The Stanbrough Family of Westfield

In case you don’t know, Westfield is in Indiana.  My connection to the place is through my mom.  My mom was Betty Lou Bucklin and she was born in Hathaway, Louisiana, on May 20, 1933.  She was born just 52 days after her great grandmother Susan G. Stanbrough Hine died.  My mom’s dad was Fred D. Bucklin, the son of Susan G.’s daughter Addie May Hine Bucklin.  But Susan was better known as Sue.  Her siblings called her that, her niblings called her Aunt Sue, so I always refer to her as Grandma Sue.

Sue was born on October 3, 1851, to John Stanbrough and Lydia Mills Stanbrough in Westfield, Indiana.  She was the sixth of twelve children to be born to this couple.  She had an older half-brother by her father and his first wife.  Albert was born in 1839 to John and Lydia Hunt Stanbrough.  Lydia Hunt Stanbrough died in 1842 at just 21 years of age.  John’s father Evan James Stanbrough had died earlier that year, so that year started out rough.  In addition to those deaths, he also had two sisters and a brother that died in 1842.  The oldest sibling that died was only 28 years old.  I had never noted this fact before.  That was definitely a tough year for my ancestor.

He remarried the next year to Lydia Mills, and children soon followed.  Nelson was born in 1844, Joseph in 1845, Julietta “Etta” in 1847, Mary Etta “Mollie” in 1848, James Evan “Jim” in 1850, and our Sue in 1851.  Those were followed by Anna Jane in 1853 and Lucius in 1854.  Lucius lived for less than three weeks.  He was the only one of these twelve children that had a short lifespan.  Following those, there was Sarah Eliza “Ida” in 1856, Elisha “Ell” in 1857, Nathan Oliver “Oll” in 1860, and Charles Romanzo “Man” in 1863.  All of the children were born in Westfield, though sometimes I’ve seen that the property was located in Eagletown.  Eagletown is now an unincorporated area around Westfield.

John himself was from a large family.  He was the fifth of thirteen children, and he had been born in Ohio in 1820.  The first nine children were born Ohio, and then the family moved to Indiana around 1830.  His family was Quaker with a pretty long history in the United States.  The Quakers kept lots of records, which is very helpful for genealogists and those interested in family history.

Sue and her older siblings had their parents and their remaining grandparents for a few years.  Her older half-brother Albert died in July of 1854 at the age of 15.  Just a few days later her mom’s mother Elizabeth Brown Mills died at the age of 61.  I was thinking she was so much older, but she was younger than I am now.  Those two deaths happened just a few months before the birth and death of little Lucius, so that must have been a difficult time period for the family as well.

They lost their paternal grandmother Elizabeth Frances Hester Stanbrough in 1861 and their maternal grandfather James Mills in 1869.  By this time Sue was practically an adult and ready to be out on her own.   Her mother died in March of 1873.  Lydia Mills Stanbrough was only 49 years old at the time of her death.  Her youngest child Man was only 9 years old at the time of her death.  I’m sure some of the older siblings helped their father care for the younger ones.  Others were getting married and starting families of their own.  Grandma Sue was one of the latter.

Sue Stanbrough married George Hine on October 12, 1873, probably in Westfield.  In 1876 my great grandmother Addie was born in Noblesville, Indiana.  That’s not too far from Westfield.  I’m sure she was in close contact with the rest of the family then and in 1877 when her father John died as a result of poisoning himself with morphine.  He had remarried a woman with six children of her own and they were having difficulties.  He was also having financial problems.  On top of that it looks like he was suffering terribly from painful symptoms of malaria.  It was another tragic time for the Stanbrough family.

Sue and George stayed in Indiana and added five sons to their family.  They then moved south to Louisiana in 1894.  According to a newspaper article in 1926, Grandma Sue never returned even to visit Indiana.  Several of her siblings lived out their lives there.  Others of them moved to different states.  Joseph ended up in New Mexico, Mollie in Michigan (with her daughter), Ida in West Virginia, and brother Jim lived in Louisiana with Sue’s family. 

Even though the family was spread out, it seems like they stayed close.  I have copies of letters and photos that they sent each other through the years. That’s how I learned some interesting details about their lives.  It’s also how I got these interesting photos of the Stanbrough family.  They represent cherished memories of Sue’s family back in Westfield.  That’s why they’ve lasted through the years.