Step-Siblings to Spouses: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Step”

 

The Steps to Love: Robert and Cora Evans

Sallie Worth Smith: 1890-1965 (Maternal First Cousin 2x Removed)
Cora Jane England: 1922-1994 (Maternal Second Cousin 1x Removed)
 

The 1935 wedding between widower Herman Evans and divorcee Sallie Smith England blended two families. Herman Evans had three surviving sons from his first marriage. Sallie Smith had two daughters and two sons from her first marriage to George England. This newly blended family gave birth to another family when Herman’s son married Sallie’s daughter six years after Herman and Sallie married. Two step-siblings fell in love.

Sallie Worth Smith was born April 3, 1890 to parents Carter Worth Smith and Sallie Ann Leachman. (Note: Cora Leachman, Lorene Smith Jandy’s mother, was Sallie Leachman’s sister) Sallie was a teenager when she married for the first time, to a man named Eugene Iglehart in 1907. A year later, she gave birth to a little boy, William Louis Iglehart. However, her marriage to Eugene had ended by the time of the 1910 census, when Sallie and little William were living with her parents.

Sallie married again on November 24, 1911. Her husband, George England, was 22 years her senior. She had five children with him over some fifteen years of marriage: sons Carter Wesley, George Thomas “Tommie”, and Henry Lewis, and daughters Ola and Cora (named in honor of Sallie’s aunt Cora Leachman Smith). Strangely, by the 1920 census, her son from her first marriage was no longer living with her despite his being only twelve. I find no record of him anywhere until he appears as a married adult in the 1930 census. I am guessing Sallie’s new husband didn’t want her son living with them.

Sallie’s new marriage also failed, and by the 1930 census Sallie was farming on her own as a divorced woman. Her youngest son, Henry, had died a few years earlier, so she was living with her other four England children.

However, by 1935, she had married a third time, to widower Herman Evans. Sallie’s sons were now adults, but her two daughters were sixteen and thirteen, so were now living with their stepfather. Herman’s sons were all adults; the youngest, JD, was eighteen, and the next oldest, Robert Lee, was 22. It is unclear if they were still living at home.

Wherever Robert Lee Evans was living, he must have been close enough to visit his father, stepmother and stepsisters frequently. He watched his stepsister grow up and fell in love with her. Robert Lee married his stepsister, Cora Jane England, on September 27, 1941. Robert was 28, and Cora was just 19 years old.

The newspaper announcement was carefully worded so that most readers would have had no idea the young couple were stepbrother and stepsister. “Mrs. Sallie Evans” announced the marriage of her daughter. The use of Sallie’s first name in this way is unusual for the time period. Wives were usually referenced by their husband’s name, so she should have been listed as “Mrs. Herman Evans”.

In addition, the groom’s home was listed as Louisville where he now worked, with no reference to the fact that he grew up in the house now occupied by Mrs. Sallie Evans and her husband Herman.

The write-up went on to state that “Mrs. Evans (meaning Cora) is a daughter of Mr. George England. Mr. Evans is a son of Mr. Herman Evans. Mr. and Mrs. Evans will reside at 1706 Owen Street, Louisville, where Mr. Evans is employed.” You would never realize, unless you knew the people involved, that Herman and Sallie were married, and that their children have now married. I feel the article was worded in this way to avoid gossip—step-siblings marrying was and still is a little unusual.

The marriage lasted forty-eight years, before Robert Lee Evans death in 1989. Cora and Robert had two children, a daughter named Betty Jane and a son named James David. Robert Lee farmed in McLean County, Kentucky, and Cora worked in the dietary department of Riverside Manor Health Care Center in Calhoun, Kentucky. Cora died at age 72 on November 3, 1994.

While Cora and Robert may have met as a result of their parents’ marriage, they formed their own family, moving from step-siblings to lifelong partners.

Sources:

Findagrave Entry for Robert Lee Evans. Photo by Anita R. Austill.

Cora Jane Evans obituary. https://www.newspapers.com/image/379503047

  

Inheritance Left to Lost Son: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Lost Contact”

 

What Happened to Lost Son Thomas Vanlandingham?

