Charles O. Staggs, a Woodland Nursing Home resident, died Thursday evening in Ball Hospital after admission earlier in the day.
A lifetime resident of Delaware County, he was born near Yorktown and attended the old Nebo School. At the time of his retirement in 1963, Mr. Staggs had been employed at Warner Gear for 22 years. He earlier worked at the YWCA for 13 years.
Surviving are two daughters, Elnora (Mrs. R.L.) Burns, Tempe, Ariz., and Betty Sue (Mrs. Russell) Robold, Sapulpa, Okla.; two sons, Bob Staggs, Muncie, and Jim Staggs, LaHabra, Calif.; two sisters, Ruby Witter and Ella (Mrs. Dale) Ellison, both of Muncie; 10 grandchildren and 18 great-grandchildren.
His wife, Beaulah, to whom he had been married for 62 years, died last November.
A grandson, Rev. Claude Robold, pastor of the Middletown, Ohio Church of God, will conduct services in Meeks Mortuary at 11:30 a.m. Wednesday. Burial will be in Elm Ridge. Calling hours at the mortuary are 2-5 and 7-9 p.m. Tuesday.
FROM OUR NEWSLETTER, “ONCE UPON A TIME”, JANUARY 2021.
While reading newspapers from 100 years ago, an intriguing headline caught my eye, “Yorktown Boys Disappear”. Originally, the only information that police had was that the boys were seen boarding a west-bound Interurbanat a stop west of Yorktown. The article explained that on 1 October 1920, cards bearing the picture of two missing boys were mailed to cities throughout the state. The police asked for citizens to be on the lookout for the two teenage boys. The boys had been missing since September 25th. Parents were frantic!
The missing boys were Corwin Cummins(14), son of Rollins and Eva AndreCummins, and his buddy, Howard Staggs(15), son of Perry and Verna Dunn Staggs. Soon after the pair left, they were found to have run away from home. The boys sent dispatches to their parents giving their location. The first dispatch said that they were in Milwaukee and they were going to Utah.
“We’ll be back in two years.”
Apparently, the boys had no intention of returning home any time soon!
What happened to the two young men was found in the 2 November 1920, Muncie Star Press after they had been missing for over five weeks. The ending was a hoot. See the original clipping below, learn a little about their families, and what happened to them when they grew up. ~Julie Musick Hillgrove
Look for their biographies for more information.
1920 Recruits at Great Lakes Naval Base in Chicago Not sure if the boys are in this picture, but it is what they would experience in 1920! It rather looks like school. Photo Navy History and Heritage Command
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.
Muncie Evening Press 25 Dec 1920
Sipe, Oscar Jennings, son of Orville “Ora” Horton Sipe and Nora Sparks Sipe; wife is Lillian “Leota” TaylorSipe, daughter of Harry Taylor and Myrtle May FletcherTaylor. More HERE
Cox, Martha Marie (1900-1987), daughter of Otto Cox and Margaret E. FletcherCox. 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.
Samuel was born on the 29th August 1831 in Reading Township, Perry County, Ohio to Samuel and Ellen Mohler Parkison. He was one of 11 children. Many of the children, including his father and mother, settled in the Mt. Pleasant Township area after they moved from Perry County, Ohio in 1839.
His siblings are as follows:
1) Eli P Parkison 1822-1892. He married Sarah Jones in Delaware County. They were in the but they were in Mt. Pleasant Township in the 1850 census with two children. They later moved to Iowa;
2) Catherine Parkison 1824-1898. She married Emanuel Warfel 1820-1874. They were residents of Yorktown and had at least 9 children.
3) George Wellington Parkison 1826-1898. He married Eliza J Beath. They had ten children and were residents of Yorktown. A full biography will be posted about George;
4) Elizabeth B Parkison 1828-1840. She died at 13.;
5) William “John” Parkison 1829-1862. He married Hetty Staggs. He may have returned to Ohio to come back to Indiana in 1850. He was living with another family at age 20 working as a chair maker. He married Hetty the next year in Delaware County. He was also shown as being with his father in the same census. He was killed in the Civil War, A8 Indiana Infantry.
6) Samuel Mentor Parkison (above and below)
7) Eleanor(a) Parkison 1833-1894. She married James Greggs/Griggis, a blacksmith and they moved to Tippecanoe County, Indiana.
8) Anna Marie Parkison 1836-1888. She married Charles Morris. They lived in Yorktown.
9) Sarah Jane Parkison 1838-1914. She married James D Reynolds. He was a carpenter and served in the Civil War. They lived in Yorktown.
