Category: Stanbrough

I found an article about one of my ancestors about three years ago and was very intrigued by it.  I knew I would write a story about it at some point, I just had to find the right time.  But it seems that there never is a right time when writing about an ancestor’s suicide.

So even though it doesn’t feel like the right time, it does feel like the time to write it.  At least that’s what I’m doing.  The ancestor I’m talking about is John Stanbrough, my great great great grandfather.  Obviously I didn’t know him, but I do think about him from time to time.  There is no photo of him that I know of, even though he did live into the time of photography.  At the time of his birth in 1820, photography was not around.  But during his 57 years of living, it had developed quite a bit.

Let me tell you about my connection to him.  I am the son of Betty Lou Bucklin Landry.  Her father was Fred Bucklin, who was the son of Addie May Hine Bucklin.  Addie was the daughter of Susan Stanbrough Hine.  Sue was the third daughter and sixth child of John Stanbrough & Lydia Mills Stanbrough.   There was an older half brother by her father’s first wife.  She also had six younger siblings.

John Stanbrough was born November 18, 1820, in Clinton County, Ohio.   He was a Quaker.  For a genealogist, that is a good thing because it means that there are lots of records for that person and their ancestors.  The Stanbrough or Stanborough family had been in the US for many generations.  They started out in New York and moved on to Tennessee.  Our line went on to Ohio and then to Indiana around 1830.  Grandma Sue brought our line down to Louisiana in 1894.

John married Lydia Hunt in 1838.  They had one son together in 1839 and then Lydia died in 1842.  Not long after that, John met another Lydia.  This one had the last name of Mills.   They were married on Sept. 20, 1843.  If you added up the children I mentioned earlier, you’d know that they had a dozen children together over about a 20 year period.

The Noblesville Ledger from March 24, 1873, in Indiana.

Then in 1873, just 10 years after the birth of their last child, Lydia died at the age of 50.  The Noblesville, Indiana, newspaper article incorrectly gives her age at death as 45.  This was the second Lydia that he had lost.   And she was an “estimable lady.”

Later that year, Sue Stanbrough married George Hine and they started a family.  Addie May was born on Sept. 23, 1876, in Noblesville, so there were some happy things going on for John at the time.  He must have gotten lonely again (even with several children in his house), because he decided to get married again in 1877.  He married the widow Margaret Hollis Embree on June 3.  She was 16 years younger and she had six children of her own. 

Obituary of John Stanbrough

I had seen a lot of this information before three years ago when I first saw the transcription of the newspaper article about John Stanbrough’s death.  I wonder if his friends and neighbors were surprised like I was to see this information about a suicide?  What would make a recently married man feel that this was the choice he should make?

The article gives a few clues.  John took an overdose of morphine.  He was able to get grains of morphia without any question from a doctor.  He was taking quinine because he suffered from ague.  This condition of recurring severe chills and fever and him taking quinine point to malaria, which is usually accompanied by pain in the bones and joints.  Chronic pain is not an easy thing to deal with.  Yet this was not cited as a possible cause for his “rash act.”

The article does talk about John leaving a message as to how to dispose of his personal effects.  They suspected that his reasons for the action were marital “infelicity” and financial problems.  They point out that he only married his wife seven months ago, that she had six children, and that they didn’t get along particularly well.  Yet she, also, was an “estimable” woman. 

I’m sure this hit Grandma Sue quite hard.  She was living in the same town at the time and her younger siblings were in the house when all of the commotion was going on.  It was a traumatic time for the Stanbrough household of 1877 Noblesville.  I’m sure it was not John’s intention to traumatize his family.  All he could probably see was the pain and problems that he was experiencing.  He likely thought that they’d be better off without him.

A thought that nobody else likely agreed with.

The family of George Hine and Susan Stanbrough with relatives (presumably) circa 1898.

Here is an old photo from the collection.  Maybe I should say it is from the collective.  (Resistance is futile!)  It is from a collection of photos from my mom’s side of the family.  My grandfather’s sisters collected old photos and passed them on to my mom’s cousin Louise.  She and her son Joseph have scanned them and generously share them with family, including me.  This photo has been edited quite a bit to clean it up and make repairs.  Joseph started it and then shared it with me.  I cleaned it up a bit more and brought it to this version.

The first version I ever saw was quite decrepit.  I’ll tell you why.  It looks like one of the things that Louise did was to print out many of these old photos and made photocopies.  Then she went around (or mailed them out) asking the aunts and cousins to identify as many of the people as they could.  There were some identifications attributed to my mom.  She had a good memory for many years and was pretty good at recognizing those old relatives.  The famed family historian Edith Keys Segraves was questioned for some of those photos.

