Warren County, Iowa was formed in 1846. The county seat is Indianola.
In the 1830s settlers began arriving in Iowa from Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, Kentucky, and Virginia. Iowa became a state in 1846.
Leathy Ann Taylor Stringfield Gilman was born on January 22, 1851 in Shelby County, Ohio. She was the daughter of Jacob Taylor and Sarah Branstiter.
Leathy married, William Ray Stringfield in McLean County, Illinois on September 22, 1872. William was born in June, 1851 in Missouri. His parents were William Ray Stringfield and Almyra Simpson. His father died when he was quite young. In 1870 he was living in Funk's Grove, McLean County, Illinois with his siblings, Thomas and Ada.
Leathy and William's children were:
Louise Stringfield (1873), Jessie May Stringfield Williamson (1875, married John Elmer Williamson) and
Sarah Alice (Allie) F. Stringfield (1877).
William died on March 10, 1877.
Des Moines Register, 13
An accident occurred Saturday at a coal shaft at Summerset, the junction of the Winterset and Indianola branches, that resulted in the instant death of an employe. A man named Stringfield volunteered to go to the top of the mine and adjust the rope on the hoisting apparatus. He was so engaged when the cage and water barrel at the end of the rope was precipitated down the shaft, and in falling the slack of the rope was taken up. By some means the loop at the loose end of the rope became looped around the man's neck and the sudden jerk of the heavy cage instantly broke, his neck. The deceased was a blacksmith, and leaves a wife and several small children unprovided for.
He was buried with Leathy's father, sister, and brothers in row 37 of Carlisle Cemetery.
Alice married Charles B. Schooler in 1895 and they had five children. They were
Karl P. Schooler (1898),
Edith H. Schooler Conant (1900-1955) who married Harry Clair Conant (1896-1963) in 1902,
Anna Arnitus Schooler (1904),
Dean Harold Schooler (1907-1999 married Ellen Lavaun Gardner (1910-1999), and
Murray Schooler (1910-1994 married Mary Ellen (1913-1994)).
Allie lived next door to her grandmother Sarah Taylor at the time of the 1900 census.
Leathy married, Henry C. Gilman on February 13, 1879. Henry was born in July, 1836 in Pennsylania. He was the son of Michael Gilman and Elizabeth McCoy.
Henry had children from a previous marriage: Laura A. Gilman (1854) and Walter Lorain Gilman (1867).
Leathy and Henry had one child, Harry Michael Gilman (1883-1911) who married Mary.
The Gilmans appeared in the 1880 census in the 5th Ward of Des Moines, Polk County, Iowa. The household consisted of C. H. Gillman age 43, Lethe A. age 29, Walter age 13, Jessie M. age five, and Alice age three.
Leathy was left a widow again on July 22, 1893 when Henry died. She (Lethe Gilman) appeared in the 1900 census in Des Moines, Iowa with her daughter Jessie Stringfield and her seventeen year old son, Harry M. Gilman. They had three roomers. At the time of her mother's death in 1911 she was living in Somerset, Iowa.
At the time of the 1910 census Leathy was with her mother and sisters in Lincoln Township, Warren County, Iowa. The household consisted of Leathy A. Gilman age 59, Sarah Taylor age 82, Sarah Jane Burgett age 51 and Louisa Long age 61.
She died at age 63 on September 12, 1914 in Summerset, Warren County, Iowa. She is buried in Palmyra Cemetery, Warren County, Iowa with her third husband Henry. The inscription on her tombstone reads "Leatha Ann Taylor, Wife of C.H. (sic) Gilman, Jan. 22, 1851, Sep. 12. 1914."
Shelby County, Ohio is in western Ohio and was formed in 1819 from Miami County.
Illinois became a state in 1818. A large influx of American settlers came in the 1810s by the Ohio River.
Baptist churches were found in early colonial settlements and grew out of the English Separatist movement and the doctrine of John Smyth who rejected infant baptism.
Chariton Leader
February 23, 1965 Jessie Williamson Jessie May, daughter of William and Leathy Ann Taylor Stringfield, was born in Illinois on July 14, 1875, and departed this life on February 12, 1965 at the age of 89 years, six months and 28 days. Her parents came to Lucas county when she was a small child and lived on a farm in Lincoln township and later moved to Summerset in Warren county where she grew to young womanhood. She was educated in the schools there and taught for a number of years in the rural schools in different places in Iowa. She was converted in early girlhood and united with the Baptist church in Summerset.
