Ancestor Archives: Mary Jane Meador (1834-1897)

by Rocky Macy

Mary Jane MEADOR was born on May 4, 1834 in Breckenridge County, Kentucky, to Thomas and Sarah “Sallie’ (SNYDER) MEADOR.    She married Charles MACY on February 19, 1852, at the home of her parents in Breckenridge County.  Mary Jane passed away in Newton County, Missouri on July 27, 1897.

 

She was my great-great-grandmother.

 

Charles and Mary Jane, both natives of Kentucky, began their married lives in Breckenridge County near all four of their parents.  While they were living there, Mary Jane gave birth to three children:  Robert Taylor (December 24, 1852), Mary Elizabeth (September 15, 1854), and Sarah Lydia (October 1, 1855).  Sometime after the birth of Sarah Lydia – probably in the spring of 1856 or 1857 – the young family removed to Edgar County, Illinois, along with several of their relatives, where they joined a wagon train headed to Kansas Territory.
 
(Kansas had been opened for settlement in the spring of 1854 by virtue of the Kansas-Nebraska Act.  During the next few years many immigrants from other states flooded into the state - some seeking land and opportunity, and others trying to stack the populace politically with either abolitionists or pro-slavers.  The MACY family appears to have been seeking land and opportunities, and Charles MACY did not participate in the upcoming Civil War on either side.)
 
In March of 1857 Charles and Mary Jane settled near the new community of Emporia in what was then Madison County.   There, according to the book “Macy Family” that was compiled and published by one of their descendants, Betty TUGGLE BELL in 1998, they purchased land for $1.25 an acre.    The neighboring parcel of land was purchased by Jesse MACY and his wife, Theodocia (MEADOR) MACY, who had come to Kansas in the same wagon train as Charles and Mary Jane.  Jesse was Charles’ next younger brother, and “Docia” was Mary Jane’s sister.
 
According to Betty TUGGLE BELL’s account, Theodocia MACY died on October 20, 1861, presumably during childbirth, along with an infant, and is buried in Topeka, Kansas.  Jesse went back to Breckenridge County, Kentucky, where he was living when he registered for the Civil War draft in 1863.   He remarried in Kentucky and died in Breckenridge County on November 9, 1921.
 
Charles and Mary Jane stayed in Kansas for about ten years.    While they were there Mary Jane gave birth to four children:  Nancy Elizabeth (November 8, 1858), William Stephen (January 17, 1862), Martha Jane (January 23, 1864), and Rachel Frances (February 26, 1866).
 
The family moved from Kansas sometime after the birth of Rachel Frances and relocated to Newton County in southwest Missouri.  There they had two more children:  Charles Thomas (October 2, 1868), and Laura Isabel (November 26, 1874).
 
(The first two of the MACY children died young.   Robert Taylor passed away in either Kansas or Missouri on November 7, 1866, at the young age of thirteen, and Mary Elizabeth lived less than three months after her birth in Breckenridge County, Kentucky, and died there on December 11, 1854.)
 
The next five children – Sarah Lydia, Nancy Elizabeth, William Stephen, Martha Jane, and Rachel Frances – were all attending the Reding School in rural Newton County in 1872, and it would seem likely that the younger two children went to school there as well when they were older.   The Reding School became known as the Belfast School in the 1880’s.
 
My father’s double-cousin, Helen MACY PEARMAN, gave me a few handwritten records from the Reding School which I have sadly misplaced.   She also gave me another handwritten document – one page - that listed some of the children living in the area surrounding the Reding School, and that document I have managed to retain!
 
The document was an area “child census “ of sorts that listed the children of the surrounding community and specified which ones were attending the school by providing the ages of those children.  The names were on a formal register sheet that had been designed and printed for that purpose, and it was full, bearing the names of twenty-six boys in one column and twenty-six girls in the other.  The fact that it was full would indicate that there would have been at least one more page, but Cousin Helen apparently felt that I needed only this one because it contained the names of the five MACY children who were attending the Reding School at the time this “child census” was taken.
 
For the sake of posterity, I am going to list all of the children whose names appeared on that register.  If there is a number following a name, that indicates the age of the child and the fact that he or she was enrolled and attending school.  Those children without their ages listed were not attending the school.  The heading states that the information was collected between the first and third Saturdays in April of 1872.  
 
