We began this series of stories after the Civil War in 1865. We’re ending the series at the end of World War I in 1920. What a dramatic change in people’s lifestyles over these 55 years.
Let’s review…
Harvey Jarvis and Sarah Robinson (4G)
Harvey and Sarah Jarvis lived long lives. By the end of the Civil War, they were living in the times of railroads, steamboats, and telegraph systems. Their sons, James, William, Joseph, Lafayette, and Milton lived nearby and raised their families.
Harvey Jarvis and Sarah Robinson had been born in the Kentucky backwoods in 1803. Their families made their clothing, their houses, and their food.
Harvey and Sarah moved to southern Indiana in the 1820s, following the calling of cheap and plentiful farmland. Harvey also found work as a mason, a long-lived family trade.
Harvey and Sarah lived in Jefferson and Ripley Counties, the epicenter of Jarvis family life for three generations.
They died within a year of each other, in 1882 and 1883.
Joseph Jarvis and Martha Buchanan (3G)
Joseph and Martha Jarvis were living in Jefferson County, Indiana at the end of the Civil War. Joseph had been a member of the Indiana Militia during the war and had served as a guard at Camp Morton, a prisoner of war camp.
Joseph was the third son of Harvey and Sarah Jarvis, born in 1830 in Ripley County, Indiana.
Martha Buchanan Jarvis was born and raised in one of the earliest settler families in southern Indiana. She married Joseph in 1852.
Joseph and Martha had moved around, trying both farming and mason work. After the war, the economy of southern Indiana suffered. They moved to Ohio County, and finally to Rising Sun, Indiana. In Rising Sun, Joseph worked as a mason.
Martha died in 1905 in Rising Sun at age 69. After her death, Joseph moved to Cincinnati to live near his daughters Luella and Lavinia. He lived until 1913, age 82.
Newton Jarvis (2G) and Sarah Beaty
At the end of the Civil War, Newton Jarvis was age 10. He was living with his parents Joseph and Martha in Jefferson County, Indiana. He’d been born in 1855, the second of eight children.
By the mid-1870s, Newton moved east with his family to Ohio and Switzerland Counties. In 1879, Newton married Sarah Beaty. Sarah was born in 1858 in Jefferson County, the sixth of ten children. Her parents Elijah and Sarah moved around southern Indiana, and ended up in Switzerland County, near where Newton was living.
Newton and Sarah had two daughters, Arminta in 1879 and Myrtle in 1884.
In spring 1887, Sarah was overcome with consumption (tuberculosis). She died on June 2. Newton was a single parent with two young daughters.
Newton Jarvis and Anna Burton (2G)
In 1889, Newton married Anna Burton. Anna was age 19. She was 14 years younger than Newton, who was 33.
Over the next ten years, they had four children.
Newton caught pneumonia from his son Ralph. He died at 5 am on Tuesday, April 4, 1899. Now Anna was left a single parent with four children. She chose to move into her mother’s household in Greensburg, Indiana.
Anna’s parents were George and Eliza Burton (3G). They had lived in Rising Sun. That’s where Anna met Newton. They later moved to Greensburg. George died in 1897 at age 62. Eliza Burton was still living in 1920 at the end of this series of stories.
In 1901, Anna married Harrison Mounts. Between 1901 and 1908, they had three sons – Lillard, Alva, and Robert. Harrison died in 1911, and Anna was once again a single parent with children.
Ralph Jarvis (1G)
Ralph Hayden Jarvis was born August 16, 1894 in Sugar Branch, Switzerland County, Indiana. He was the 3rd child of Newton and Anna Jarvis.
Ralph, his two brothers Elmer and Tom, and his three step-brothers grew up in Greensburg. His sister Opal had died at age 3 in 1902.
Chleo Webb (1G)
Chleo Webb was born August 21, 1900 on a farm south of Larned, Kansas.
We met her parents John Webb and Anna Buhrer (2G). John’s family was from Rockbridge Baths, Virginia. Anna’s family came to Larned from Fulton County, Ohio.
John and Anna met in Abilene, Kansas. They married and started a family while John worked on a ranch south of Solomon, Kansas. In 1898, they moved to Larned to be near Anna’s extended family.
In 1903, John Webb died of tuberculosis. Anna became a single parent with five children. She moved from the farm into the Rock House in Larned.
Chleo grew up in the Rock House.
Ralph Jarvis and Chleo Webb (1G)
At age 22, Ralph was working as a lineman in Larned in 1916. He met Chleo, 16, while working on a utility pole next to the Rock House.
Over the next three years, Ralph and Chleo built a relationship. World War I interrupted their lives for two years. In December 1919 they married.
Now, in 1920, Ralph and Chleo are married and living in the Rock House with Anna Webb. Ralph is working as a lineman for Pawnee Power and Water Company.
A peek into the future
Our next series of family stories will pick up in 1920.
Ralph and Chleo will have children. Melvin, the eldest, will be born in 1921. He’s our grandfather.
Ralph will play an important role in the development of the power company as he follows its entrepreneurial founder, Nathan Jones. But the company will have failures as well as successes.
We’ll see what happens to Eliza Burton, Ralph’s grandmother. Ralph’s mother Anna Burton Jarvis Mounts will marry once again and move to Kansas. Ralph’s brother Tom and step-brother Robert show up in Kansas.
Chleo’s mother Anna Webb will come to live with Chleo.
And another family will leave a single parent to raise the children.
Stay tuned.
Sources
- All source citations have been credited in previous stories.
Family Nibbles 