10) Harriet Margaret Parkison 1841-Before 1880. She married John H Adams and they lived in Yorktown. He was a widower in the 1880 census. In 1881 he remarried Hannah Newhouse.
11.) Henry Clay Parkison 1843-1922. He married Christina Fridge. He was a Civil War veteran and they lived in Yorktown. More below.
Tombstone
Closeup of inscription
Part 2 of article showing him an alternate state delegate
Samuel Parkison Home
Back of the photo of the house. 1888
Part 1 of 1894 Biography
Part 2 of 1894 Biography
Obituary-Muncie Daily Herald, 30 Mar 1896, Page 4
1887 Map showing the location of Samuel’s House
While doing research for our web page, I found a picture of (what was known to me as) the old Don and Mary Ann (Mackey) Bonnet family home, I played in this home and in the surrounding fields when I was a child. The house sits on the east side of Yorktown on the north side of Hwy. 32–now surrounded by Grandview Square apartments.
The history of the big old brick house always intrigued me. The photo of the house as posted here was taken in 1888. It was was built by Samuel Mentor Parkison, Jr.
A little about Mr. Samuel Mentor Parkison, Jr. not in his two page biography from the book: Portrait and Biographical Record of Delaware and Randolph County published 1894, pages 670-671–see photos for these two pages.
The photo was found behind a cabinet in the attic of the house as the Bonnets were moving out. The photo was given to the YMPHA. The current owners of the house are Paul and Mary Ellen Cox.
The back of the photo is a little light. It says: Joseph Parkison (picking teeth), Samuel Parkison, Margaret Parkison, Lula Parkinson (5 years old), Ella Reed in window, Lottie Pence, neighbor girl.
Ella’s mother, Margaret (Keiger) Parkison, was previously married to Cornelius Reed before he died in 1877. Also note that the 1894 biography in the photos misspelled Lula’s name as “Luo”. Maybe it was a nickname?
The five children of Samuel Mentor Parkison and Eliza Jane Neely are:
1) Emma C. Parkison. (1856-1887). She married Jacob M Koontz (1852-1922);
2) Issac Newton Parkison (1857-1936). He married Amanda Beuoy (1863-1942);
3) John A Parkison, (1859-1927). He married Mary Isabelle Williamson (1859-1908);
4) Oliver Perry Parkison No information of his birth or death. He is referenced in the biography.
5) Joseph A Parkison (1867-1923). He married Melvina S Humbert (1871-1947)
The sixth child was the only child from Samuel Mentor Parkison and his second wife, Margot Keiger.
6) Lula Parkison (1883-1976). She married James Monroe Fitch (1871-1957).
Samuel’s brother, George W. Parkison also had a featured biography in the 1894 book. I will post information about George and his family in a different post.
About the map:
This is a small clip from the 1887 Atlas of Delaware County, Indiana showing where the Samuel Mentor Parkison, Jr. property was situated in Mt. Pleasant Township.
On the map, if you look under the name of Elizabeth Wilson, you will see the word YORKTOWN PIKE. This is the Yorktown toll road that later became State Highway 32. Finding that might help get your bearings on the map.Yorktown Pike dissects Parkison‘s property.
In his 1894 biography, it was written that he purchased his first property in 1857 and later purchased the Dragoo Farm. He bought additional real estate “from time to time until he became a possessor of a large amount of real estate”. He sold all but the 30 acres on which the house sat, much of it to the Western Development Company (WDC) for a nice profit.
The WDC was responsible for the building of the West Muncie development. Had there not been a national economic depression in the early 1890’s, Yorktown would have be called “Old Town” and incorporated into the West Muncie project. (Much more about this will be elsewhere on our web site.) The biography also says that Parkison bought the “Gilbert farm of 208 acres” and that it was later known as the Wilson farm. You can see adjoining the Parkison property the 208 acres owned by Elizabeth Wilson. You can see Gilbert properties north, west and east of the Wilson farm.
The Parkison house is shown on Yorktown Pike marked with a square and “Res” denoting his residence. His brother, George W. Parkison owned about 200 acres north of White River and a little west of downtown. I’ll write more on George Parkison in a different post.
If you want to see the whole map of Mt. Pleasant Township, you can go to this link at BSU Archives: https://dmr.bsu.edu/digital/collection/InHisAtls/id/1350 Look at the earlier post to see the house that started this line of research.
PLEASE: Add, correct, and ask questions about the post.
Notes:
There are some advertisements for the Delaware County Fair in which Samuel Parkison‘s name appeared as one of the organizers.