The boys were:  Frederich A. WILLERT (6), William WILSON (10), William MARTIN (16), William C. CARPENTER (14), Edmund T. SHEWMAKE, William R. SHEWMAKE, William T. JOHNSON (18), James H. JOHNSON (9), William C. JOHNSON (13), A.N. JOHNSON, John E. REDING (13), William J. REDING (9), William S. MACY (10), John C. VIRGIN, Lynn A. VIRGIN, Michael HALPIN (15), Lyda HALPIN (12), William F. BUZZARD, John S. BUZZARD (16), Jonathan L. BUZZARD (12), William A. SPEARS, Francis M. SPEARS (10), John H. SPEARS, Henry F. WILLERT (7), William H. BAKER, and Thomas BAKER.
 
Of the twenty-six boys, sixteen were attending school, and an astounding eleven were named William – including my great-grandfather, William S. MACY, who was ten-years-old at that time.
 
The girls were:  Martha REDING, Sarah A. SPEARS, Hetty H. SPEARS (12), Mary A. HALPIN (6), Charlotte SCHWEITZER, Elizabeth BAKER, Margaret A. BAKER (14), Louisa BAKER (12), Alvira BAKER (10), Minnie WILLERT (8), Angeline BURCH, Gellisfy A. MARTIN, Emma J. MARTIN (11), Martha E. CARPENTER (12), Nancy N. PIRTLE, Noreisfa A. SHEWMAKE, Lucinda T. SHEWMAKE, M.E. SHEWMAKE, Sarah Ann JOHNSON, Elisa W. JOHNSON (13), Lizzie JOHNSON (6), Sarah MACY (16), Nancy MACY (15), Martha J. MACY (8), Ratchel F. MACY (6), and Annie VIRGIN.
 
Fourteen of twenty-six girls were attending school, including four from the household of Charles and Mary Jane MACY.  (“Ratchel F.” on the roster should, of course, have been “Rachel F.”)  It’s interesting to note that the MACY family had five children who were old enough to be attending school, and all five were enrolled.  According to the 1870 US Census for Neosho Township of Newton County, Missouri, neither parent, Charles or Mary Jane, reported that they had attended school themselves, yet both claimed to be able to read and write.   (Though when Mary Jane signed a property inventory following the death of her husband, she did so with “her mark,” an “X.”)   Seeing that the children received an education was obviously a priority of at least one of the parents – and perhaps both.
 
Charles MACY passed away under mysterious circumstances in 1876.  At that time only their oldest surviving child, Sarah Lydia, had married and left home, and Mary Jane was left to raise the remaining six on her own.   Mary Jane lived another twenty years, long enough to see each of her seven surviving children married and with their own families.
 
Sarah Lydia married William Nathan SPEARS,  Nancy Elizabeth married John McNeal WHITE,  William Stephen wed Louella RITCHARD,  Martha Jane “Mattie” married William M. CRISWELL, Rachel Frances married 1. Aiden (Arthur) E. EDSON, and 2. William E. O’CONNOR, Charles Thomas became the husband of Minnie. A. HARGRAVES, and Laura Isabel wed William E. CARUTHERS.
 
According to the Macy family Bible that remained in the possession of the youngest child, Laura Isabel, Mary Jane MACY passed away on July 27, 1896, but her tombstone at New Salem Cemetery in Newton County, Missouri, clearly states that she died on July 27, 1897.  On the bottom of her tombstone is this:  “Mother is gone but not forgotten.”
 
And to this day her memory lives on.
 
(Post Script:  In her 1998 book, “Macy Family,” author and compiler Betty TUGGLE BELL included a recipe for “Cheese” that was thought to have been passed down from Mary Jane (MEADOR) MACY.  She said that the recipe had been used by several of Mary Jane’s granddaughters, and that she (Betty) had received it from her grandmother who was also one of Mary Jane’s granddaughters.  That recipe follows.)
 

Cheese:
 
One quart of cottage cheese (homemade from raw milk) run thru a food chopper to  make it fine.  Add one teaspoon of soda, one-and-a-half teaspoons of salt – and let it stand for half-an-hour.  Then mix in one tablespoon of butter and let it stand for two hours.  Dissolve one-quarter teaspoon of pimento cheese coloring (or pimento pepper) in one-half cup of sour cream.  Mix in pan with wide bottom and set it in a skillet of hot water and place it on the fire.  Stir until the white curds are dissolved.  Pour in mold and let it cool.  It takes about three small pimentos ground.

 
Good luck with that heritage recipe from the kitchen of Mary Jane (MEADOR) MACY!