Marriage Index Updated

Entries from Hendricks County Marriage Book Volume 43 (24 October 1981 - 18 September 1982) have been added to the database Index to Hendricks County Marriage Books, which is on the Hendricks County GenWeb site. It includes the names of the bride and groom, their date of marriage and the corresponding book and page number.

This index is in progress - so far it covers the period of 1904-1982, as well as 1824-1848.

Surname Index to Probate Order Books Updated

Entries from the surname index included at the front of Hendricks County Probate Order Book Volume 4 (15 May 1865 - 30 May 1868) have been added to the database Surname Index to Hendricks County Probate Order Books, which is on the Hendricks County GenWeb site. The surname index was compiled by the clerk at the time they were writing the entries. It includes the subject of the probate case, the type of case (estate, guardianship, etc.), and the corresponding book and page number.

This is an ongoing project - currently the surname index covers the years 1865-1891.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Danville Students Attending College (1919)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, September 11, 1919 – page 1, column 4:

YOUNG PEOPLE HEAR CALL OF HIGHER INSTITUTIONS
Large Number Leaving to Attend College

With the opening of colleges and universities, young people of Danville are preparing for another year at higher institutions of learning.

The number planning to go away to school is unusually large this year.

Mary Agnes Showalter leaves Tuesday. She will continue her work at Butler this year.

Robert Hollowell, Jr. will leave Sunday to attend Indiana University. Bruce and Bratcher DeMarcus will also re-enter Indiana.

The Misses Helen Parker, Jeanette Wilson and Anna Martha Osborn will leave within the week to enter Earlham College at Richmond.

Miss Unity Thomas, Darvin Thomas, Estie Hunt and Donald Hogate leave the last of the week to enter DePauw at Greencastle.

Miss Josephine Hornaday will attend Wisconsin University again this year. She leaves the last of the month.

Miss Mary Edwards, Myrle Vogel, and Glendon Scearce have left for Lafayette to take up their work at Purdue.

James Bridges left Friday for Pittsburgh, Pa., to enter a technical school in that city. Orin Shutts left Monday for Chicago University to enter the School of Mechanical Drawing.

Otis Gulley, Jr. left Wednesday for Lafayette to enter the Civil Engineering department of Purdue University.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Couple Marries in Civil and Quaker Ceremonies (1920)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, August 26, 1920 – page 1, column 5:

MARRIED TWO TIMES AND NEVER SEPARATED
First by Rites of Friends Church, Then by ‘Squire

Roy L. Nelson and Lenia Peacock Nelson have been married twice, both times legally and without any separation intervening. They were married some two weeks ago according to the rites of the Friends. Saturday, they were married according to the civil law, ‘Squire Kennedy officiating.

Saturday afternoon in company with the bride’s father, Galileo Peacock, a well known citizen of Guilford township, they appeared at the clerk’s office. Miss Ethel Clark, the deputy, waited on them when they said they wished a marriage license. All was going well until the question, on the application blank, whether either of the parties had been married before, was reached. And they said they had, were in fact then husband and wife.

This was a new problem for Miss Clark and she called Clerk Woodward who decided he had struck something absolutely new early in his official life. Mr. Peacock explained that the lady is his daughter, that she was married but they had all decided as law-abiding citizens that they wished a civil wedding. Mr. Woodward then issued the license and they asked for a brief ceremony, the less formality the better. So ‘Squire Kennedy was called.


from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, September 16, 1920 – page 1, column 3:

R.L. NELSON DEFENDS HIS MARRIAGE CEREMONY
I, the undersigned, wish to correct the misleading inferences set forth in these columns of August 26, in the article headed “Married Two Times but Never Separated,” which so inferred that I and Miss Peacock had disrespected the Quaker ceremony or “rites” of the Quaker church which we were said to have accepted some time previous to our engaging the ‘Squire under the civil law for our second marriage or, a more lawful union as the article infers.

Correction – The fact is I deny being married twice or by the civil law at all so far as the marrying goes. I contend that we were married but once and that by the so-called Quaker manner. But the fact is that tho [sic] married after the “Quaker manner” we were not married in or by the Quaker church. Hence further steps were necessary in order to provide the civil law a “record” of our intent and action.