For this photo, Edna Bucklin Keys was consulted.  She identified the older couple sitting to the right as “Grandpa” and “Susan Stanbrough Hine.”  On the left border of the photo it read “Stanbrough family?”  Evidently no one knew who the other people in this photo were, but it was assumed that they were family.  I tend to agree.

1898 – Detail with names

I’m pretty sure that their daughter Addie Hine is standing behind Grandpa George Hine and Grandma Sue.  (Addie was the mother of my maternal grandfather Fred Bucklin.) She is usually standing behind her parents in photos, and in some she has her hand on her mother’s shoulder.  I recognize their sons from other photos that I’ve seen.

On the right is their son Rowe.  To the left of Addie is Jim and the next male to the left is Lonnie (also in dark jacket).  The youngest son Ollie is sitting on the ground and also wearing a dark jacket.  There is another son named Bert and I assume that it is him standing behind Addie.

The other people in the photo are a mystery.  As Aunt Edna indicated, they could be extended Stanbrough family. Grandma Sue had eleven siblings and one older half brother. The other possibility is that the others were part of the extended Hine family.  Grandpa George had six siblings.  Both sides of the family lived in Indiana.

I’m thinking this was two families taking a photograph together.  The older woman sitting on the left and the man standing next to her are likely the parents or grandparents of the other people in the photo.  I looked through my family tree to see if any family grouping looked similar in structure to the one in the photo, but I don’t think I have enough information to come to any conclusion.  So a mystery they remain.

In the meantime I will be looking to see if anyone from those extended Stanbrough and Hine families post the same photo or photos of the same people.  If you perchance should know who any of them are, do let me know.  I would greatly appreciate it.

I really like this old photo.  It was probably not something that was cherished, however.  It is a bit of a blurry photo.  I think it came from my second cousin Joseph Connors (his maternal grandfather Herbert Bucklin was the brother of my maternal grandfather Fred).  He found an envelope of old negatives from a special event back in the 1920s.

Oct. 3, 1926 – Grandma Sue with her family at her birthday bash.

The special event was Grandma Sue (Susan G. Stanbrough Hine, maternal grandmother of Herbert and Fred) and her good friend Jennie’s (Edessa Jane Welton Havenar, grandmother of our Keys family historian Edith Keys Segraves) joint birthday celebration.  They both had an October 3 birthday and they celebrated together with a joint celebration for at least 20 years.  I know that because there was a newspaper article about that big celebration in 1926.  There were lots of photos taken of family and friends.

You’ve already seen some of the large group photos of most of the attendees because Joseph and I have shared them previously.  Then there were a few pictures of Grandma Sue with her children and grandchildren.  And then there’s this photo.  It might have been a throwaway photo that only survived because the negatives were grouped together.

But I like the photo.  It’s a photo of the family and it includes Grandma Sue, her daughter Addie (my great grandmother), some of her sons, grandsons, and granddaughters.  The fun thing about the photo is its defect.  It’s either a double exposure with the second exposure being a long one, or it was a long exposure and people didn’t realize it.  Because you can see one of the granddaughters in two places.  You can see that she was initially standing in beside Grandma Sue and then she must have made a mad dash to get to somewhere else.

You can also see one of the Hine men (a brother of Addie) on the right is turning around to look toward the men who are talking in front of their sporty new cars.  Another granddaughter on the left with a Y type collar can be seen walking away to the left.  You can just make out some of the feet of people who have moved forward after the first exposure (or after the initial exposure.)

Meanwhile it looks like Grandma Sue hasn’t moved a bit.  It was her 75th birthday celebration after all.  She might have slowed down a little at that point.  So the picture captures more than just a split second from that day.  It captures some of the movement as well.  It’s the closest thing we have to a video or Live photo from back then.

Article from the Jennings Daily Times Record from Dec. 12, 1906

I thought I would also share an article I found that relates to this annual birthday celebration.  This is part of page 8 of the Jennings Daily Times Record from Dec. 12, 1906.  They are giving the news from the Raymond area.  The first few articles are about people I don’t know nor recognize any names.  Then there is a little blurb about some of the Hine family visiting in Jennings.

After that is some information about the weather and how it affects the farmers of the area.  It’s interesting to see what they wrote in the papers back then.  I’m glad they did, because I have been able to find some interesting articles about my family.  Like the next part of the column.

It talks about the goings on of the birthday celebration in 1906, back when Grandma Sue was just 55 years old.  Younger than I am now.  Even though the main course was oysters, which I don’t really care for, I’m sure there were other tasty items on the menu that I could have enjoyed.  It’s obvious that people were having a good time.  I suppose this was the first celebration and it was such a hit that they decided to continue with it.

I do enjoy these old photos and articles about my family.  It makes them much more personable to me.  And the photos from the birthday celebration are great because so many family members were in attendance.  Not just my Hine family, but the Bucklin, Keys, and Phenice ones as well.  A veritable family smorgasbord.