than Lydia, and possibly as much as a decade or more older than Lydia. He seems most likely to have outlived her, or presumably he would have been buried in Jones Cemetery as well. At this time, his vital dates are unknown, as is the location of his burial. The biographical article clipping from Jane Anne's files even goes so far as to say not much is known about him, despite being written during Samuel's lifetime, though it does note that he joined the church in 1865 and, at the time of the text's writing (1891), was "well advanced in years," suggesting he must have been past middle age at that point.

After the birth of Lydia's son Clyde, the next earliest record I can find for him is the listing in the 1916 Canada census placing him (and his wife) in Saskatchewan, Canada. The oldest of his children, Helen, was born November of 1916, suggesting that Clyde and his Wisconsin-born wife Ella Summerfeld married sometime around 1915, though where and exactly when is not yet determined. His second child, Glen, was also born in Canada, while his third, Robert, was born in Washington in 1926. The 1930 US Census record for the family gives their immigration (from Canada) as occuring in 1922. His daughter Helen's obituary states that the family moved to Spokane Cty, Washington in the early 1920s, which lines up with the records thus far. Clyde and wife Ella passed away in 1956 and 1964, respectively, and their children's families continued to live in the area of eastern Washington and western Idaho.