The reason we were not married in the Quaker church was because that I myself am not a registered member with any denomination but since I as a Christian heavily indorse [sic] Quaker principles and especially their simple, informal, Divine manner of uniting man and wife, we, Miss Peacock and myself, married under this self-same method without the church. That is, on August 20, we and her parents arranged for the spending of a part of the day in a nice woods just outside Danville where, after having a few hours in prayer and meditation, Miss Peacock and I, long having known our union God’s will, united in holy matrimony, there beneath the skies, with God as witness Who is the only rightful official to such a matter. After our dinner, we went to Danville, secured a license and “Mr. ‘Squire” and proceeded to satisfy “Caesar, the law” whereupon I made known the fact that were already husband and wife by ordinance of God and hence desired only enough ceremony to make a record of our intentions possible and pleasing in the eyes of the law and all was accomplished very nicely. We were married in the woods by the Lord. The action or contract was recorded thru another action at the court house by the kindness of the clerk and the ‘Squire.

I, myself, deny that the power of either uniting or of separating man and wife lies within the power of man or earthly law. And hence I fully agree with the Quaker principles that such is a matter belonging wholly to God Himself as “Liscensor” and officiating minister. I invite any person who desires to slur the Quaker view and practice on this point to note the almost entire absence of separation among those united in marriage under the Quaker or Friends manner of marriage as against the daily divorces among unions made thru the courts or civil law which are too often by the mere hand of man (I pronounce you man and wife) preceded by a moonlight, prayerless courtship.

R.L. Nelson,
Plainfield, Ind.

Work Session for Probate Records Project in Plainfield

The Indiana Genealogical Society is holding a Saturday work session in October for all those who would like to help with their project to preserve and digitize Hendricks County's earliest probate records. The work session will be held on Saturday, October 15 from 9:30 am to 4 pm at the Plainfield Public Library and you can stop by at any time during the day to help unfold the papers and place them in folders.

Please register for this work session - you may register online through the library's Events Calendar or by calling the library's Indiana Room - (317) 838-3800.

Since this project was started in 2009, almost 2,000 records have been worked on.

8th Grade Graduates List Added To Website

Entries from a 1922 list of the 8th grade graduates of Hendricks County's common schools have been added to the Hendricks County GenWeb site. The list consists of the student's name and the township.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Stilesville Teachers Egged By Students (1920)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, April 29, 1920 – page 1, column 4:

UNFORTUNATE AFFAIR IN STILESVILLE SCHOOL
Roy Cox, superintendent of the Stilesville schools, with Cleo Casserly, Lloyd McClellan, Howard McClellan, Kathleen Ousler and Mary Warmoth, all pupils in the Stilesville schools, are in Squire Kennedy’s court with various charges against them of rout, assault and battery and assault. The parties against whom the alleged offenses were committed are Josephine Lewis, Marcena Kendall, Katie Coble and Helen Coble, teachers in the Stilesville school. It is alleged that a few nights ago Cox bought two dozen eggs and he induced his pupils, named above, to throw them at the four ladies as they were passing along the street. Some of the eggs took effect and some did not. The story goes, according to Prosecutor Owens, that Stilesville has not had much of a school this winter, that Cox is lax is discipline and there was friction between him and other teachers. It is alleged that Cox told pupils that the orders of other teachers were not to be obeyed. The defendants have their hearing May 16.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Danville School Teachers Named (1920)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, September 2, 1920 – page 7, column 4:

CONCERNING SCHOOL YEAR IN DANVILLE CORPORATION
Supt. D.T. Cushman, of the city schools, authorizes the following:

Danville schools will open Monday, Sept. 13 with the following teachers:

High school
--L.C. Winternheimer, principal, science
--Leroy Cook, mathematics, manual training, athletics
--Mattie A. Keeney, English
--Latin and history, to be filled
--Ruth Boyd, domestic science
--Mildred Christie, music

Mattie A. Keeney building
--C.C. Bosstick, principal, arithmetic
--Bertha Watts, English
--Ruth Pattison, geography and history
--Helen Hadley, 5th
--Eula Lawson, 4th
--Mae Comer, 3rd
--2nd, to be supplied
--Edith Peyton, primary

Miss Boyd, of Richmond, a graduate of Earlham, taught last year in the Richmond high school. Miss Christie, of Amo, taught music and art in the Clayton high school the past year.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Danville Resident Marries in Boone County (1920)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, July 8, 1920 – page 1, column 5:

KINDER – GRIFFEN
Russell Kinder, son of Mr. and Mrs. Aaron Kinder, slipped away to Lebanon, Saturday, where by previous arrangement he met Miss Edith Griffen, daughter of Attorney Griffen, of Sheridan, and they were married at the parsonage of the Christian church. The groom was an overseas soldier and the romance of the young people began while he was in camp in Indianapolis. He is now employed in Indianapolis but their home for the present will be with the groom’s parents here.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Danville Students Attending College (1920)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, September 2, 1920 – page 5, column 3:

COLLEGE LADS AND LASSIES PREPARING FOR YEAR’S WORK
The exodus of Danville young people for colleges throughout the middle west has begun, and from all indications the number going this year will far exceed any other previous year. The greatest number are going to Purdue, Indiana and DePauw.