Richard Vanlandingham: 1740?-1811 (Maternal Fourth Granduncle)
Thomas Vanlandingham: 1791-? (Maternal First Cousin 5x Removed)

While trying to track down the individuals named in the 1774 will of George Vanlandingham of Northumberland, Virginia (my husband’s fifth-great-grandfather on his mother’s side), I got sidetracked by his son Richard Vanlandingham and Richard’s own unique will.

Richard was first mentioned in his father George’s 1774 will as follows:

“To son Richard Vanlandingham 40 shillings in lieu of a mare that his grandfather Richard Brown let me hold for him.”

Of course, I wondered immediately what happened to the mare. Did the horse die? Did George sell the beast despite his father-in-law’s instructions? And is a mere forty shillings really adequate compensation for a horse?

The will also specified that six of George’s children—George Adams Vanlandingham, Mandley Brown Vanlandingham, Winney Vanlandingham, Elizabeth Vanlandingham, Thomas Vanlandingham, and Ezekiel Vanlandingham--  were to receive equal shares in his land and property once his wife and sister were dead—the wife, Mary, and sister Elizabeth had life-rights to it. This share of land was the key to my finding out what happened to son Richard.

The only problem with this instruction in the will: George had eight children. Two were left out of the list of six, although both were mentioned elsewhere in the will: Richard and Henry. Was this oversight intentional or a mere error on the part of the attorney writing up the will? It appears to have been intentional. The will went on to state that if, when the estate was divided, each of the six children received at least six pounds, that son Henry receive a portion of the remainder. Nothing for poor Richard.

Richard and Henry were George’s two eldest sons, and both had established households before their father’s death. I hypothesize that they were left out of the initial will division because they had already received some sort of settlement from their father. Either that, or George was really angry with Richard and Henry.

Richard left Virginia, moving to Rockingham, North Carolina. There are no records that show whether he left following his father’s death, or before. At some point, he married. Several trees list his wife’s name as Hattie Hartley, but I have as of yet found no verifying records. The couple had children, although their names and birth dates are as yet unconfirmed.

1811 Map of North Carolina

Richard appears on the 1790 census in Rockingham with seven people in his household: himself, three males under 16, and three females, ages unspecified. I hypothesize that this indicates Richard and his wife had three young sons and two daughters. By the 1800 census, the household included one male child under 10, one female child between 10 and 15, and one woman between the ages of 16 and 25, plus Richard and his wife, a male and female over 45. This could be explained by two sons growing up and leaving the home or dying during the intervening years, while the remaining three children were among the five included on the 1790 census.

The 1810 census finds Richard’s household further reduced. There is just Richard, a male over 45 (by this time he was probably in his sixties as his birth date is supposedly 1846.), a male child between 10 and 15, and a female between 26 and 44. My hypothesis? Richard’s wife has died—the female over 45 is now gone. So who is the younger woman? Rather than a second wife, I suspect it is either a widowed daughter or daughter-in-law and her son. Of course it could be a housekeeper along with her child. There is a remote possibility the woman is a second wife; records in Warren County, NC, a distant 144 miles from Richard’s home, show a Richard Vanlandingham marrying a woman named Jeane Rigon in 1803. However, I suspect that marriage referred to another man named Richard Vanlandingham, a member of a completely separate Vanlandingham family who resided in Warren County.

So how do I know that the Richard Vanlandingham who appears on the Rockingham censuses is the son of George Vanlandingham of Northumberland, Virginia? Richard’s will provided the evidence.

Part one of Richard's 1811 Will 

Richard made a will on October 5, 1811. The will was probated in November of that year, so we can assume Richard died shortly after making the will. He leaves all his property and estate that remains after debts are settled to “my youngest son Thomas Vanlandingham”. No mention is made of other children, male or female, although “youngest son” implies there was at least one older son still living.

Part 2 of Richard's 1811 Will

The will states that the property includes “both real and person in the State of Virginia and NorthCarolina (sic), the estate to which I laid a claim in Virginia being an interest in a tract of land lying in the County of Northumberland and is the share of which my Father George Vanlandingham late of said county and state did seized and possessed and contains about two hundred acres…”

Richard quite clearly states George Vanlandingham of Northumberland Virginia was his father, and he owns a share in lands given to him by his father. This two hundred acres seems to be a separate property from the land included in George Vanlandingham’s will, so it appears Richard had already received what his father considered Richard’s portion of his estate.

