Ray and Mary Begin the Dance (Continued)

Mary Grace, Ray Jr, Ray Sr and Vala
March 1943

How did Ray come to live in Topeka so he could meet Mary Grace?

Unlike most of Mary Grace’s ancestors who didn’t arrive in North America until the 19th century, Ray’s came on the Mayflower. His great-grandfather was Elias Thompson Byram who was a great grandson of Abigail Alden. She in turn was the great-great grandchild of John Alden and Priscilla Mullins. Nicholas Byram, Elias’s fourth great grandfather, was a young English boy sent to London by his father with a man he trusted. Unfortunately for Nicholas, he wasn’t that trustworthy. He betrayed him by putting him on a ship bound for the West Indies. There Nicholas was forced to become an indentured servant to pay for his unwanted voyage to Barbados. By the mid-1630s he’d paid that off and made his way to Massachusetts where his descendants met an Alden and began their journey west. First in New Jersey for a few generations and then by the time of Elias who was born in 1815 were moving on to Ohio.

The W C and Mary Byram McClenny Family
 circa 1880

By 1837 Elias had attended Oberlin College and met his wife, Harriet Elwell. He farmed, but also worked as a surveyor – platting Galesburg, Illinois. He and Harriet raised nine children, five boys and four girls including one Mary Esther who was born in 1846 in Galesburg. When the Civil War came along, two of his older sons joined the Union Army. Joseph in the 59th Illinois Infantry and Charles in Company D, 7th Illinois Cavalry. Eventually Elias and Harriet along with Mary and their younger children made their way to Kansas in the early 1860's.



Living not far from where they settled was the family of W.C. McClenny, who had lived in Kansas since it was opened to settlement with the Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854. W. C. had married Hester Anne Campbell in 1859 and welcomed a daughter, Ida, in 1861. W. C., an Illinoisan, was a member of the 2nd Kansas Volunteer Cavalry, Company I. His service was mainly in Arkansas and was furloughed often enough that Hester became pregnant with their second child. Unfortunately both Hester and the child died during the birth in August 1864. W.C. wasn't alone as his brother, his mother and two of his sisters  were also living in Jefferson County.  By September 1866, W.C. had married Mary Byram, Elias's sixth child and second daughter. On June 1, 1867, John McClenny was born.

Edith Davis circa 1876

While John McClenny was growing up in Jefferson County, Kansas, Edith Davis was doing the same in Illinois. At first glance, it's hard to imagine how Edith and John came into contact since they grew up nearly 400 miles apart, but their families were connected. John's aunt, Mary McClenny, was married to Edith's father's half-brother, Amos Huntington Davis. Their shared aunt and uncle lived in Jefferson County. Somehow John and Edith ran into each other and were married in 1890.

John and Edith's family 1905
Valla still with 2 l''s is on the left in the front row.

John and Edith split their time between Kansas and Illinois with two of their four children born in each state. By 1900 when their youngest, Helen, was born, John and Edith were back in Kansas for good. As Valla was growing up in one part of Jefferson County, Ray Morgan was doing the same in a different part of the county. As mentioned before in this blog, Ray's grandfather, Hiram Ellingwood, perished fighting for the union in the Civil War in 1864. Hiram's daughter, Emma, married Elias Morgan, a fellow resident of Fall Creek, Indiana, in 1881. The Morgans moved to Valley Falls before their third child and first son, James, was born in 1889. Ray came along in June of 1896 and by the time of this photograph, his father, Elias, had died. Throughout his school years in the early 1900's, Ray and his brother, Jim, were noted in the local paper mainly for their absences from school.

Ray Morgan circa 1906

He and Valla both lost their fathers before they were adults - Valla's to an injury and Ray's to disease and age. They knew each other's voices before they met as he was a delivery boy for the local grocer and she a telephone operator. One might think that she was intrigued by his voice and soon saw him playing baseball for the local Valley Falls team. However they got to know each other, they were married in Topeka on May 20, 1918 and soon living there. Ray, Jr., their second child, came along in June 1922.