Otis Gulley, Jr., Mary Edwards and May Masten have already left for Purdue to take up their work. Mildred Harrison, Irene Thompson, Margaret Scearce, Bernice O’Brien and Glendon Scearce will leave for Lafayette the latter part of the week to enter Purdue.

Robert Hollowell, Jr. leaves Wednesday to take up his work at Indiana. Benjamin Harrison will continue his studies at the I.U. medical school. Darwin Thomas, Estie Hunt and Milburn Easley are planning to leave the latter part of next week to enter I.U.

Unity Thomas will return to DePauw this year to complete her college course, and Donald Hogate will also take up work at DePauw. John Harvey and Harold Cook of the D.H.S. 1920 class will enter DePauw as freshmen. Harvey is one of the 100 honor students of the state and will receive a Rector scholarship.

Jeannette Wilson and Ann Martha Osborn will re-enter Earlham College at Richmond the latter part of next week.

Lucile Nichols will leave the last of the month for Ann Arbor to enter Michigan University. Mary Agnes Showalter will resume her studies at Butler College next week. Lorine Brill will return to St. Marys-of-the-Woods for another year, and Maurice Kirk will enter a chiropractic school in Davenport, Ia., the middle of September.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Infant Dies From Burns and Fall (1920)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, September 9, 1920 – page 1, column 4:

LOVABLE CHILD DIES FROM BURNS AND FALL
Heart-Rendering Accident at Home of Wendell Hadley

The infant son of Mr. and Mrs. Wendell Hadley, living southwest of town, died Monday evening from the effects of burns and falling from a high chair that morning.

The child was only thirteen months old. He was seated in a high chair near a stove where the mother was making jelly. In some manner the child rocked the chair until it toppled over. In falling, the child struck the long handle of the stew-kettle and the boiling contents fell upon the child, badly burning it about the head, face, neck and shoulders.

The parents hurried with it to Dr. Armstrong where the burns were dressed and the child returned home. The burns were not considered necessarily fatal but about 7 in the evening, the little life went out before a physician could be called.

There is some question whether the death was caused by the burns or concussion of the brain caused by the fall. The funeral was Tuesday afternoon. The parents have the sympathy of the entire community.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Former Danville Resident Marries in Detroit (1920)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, June 3, 1920 – page 1, column 4:

MARRIED AT DETROIT
Saturday, at Detroit, occurred the marriage of Miss Bessie F. Tinder and Mr. Percy L. Mott in the presence of a few friends. Immediately after the ceremony, Mr. and Mrs. Mott left to spend their honeymoon with his parents, Rev. and Mrs. Thomas Mott, of Whittmore Lake, Mich. Mr. and Mrs. Mott will live in Detroit where the groom is in business. Mrs. Mott will be remembered as a former Danville girl, a daughter of the late Simon Tinder. Her twin sister, Miss Bernice, was married two years ago to Mr. Arthur Converse, of Indianapolis.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Former Danville Resident Dies in Bloomington (1920)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, October 14, 1920 – page 4, column 2:

FORMER CITIZEN CALLED
Thomas J. Clark, formerly a business man of Danville, died suddenly on his farm, west of Bloomington, Sunday. The body was brought to Danville for burial in the East cemetery yesterday, there being a brief service at the grave conducted by Rev. C.C. Ford. Mr. Clark was a member of the 148th Indiana regiment. He was twice married, his first wife being buried in the East cemetery. Their daughter, Ada, died some months ago in the west. Some years ago Mr. Clark moved to Bloomington where he was elected county treasurer. Saturday he was taken ill with indigestion and his physician ordered him to remain in bed. Sunday while Mrs. Clark was out of the room, he arose from the bed and fell dead. Mr. and Mrs. John Hampton and their daughter, Mrs. Retta Adams were among those who came from Bloomington with the body.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Farmer Eaten By His Hogs (1920)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, February 12, 1920 – page 1, column 6:

HIS UNCONSCIOUS BODY ATTACKED BY HIS HOGS
Mrs. Frank Snodgrass found the unconscious body of her husband in the hot log of their farm near Coatesville, Sunday evening. Hogs had chewed off one hand, part of an arm, an ear and [a] portion of his neck. Mrs. Snodgrass was unable to drive the hogs away and she called help by telephone. Mr. Snodgrass had gone out to feed his hogs and fell from a stroke of paralysis. When removed to the house he regained consciousness to tell of what had befallen him. He soon passed away. Mrs. Snodgrass and a son survive.

