Here Goes Nothing!

I have been interested in history for as long as I'm able to remember.  While my brothers and cousins were outside playing, I would be sitting at the feet of my great grandparents, grandparents and relatives listening to stories about family history or asking questions about "the old days."   I just couldn't get enough history.

As I grew up, I enjoyed history in school and read history and biographical books.  I obtained a degree in American History from Washburn University in Topeka, Kansas and taught American History at St. Marys High School, St. Marys, Kansas.   In addition to family history, I began to collect history about my home community, Maple Hill, Kansas and about Maple Hill Township in Wabaunsee County, Kansas.   I wrote a feature column on local history named "Notes From Moundview Farm" for the St. Marys Star and the Alma Signal Enterprise.   I just lived and breathed history.

In 1968, I became a charter member of the Wabaunsee County Historical Society, Alma, Kansas and in 1970 was elected to its board of directors.  The organization was just founding the county's first historical museum and as a result of that volunteer work, I became very interested in museology, the study of museums.  With the encouragement of my family, I entered graduate school at the University of Idaho and obtained a masters of fine arts of American History with a minor in Museums Studies.

The U of I Museums Studies, under the leadership of Dr. G. Ellis Burcaw, was one of the finest and his Introduction to Museum Studies, was the only text available at that time.   I didn't really intend to do so, but my museum career centered on the building and founding of museums.  As a result I became executive or founding director of Heritage Hill State Park in Green Bay, Wisconsin, the Southern Oregon Historical Society in Medford/Jacksonville, Oregon, Minnetrista Cultural Center, Muncie, Indiana and Museums at Prophetstown, Lafayette/Battle Ground, Indiana.

Between 1968 and my retirement in 2000, I was actively engaged in history and genealogy as both a career and a hobby.   My goal in collecting and writing history was always to write.   Unfortunately, I was busy in raising a family, my career and other activities and never was able to do as much writing as I wanted.    I have so much family information and a large collection of historic photographs.  I now wish to use this blog to share that information with my family and readers.

I will be writing about Maple Hill, Kansas and Maple Hill Township in Wabaunsee County, Kansas and related subjects.  Like most historians, I will make every effort to use only factual information and when I am speculating, I will say so.   I will site sources at the end of articles.  Many of the photos I have gathered have been given to me by various owners or have been copies with the permission of owners.   I will share that information also.

Since I am now 66-years-old, I feel I must prioritize the sharing of family information.   My maternal grandmother, Mildred McCauley Corbin Clark and my paternal grandmother, Mabel Jones Clark, both left their photo albums and collections to me.   Both did so saying that I had always been interested in family history and they felt certain that I would share them with family.   I intend to do so in this blog.   I will accompany photos with oral history.   In some cases, I wrote down this oral history as told to me by various family members.   In some cases (and this is unfortunate) I have only my own admittedly flawed oral recollections.  I have tried to verify as much of this information as possible by conducting genealogy in a professional way through original research and web research.

Unfortunately, a major source of that information, my mother, Lucille Corbin Clark, passed away in January 2011 at almost 90 years of age.   Mother's mind remained crystal clear right up to her last minutes and I was always thankful to be able to pick up the phone and call her for enlightenment or verification.   I made about 30 hours of tape recordings of my two grandmothers and also made written interviews which are very helpful.   As psychological research has shown over past decades, oral histories are not perfect.   In fact, after ten years, psychologists tell us only about 25% of information is absolutely accurate.   We tend to remember extremes, the things that make us very happy or sad.  Every day life is often not remembered or is remembered inaccurately.   I am only able to promise that I will do my best to be accurate and to not include a great deal of person bias, guessing, or conjecture.

Listed here are the principal lines that I will be discussing:
Clark and Jones - the families of my father, John Leander "Tim" Clark
Corbin and McCauley - the families of my mother, Lucille "Lucy" Corbin Clark
Jones and Miller - the families of my paternal grandmother, Mable Jones Clark
Clark and Woody - the families of my paternal grandfather, James Peter "Jim Pete" Clark
McCauley and Lemon - the families of my maternal grandmother, Mildred McCauley Corbin Clark
Corbin and Todd - the families of my maternal grandfather, Robert Corbin

Without a doubt, the Clark and Jones lines have been the most difficult, two of the most common surnames.   I can trace those ancestors with accuracy only into the mid-1700s.

The Corbin family has many famous ancestors and once I had completed two or three generations of ancestors, I was able to trace the family back 26 generations to 1066 and the famous Doomsday Books in England (although the Corbins are most likely of Viking descent.)

The McCauley's are of Scot/Irish descent and immigrated to America in 1871 from the little village of Beragh, County Tyrone, Ireland.  Robert McCauley and his wife, Roseann McCrystal McCauley first stopped in Illinois for a very short time, and then moved on to a 360-acre farm in Mitchell County, Kansas.   The farm was about 10 miles from Beloit, Kansas.   I do not know if the family had means in Ireland, but their Mitchell County land was quite fertile and Robert became very comfortable.  The McCauley's were Catholics.   Their son, Samuel McCauley, married Lucy Mae Lemon and they lived on a farm in the Snokomo Community, near Maple Hill.

Our branch of the Miller Family has an excellent genealogist in Donna Sundsmo, and most of that work can be found on Ancestry.com.   The Millers are of German ancestry, moved to West Virginia, then Missouri and Kansas.    I have many pictures of Miller descendants which I will be sharing.

The earliest Clark ancestor I am able to verify is Charles Clark who was born in Pennsylvania in the last half of the 1700s, moved to Kentucky in the early 1800s, to Clay County, Indiana in the 1820s and to Wabaunsee County, Kansas in the 1870s.   Many "cousins" have worked on the Clark family history and most of us seem to hit a dead end in Pennsylvania in the mid-1700s.  There are just too many Charles Clarks.   I'm hoping that via this blog, I may be able to trace the Clark family further back in time.

My Woody line descends from William and Percilla Woody who settled in North Carolina and whose descendants then moved to Lumpkin County, Georgia.   From there my great grandfather, Peter Littleton Woody moved to Platte County, Missouri and finally to Wabaunsee County, Kansas in 1871.  The family has been traced by many into England.

I have a great deal of information about the Lemon family and many pictures.   My earliest known ancestor is Charles Lemon who was born in America but whose parents were Irish immigrants.  Charles moved to the Pontiac, Oakland County, Michigan area in the late 1820s and eventually lived in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Kansas where he died in Rice County, at nearly 100 years of age.  My immediate Lemon ancestors migrated to Kansas from Iowa in the early 1870s and mostly settled near Maple Hill, Wabaunsee County, Kansas.

My Todd line is of Irish derivation and comes through Virginia, Kentucky, and Missouri to Kansas.  I want to dash an old myth at the beginning:  Mary Todd Lincoln is not one of our direct ancestors!  Our Todd family has no such famous ancestors to my knowledge and are mostly from hard-working farm families in both Ireland and America.

With that dear readers, I will bring this first post to an end.  I look forward to sharing information and photographs and also to hearing your comments and receiving your inquiries.   Happy trails!