Category: Blog

The locals were off to visit family and family members came to visit. It was a holiday entertaining bonanza! It was very common to put visits between family and friends in the newspapers. My grandmother still did that even in the 1980’s because that was how people learned about each other before Facebook.

Mentioned are: Mrs. Oscar Sipe, Yorktown; Miss Martha Cox, Anderson; Mr. John Yingling; Mrs. John Metzcar, Yorktown; Mrs. Jess Smith, Muncie: Mrs. Hester Swift, Indianapolis; Mrs. Otto Cox and daughter Martha Cox, Anderson; Mrs. Fountain Fletcher, Anderson; Mrs. Leonard Hawthorne; Mr. Herbert Warfel, Yorktown; Mrs. George Parkinson, Yorktown; Mrs. Walter Staggs, Muncie; Rev. and Mrs. Henry Wood and son, Leland Wood, Yorktown; Mr. Edwin Overmire, Indianapolis; Mr. Lewis Clevenger, Yorktown. More on them below.

• Sipe, Oscar Jennings, son of Orville “Ora” Horton Sipe and Nora Sparks Sipe; wife is Lillian “Leota” Taylor Sipe, daughter of Harry Taylor and Myrtle May Fletcher Taylor. More HERE
• Cox, Martha Marie (1900-1987), daughter of Otto Cox and Margaret E. Fletcher Cox. She later married Fred Kahler. Leota Taylor Sipe is her cousin.
• Yingling, John M., Jr (1893-1954). He was the son of John Marshall Yingling and Jess L. Sutton Yingling. He moved his family to San Francisco, California sometime between the 1920 census and the birth of his son, Donald in 1924.
• Metzcar, (John Mrs.) is Myrtle May Fletcher Metzcar. (1879-1962), daughter of Fountain Fletcher and Eliza J. Crawley Fletcher. Myrtle married John Metzcar in 1900. Biography HERE
• Swift, (Jess Mrs.) is Charlotte R. Pence Swift, “Lottie” (1875-1930). Lottie was the daughter of David Pence and Catharine Conrad. Lottie and David were married in 1890. In 1935, five years after the death of Lottie, Jesse married Grace Rawls McIntire (1885-1970). She was the daughter of John R McIntire and Mary Emma Roules (or Rawls) McIntire. Grace was married 1) Joseph Watson Weeks who died in 1932. She married 2) Jesse Swift, son of Elijah William Swift and Rachel Alice Fisher Swift in 1935 and lost Jesse just four years later. She later married Arthur E. Bowman who outlived her. Grace died in 1970. No information on Mrs. Hester Swift. No so lucky in love was Lottie.
• Cox, Otto (Mrs.) is Margaret Fletcher Cox (1877-1962). She was the daughter of Fountain Fletcher and Elizabeth Crawley Fletcher. She was the sister of Myrtle Fletcher Metzcar above. Myrtle married
• Hawthorne, Leonard (Mrs.) is Peachie Younts Hawthorne (1900-1976). She was the daughter of Frank Younts and Mary Fergusan.
• Warfel, Herbert Elmer (1903-1981) was the son of William Turner Warfel and Hester Ann Myers Warfel. He became a well-known zoologist working in Colorado, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Philippines, and Puerto Rico. He was a professor at Massachusetts State College. In 1947, he went on a three-year oceanographic expedition in the Philippines. He married Lucille Gladys Talbott in 1929. They are both buried in the Yorktown Cemetery.
• Parkinson, George Washington (Mrs.) is Hattie Endora “Dora” May Parkinson, daughter of John and Ada May. She was born in Hoospton, Illinois in 1881 and married George Washington Parkinson (1879-1953) in 1899. George lived his whole life in Yorktown and raised 6 sons. George and Dora are buried in the Yorktown Cemetery.
• Wood, Henry Reverend (1891-1977) and Edith Randall Wood (1894-1981) are named. They were married in 1915 and she was disowned by the Quaker Church as a result. Edith was the daughter of J. Freemont Randall and Rosella Day. They are from Hamilton County area. Rev. Henry Shirley Wood was born in Kentucky and was the son of William and Georgia Martin Wood. The couple were likely visiting Henry’s family in Kentucky. Leland Randall Wood had left Delaware County as a small boy. He had “Pete’s Shoe Shop” in New Palistine, Indiana.
• Clevenger, Lewis David is spending time with his ex-wife’s sister, Margaret Fletcher Cox and her husband Otto Cox. (Also above). Arrel Fletcher divorced Lewis Cox and married George H. Sellers by this time. Putting such a thing in the paper would be an slap in the face to Arrel from either her own sister or her ex-husband. Ouch!
• More information can be found on Ancestry.com on the “Yorktown Family Trees” or in the biographies tab on our web page.