But Richard’s will held an additional and quite extraordinary bit of information. Just after Richard makes his bequest to his “youngest son Thomas” there is a notation in parentheses stating:

“(Now from information) resident of Woodford County ana State of Kentucky.”

It appears that on his deathbed, Richard wasn’t sure where to find his youngest son—he believed Thomas lived in Woodford County, Kentucky, but had no verification that the information was correct.

Imagine losing contact with your child to such an extent that you can only guess in what state and county he might be found! Of course, modern communications make this a less common occurrence than in Richard’s day. In 1811, mail was delivered by horse, and was erratic and slow. Thomas seems to have been born in 1791, so at the time of Richard’s death in 1811, he was only twenty, not the most responsible age. Perhaps he never bothered to write his poor father.

And why did Thomas move away? Was there some sort of conflict between father and son, or was Thomas just eager to make his own way in the world and decided to follow other extended family to Kentucky? (Some of Richard’s brothers moved to Kentucky). What happened to Richard’s other children—the two other sons and two daughters? Had they, like Richard had, already received a portion of Richard’s property when they reached their majority, and thus were not entitled to a further inheritance?

I wonder if Thomas ever returned to North Carolina to claim his inheritance. Did the probate court track him down? It is unclear. There are other trees on Ancestry that include a Thomas Vanlandingham who lived in Warren County, North Carolina, and they identify our Richard as his father. However, I doubt it is the same man. I found a separate Warren County will for a totally different Richard Vanlandingham with a son Thomas—I think others are conflating the two Richards and the two Thomases.

I also found no record of Thomas in Woodford County, Kentucky around the time of Richard’s death. Did Thomas stay in Woodford County, or did he move on to some other location in the state? I hope Thomas returned to North Carolina or even Northumberland, Virginia to take ownership of his father’s lands, but he may have lost contact with his father and family forever. All that I know for sure is that without further records, he remains lost to my family tree as well.

Sources:

Wills; Author: North Carolina. County Court of Pleas and Quarter Sessions (Rockingham County); Probate Place: Rockingham, North Carolina. https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/81812584/person/262471515291/facts

Ancestry.com. Virginia, U.S., Wills and Probate Records, 1652-1900 [database on-line]. Lehi, UT, USA: Ancestry.com Operations, Inc., 2021. Original data:Virginia County, District, and Probate Courts. https://www.ancestry.com/imageviewer/collections/62347/images/007645552_00457?pId=1636172

 

Missionaries in Brazil: 52 Ancestors 2024 Prompt “Worship”

 

From Rural Kentucky to Mission Work in Brazil: Nina Dodson Hankins Life of Faith

Nina Pearl Dodson Hankins: 1908-1997 (Maternal Second Cousin 1x Removed)

 

Nina Pearl Dodson and her husband, Rev. William Clyde Hankins, truly lived their faith, choosing to become missionaries in Brazil for twenty-five years. What is truly amazing about their story is how much of a leap of faith this truly was: they were independent missionaries, with no church organization supporting them, and when they left for Brazil, neither William nor Nina spoke a word of Portuguese.

So how did a young woman from rural Kentucky end up serving as a missionary in South America? Nina Pearl Dodson was born September 17, 1908, in Calhoun County, Kentucky. Her parents were Otis Dodson and Mabel McFarland. Mabel was the daughter of Nancy Catherine Leachman, the elder sister of Cora Leachman (Grandma Jandy’s mother). This made Mabel and Lorene first cousins.

Nina was the oldest of Mabel and Otis’ four children. Mabel and Otis were young parents: Mabel was only sixteen when Nina was born, and Otis was twenty. The family farmed in McLean County. Nina attended the local high school in Beech Grove, Kentucky. She then attended the Western Kentucky State Teachers College in Bowling Green, Kentucky to become a teacher.

Beech Grove School, 1926. Nina graduated from this school. 

Her sense of adventure and commitment to the underprivileged led her to take a teaching job in Oklahoma at a school of mostly Native American students. While she was home for the summer in 1929, she attended a religious revival in Beech Grove, where she met the young seminarian leading the singing that evening, William Clyde Hankins.

