This historical fragment is an outline of what will be expanded in the future into more than just a list of births, deaths and marriages. The lives of Charles and Gilbert Rustin, which began in the setttled green hills of Vermont and moved with the frontier across America to Nebraska and beyond, will be the backbone of the story.
The Lola Link
Lola Rustin was my paternal Grandmother. As with all relatives on this bough of my family tree, I never met her, and indeed did not know of her existence, let alone her name and pedigree , until about 130 years after her birth. She was the daughter of Gilbert Rustin and Harriet (Wells/Wills) Rustin, the nineth of ten known children, born in December, 1874, in Douglas county, Nebraska.
In 1880 the census finds Lola, age 5, at home with dad, mom and seven siblings in Saratoga, Douglas, Nebraska. In 1894 the Omaha city directory lists a Miss Lola Rustin in residence at 1609 N. 20th (St?). By 1899 when she weds William Houston Gregg in Batavia, Kane county, Illinois, Lola had migrated east to Mt. Holly, Burlington, NJ. How she got there and how she met my grandfather Bill, are questions yet unanswered.
But she did, and the story of their life together is sketched in my earlier blog post "The Family History of John and Jane Gregg," my paternal great great grandparents.
Brothers . . . And Fellow Travelers
Lola's journey from west to east reversed the Rustin family's earlier peregrinations which began in Vermont, and in the case of Gilbert's younger brother, Charles Bradley Rustin, ended with his deatth, 1907, in Nome, Alaska after years in Omaha. Gilbert, less adventurous thanks to his ever growing family, settled in Omaha. On the way to Omaha both brothers paused for years in Ohio and Iowa. From Omaha they branched out to Colorado, Utah and Idaho. While both had been farmers in their early days, they turned to the minerals rich western regions for a living in later times: mining, prospecting, assaying, refining. More about all that is ahead.
Their journeys began with the death of their father, James Rustin on 17 June 1848, at age 64 (b about 1784, Wallingford, Rutland, Vermont). His will was probated 15 January 1849, and documented -- incompletely -- in the "Rutland County Vermont Probate Abstracts." Gilbert, age 15, was placed into his mother's custody but acquired a guardian, one Lincoln Andrus (misnamed Andrews), presumably to manage the formal and financial matters involved in bringing an adolescent male to adulthood, which a woman alone was deemed not fit to do in that Victorian age. However, in the 1850 census Gilbert is listed with the Andrus family, working with Lincoln as a farmer. still in Vermont.
No mention is made of guardianship's for his younger brother, Charles, or for two other brothers also listed as heirs: James (jr?) and William Rustin. Pamela Harris, wife of Howard Harris, and daughter of the elder James' first marriage to Pamela Barrows (24 January 1808, in Wallingford, Rutland, Vermont), didn't need one. Pamela received $200 and the other children were left one fifth each. No, the math doesn't work unless you presume that the total estate was worth about $1,000. Another presumption, given the mores of the time, is that their mother held the estates of her unmarried children in trust with the wise guidance of Mr Andrus.
One wonders what their mother thought of all that. Sarah (Sally) Louise (Lola) [Dickerman] Rustin, was born 3 December 1801, at Mt Holly, Vermont, the daughter of Simeon Dickerman and Mary [Lewis] Dickerman. She had married James Rustin on 3 November 1830 at Mt Holly. They had a They had five known children. Sarah Rustin, probably their first born, arrived during 1831 and departed a decade later on 11 November 1841.
The Way West
Ohio.
Charles Bradley Rustin was born 29 March 1836, Wallingford, Rutland County, Vermont, where he resided until March, 1852, when he moved to Akron, Ohio, and was "engaged with a civil engineering corps" (Andreas' History of the State of Nebraska, Douglas County).
Gilbert Rustin m Harriet A.Wells (variously named Mills and Wills) on 24 July 1855 in Summit, Ohio, which back then was about 275 miles southwest of Akron. Harriet was born about 1830 in New York.
Iowa.
Charles left Ohio in 1853 for southeastern Iowa, where he remained for two years, doing we know not what, before relocating to Sioux City, Iowa, in the northwest of that state on the eastern bank of the Missouri river. He remained in Sioux City until 1864. He married Mary Elizabeth Wilkins, of Keosauqua, Iowa, on 29 June 1859. Keosaqua is in the far southeastern region of Iowa, so probably they met much earlier. Mary was born in West Union, Ohio, daughter of Daniel P Wilkins.
Children born in Sioux City:
Claire Rustin, b 20 July 186; m 28 April 1890, in Omaha, James Henry McIntosh, b 26 April 1858, Ohio, a lawyer in Omaha.
James Wilkins Rustin, b 26 April 1863; d 2 October 1864, Omaha
Gilbert and Harriet moved to Sioux City before 1858 and steadily expanded their family:
Charles L. Rustin, b February 22 1857; m Lisa C. [?]; d 17 July 1911,
James Dwight Rustin, b August 1858; m Mary [?]. 1887
Harry Rustin, b 1860
William Rustin, b 1863
Nebraska.
Charles and Mary resided in Omaha from 1864 to 1878. Omaha is approximately miles south of Sioux City on the western bank of the Missouri river. Children born in Omaha:
Henry Rustin, b 4 September 1865; m Lola Goodwin, 2 June 1894, Vancouver Barracks, Washington. (See biographical sketch.)
Frederick Rustin, b 22 January 1870. (See biographical sketch.)
Wilkins Rustin, b 28 February, 1872; d 6 June 1892, New Haven, Connecticut, of an accident during an initiation into the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity at Yale University. Hazing, which can be hazzardous to your health, is not all that new. Of the class of 1894, he was said to be especially prominent in Yale athletics and highly esteemed.
Gilbert and Harriet made it to Omaha just in time for their final batch of children, born in a steady progression:
Alice Gertrude Rustin, b 1865, m Chauncy Otis Howard (see biographical sketch).
May Rustin, b September 1869
Herbert Rustin, b 1870
Oliver Goldsmith Rustin, b 1 February 1873; m Daisy Alice Shoe (see biographical sketch).
Lola Rustin, b December, 1874, my grandmother.
Maria Rustin, b 1876
.
No comments:
Post a Comment