Marriage Index Updated

Entries from Hendricks County Marriage Book Volume 42 (22 November 1980 - 10 October 1981) have been added to the database Index to Hendricks County Marriage Books, which is on the Hendricks County GenWeb site. It includes the names of the bride and groom, their date of marriage and the corresponding book and page number.

This index is in progress - so far it covers the period of 1904-1981, as well as 1824-1848.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Avon High School Graduates (1921)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, May 12, 1921 – page 2, columns 5-6:

[AVON]
The high school commencement exercises Thursday evening were well attended and greatly appreciated. The address by Rev. Wayne G. Miller was especially strong and helpful. The entire program was enjoyed by all present. The class: Harold Smith, Norene Franklin, Mary Riggan, Rosalie Worrell, Easter Wear, Mary Wear and Fred Walls.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Danville Residents Attending College (1921)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, September 8, 1921 – page 1, column 4:

YOUNG PEOPLE ARE LEAVING FOR COLLEGES AND UNIVERSITIES
With September here, young people of Danville are leaving almost every day to take up school work in colleges and universities. By the end of the week, the exodus will be complete. Indiana, Purdue and DePauw claim most of the students. Mary Edwards, Irene Thompson and Margaret Scearce have left for Lafayette to continue their work at Purdue. Lawrence Franklin, Glendon Scearce, Ben Barnett, Herman Pevler and Karroll Sallust will leave this week to take up work at Purdue. Estie Hunt, Darwin Thomas and Paul Pierson are planning to take up work at Bloomington at Indiana university. Professor Louis Winternheimer will leave to enter graduate work at the university this week. Donald HOgate and Harold Cook have left for DePauw and John Harvey and Kreigh Miles will leave next week for DePauw. Jeannette Wilson and Ann Martha Osborn will return to Earlham to take up their work. Lucile Nichols and Robert Hollowell, Jr., will go to the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and Mary Agnes Showalter left Tuesday to resume her studies at the University of Illinois, at Champaign. Ben Harrison, who graduated from Indiana last year, will continue his study of medicine at the Indianapolis department of I.U. Mabel Crawley will soon leave for Oxford to enter school. Mary Marguerite Dougan leaves October 4, for Washington, D.C., to enter National Park seminary near that city.

NEWSPAPER TIDBIT: Danville Teacher's Secret Marriage Revealed At Death (1921)

from The Republican (Danville, Indiana) – issue of Thursday, February 17, 1921 – page 1, column 2:

DEATH OF SCHOOL TEACHER REVEALS THAT SHE WAS WIFE
Mrs. Clifford Handy Known Here As Miss Iris Velma Johnston

Mrs. Clifford Handy or, as she was known in Danville, where she was a teacher in the Mattie A. Keeney building, Miss Iris Velma Johnston, died at the home of her husband’s parents in Indianapolis, Thursday night at 8:30. The cause of death was septicemia with acute myocarditis as a contributing factor. The funeral was Saturday morning from an undertaking parlor in Indianapolis. The body was taken to Kentland for burial. Teachers of the Danville schools attended the services, bearing an appropriate floral offering.

Mrs. Handy was 22 years ten months and eighteen days old. In that brief span of life was encompassed the hope, the ambition, the love of many years.

Her charming personality had deeply impressed those whom she had met since coming to Danville last fall to take a place in the schools. No one suspected that she was married – and indeed it is not known here when she was married. It was noted that she did not mingle in social circles as other young people and that she did not enter fully into the life of the community. On Friday, February 4, she went to Indianapolis to spend the weekend. The first of the week, word came that she was too ill to return to her school work. Thursday night she died.

She would soon have become a mother. And thus the radiance of a bright life went out. She will be kindly remembered in Danville.

College Students Database Updated

Entries from the 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939 and 1940 school years have been added to the database Hendricks County Students Attending Indiana Colleges, which is on the Hendricks County GenWeb site. It is a listing of some of the students from Hendricks County who were either attending or graduating from various colleges in Indiana, as compiled from information sent by college officials to area newspapers. The list was comprised of the student's name, hometown and class, and sometimes included their major or the degree they were receiving.

The colleges that submitted information to the newspapers varied from year to year. Ball State University, Butler University, DePauw University, Earlham College, Indiana State University, Indiana University and Purdue University are among those who submitted information at one time or another.

The database is an ongoing project. It currently covers the period of 1936-1961.