William was immediately smitten, and the two began corresponding. He wanted to get married, but she was reluctant. That Christmas, William left his family’s holiday celebration in Arkansas. He borrowed his brother’s car and drove 600 miles in a single day over mostly dirt roads to reach Nina in Oklahoma. They recalled the moment of their reunion years later in a news article. 

William declared, “It’s now or never.” To his delight, Nina was swept away by his declaration. She recalled, “I told my superintendent that this crazy young fellow had come to take me away.” They had to track down the local minister, who was out bird hunting, so they could get married immediately.

Rev. Hankins finished his seminary training and served as minister at several churches in the south. The couple had three children, Dorothy, born in 1930, Nona born in 1932, and Billy (William Clyde Jr.) born in 1934. Tragically, Dorothy developed leukemia and died at age three.

By 1940, the Hankins family was living in Cleburne, Texas, where William was the pastor at Field Street Baptist Church. According to an article from the Owensboro Messenger years later,

“The Hankins had long wanted to become foreign missionaries, but his wife’s ill health apparently had postponed their appointment by the Southern Baptist Foreign Missionary Board. Then, by coincidence—or divine intervention—the president of the Baptist Seminary in Rio de Janeiro spoke at a meeting in Calhoun in 1939.”

The Hankins were there, and the seminary president encouraged them to fulfill their dream.

“We were told we wouldn’t starve if we went as independent missionaries,” Rev. Hankins said.” He sought Nina’s opinion, and she replied that “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.”

Within months, Rev. Hankins resigned as pastor in Cleburne, Texas, and the family packed to move to Brazil. Nona was eight years old, and Billy was five. They sailed from New Orleans aboard the steamship Delmundo (interestingly, the Delmundo was sunk by a German U-Boat two years later near Cuba), landing in Rio de Janeiro. 

The Delmundo

From there they traveled to Mato Grosso, a large state in west-central Brazil about three times the size of Texas. Few people live there; the land even today is mostly covered with Amazon rainforest, wetlands and plains. Hankins told a newspaper reporter that “because the area was almost inaccessible by road, it was a haven for criminals and revolutionaries.”

Rev. Hankins recalled that he arrived in Brazil with only $300 in his pocket, and a Portuguese-English dictionary. He practiced the language for three months before delivering his first sermon. His former congregation in Texas sent the family off with a “portable folding organ and a piano-accordion”, along with a pledge to pay half their living expenses.

Even so, they “became accustomed to a steady diet of fish, rice and black beans.” Despite the challenges, they established an orphanage and worked to convert the people of the area.

They remained in Brazil for twenty-five years, returning to the United States occasionally to speak at missionary events and to visit family. 

While in Brazil, they added two children to the family, son Jerry Otis Hankins, born in September, 1947, and daughter Nina Eunice Hankins, no birth date available. I am not sure if either of these children were adopted from the orphanage. Nina Eunice chose to marry and remain in Brazil. The other three children returned to the United States, settling down in Texas and Indiana.

Following their retirement from mission work in 1965, Rev. Hankins served as interim pastor back in Owensboro, Kentucky and later in Arkansas and Texas. Rev. Hankins died in 1999 and Nina died January 6, 1997 at the age of 88.

Nina and her husband did more than merely worship. They literally lived their faith, risking everything to travel to a remote area where they tried to share their beliefs with others.

 

Sources:

“Cleburne Pair to Go to Brazil”. Fort Worth Telegram, May 4, 1940. Newspapers.com.

“Just a Simple Preacher: Hankins, family spend 25 years as South America Missionaries.” Owensboro Messenger Inquirer, Owensboro, KY. Dec 8, 1975. Newspapers.com

Obituary for Clyde Hankins Sr., The Marshall News Messenger. Thursday, Nov 25, 1999. Newspapers.com.

Obituary for Nina Pearl Dodson Hankins. The Messenger Inquirer. Owensboro, KY. Tues., January 7, 1997. https://www.newspapers.com/image/380325933

Missionary Conference. The Southwest Wave. Los Angeles, CA. Oct. 31, 1946. Newspapers.com.