On January 25, 1905, she was married to John Elmer Williamson of Lucas county, and all of their married life was spent on the same farm in Lincoln township where he passed away on June 15, 1935.
In 1938 she bought a home at 616 East Court ave., where she resided until September 26, 1964 when she suffered a broken hip and was taken to the Jefferson Rest Home in Indianola where she passed away.
After moving to Chariton, Mrs. Williamson became an active member of the W.C.T.U. [Women's Christian Temperance Union]. She was keenly interested in any cause that was for the betterment of the community. Her interest extended to state and national affairs, and she never failed to vote at each election, even requesting that an absentee ballot be brought to her hospital room.
She was preceded in death by her husband, one sister Louisa Stringfield, a half-brother Harry Gilman, one niece, Edith Schooler Conanat and her husband Harry Conant, and two grand-nephews, Nathan Schooler and LeRoy Schooler. Those left to mourn her passing are one sister, Mrs. Allie Schooler, four nephews: Karl Dean, and Murray Schooler of Indianola, Arthur Gilman of California, one niece, Mrs. Arneitus Holmes of Indianola, twelve grand-nieces and nephews, and other relatives including four cousins.
Services were conducted Tuesday, Feb. 16, 1965, at 1 p.m., at Miley Funeral with Pastor John Bauserman officiating. Interment was at Chariton Cemetery.
Chariton is the county seat of Lucas County, Iowa and is in Lincoln Township.
Frank Myers wrote: "Palmyra consists of the restored Palmyra church (which I think
is a museum rather than in active use) on the east side of a paved
Warren County road and houses and a few other buildings on the
west. The cemetery also is on the east side of the road perhaps
a quarter of a mile north of the church. It is an aggressively maintained
cemetery - not a blade of grass out of place, all stones (including some
very old ones) upright, and all graves very close together (no wasted
space). This is not a relaxed old cemetery like Salem, it's darned
uptight. Cars whiz by every few minutes, since Palmyra is within easy
commuting distance of Des Moines.
Once again, the Taylors have a front-row seat. Contrary to the description
given in the Warren County inscription book, Leatha's grave is the third south
of the center drive just inside the gate - in the first row of graves from west to
east.
Leatha's stone is white marble, chest high, a thick slab with some
decorative elements atop a base slab. The inscription reads,
LEATHA ANN
TAYLOR
Wife of
C. H. GILMAN
Jan. 22, 1851
Sep. 12, 1914
The next stone is shorter, waist high, a white marble square with a peaked
top atop a larger base slab. It's inscription reads,
HENRY GILMAN
DIED JULY 22, 1893
AGED
56ys, 11m
22d
If you're interested in eternal neatness, this would be a great place to
be planted, but it's not the sort of place you'd care to linger and spend
quality time with your ancestors.
Anyway, we drove on north of Palmyra, turned west at a sign marked
Middle River Friends Church "Evangelical" (i.e. Baptist Quakers),
then past the church and across the Middle River valley into Carlisle
from its southeast corner.
This brought us to the Carlisle cemetery from the south. I could not make out the inscriptions on the stones marking
the Taylor children's' graves, although more was evident. One of these
days I'll try a rubbing.
The initial on William Stringfield's tombstone is indeed an "R." The
inscription reads,
WILLIAM R. STRINGFIELD
1851-1877
Husband of Leathy Ann Taylor
As you probably know from the cemetery book, there's an
inscription on the back that reads, "This memorial replaced
in 1981 by Karl Schooler, Grandson."
So if there were reliable evidence that William's middle
inscription were something other than "R," I'd take this one
with a grain of granite. After all, Karl Schooler may have had
no better an inscription to translate when he commissioned
this new stone than we still have on the three Taylor children's'
stones."
A grist mill is a building where a miller grinds gain into flour.
from Cemetery and Death Records of Warren County, Iowa, by the Warren County Genealogical Society, 1980.
A saw mill was constructed at Summerset in 1848 by Beach and John D. Parmalee. A grist mill was added in 1849. Coal mining was important to the community as early as 1870. In 1865 Michael Gillman constructed a three and one/half story frame mill on the same site as the Beach mill at a cost of $20,000. Michael Gillman laid out the town of Summerset in 1872.
A sawmill was an important developmental step in a community. Before sawmills, boards could only be sawn by two men with a whipsaw. In a sawmill, the circular motion of a water wheel was changed to the back-and-forth motion of the saw blade with a pitman arm.