Valley Falls baseball circa 1915

And the stage is set now for Ray and Mary Grace to being the dance.

Ray and Mary Grace Begin the Dance

Ray and Mary examine something while his mother, Vala,
and Aunt Helen watch from the windows.
March 1943

Ray Morgan and Mary Grace Burkhardt did get married - July 21, 1946, but it was not an easy course to get to that point. They knew of each other in high school, but didn't date until Washburn. Their first date was an arranged date that included a professor in the fall of 1942. The relationship picked up when Ray's reserve unit at Washburn was told to report to Fort Leavenworth in late March 1943. According to their letters, they became engaged sometime during March or April 1943.

But how did they happen to be in the same place to meet each other? That tale involves the whims and decisions of eight other people or the parents of these eight.

The Sharpe family
circa 1865

William Sharpe and Rebekah Hutton had been married nearly 20 years when they decided in 1869 to move their family of 10 children across the Atlantic in steerage, eventually arriving in Kansas when their youngest child died in Junction City, KS. According to family lore, William walked down the railroad tracks from Junction City until he found the land he wanted. The legend says 50 miles, but by my calculations it was more like 25 miles, still not an easy walk. The land was in Morris County where another young Englishman had recently arrived.

The Walker family
circa 1898
Edna on the right in the front row

Edna's father, Edward Walker, the second son of a dairyman-cheese-maker, walked out the door of his family home, Russia Hall, and headed to Liverpool, less than 50 miles away. There he began his ocean journey, eventually arriving in Morris County, too, by 1870. One family story is she caught his eye when she came into Parkerville to shop. Edward had trained as a druggist in England before he came to Kansas and he had a general store, Plant & Walker in Parkerville. He and Betsy were married in 1871. By the time Edna and her twin were born in 1888, he was principally a farmer. Shortly after the twins' birth, Edward and Betsy moved their family of seven to Topeka in for a chance at a better education.

Burkharts
circa 1900
Edgar is number 6

Mary Grace's father, Edgar, was the son of a first generation American and of a woman whose grandfather fought in the Revolutionary War. His grandfather, Johann Burkhardt, left Prussia in 1847 at a time of strife there and moved to Tazewell County, Illinois. His first wife died on the voyage leaving him a widower with an infant daughter. Not long after arriving in Illinois, he wed a widow, Lavina Hulsopple, with six children of her own. Over the years they had four more children, including Joseph who was Edgar's father. According to the 1860 census, the Burkhardts were still living in Illinois, but by 1870 when Joseph was 16, they were in Linn County in Kansas. After Lavina's death in 1880 they moved on to Osage County.

Edgar's mother, Philadelphia Schoonover, who went by Delphia was born in Beverly, Virginia in October 1862, a time of great upheaval in Virginia.  Her great grandfather, Benjamin Schoonover, served in the Revolutionary War,but her mother's uncles, John  and George Louk, joined Company F, Virginia 31st Infantry Regiment. This regiment provided support for Stonewall Jackson.

Delphia's uncles joined the Confederate Army
This is the way they were listed on a draft registration:
In Rebel Army

Delphia and her parents arrived in Kansas in 1880 and settled in Fairfax township in Osage County, Kansas. Fairfax was also the home of one Joseph Burkhart. Joseph and Delphia were married in April 1882 in her family home.




Edna had spent her life in Topeka eventually attending Washburn where she met Edgar. Like Edna's family, Edgar had moved to Topeka for the better chance of education, His uncle, Draper Schoonover,urged Edgar to go to the Washburn Academy in Topeka as a preparation for Washburn. Scranton where he grew up didn't have a high school. At the Academy he became a football star.

Topeka Daily Capital
Page 7
November 26, 1905

According to Mary Grace his path through high school and college was not a straight path due to circumstances beyond his control. One year he lost his tuition money in order to bail a brother out of jail.




Although he was a year older than Edna he graduated from Washburn a year after she did. Edna taught school for a year while he was finishing up, but when they were married in 1913 she was forced to resign. It seems married women weren't allowed to teach. So they lived on his lesser salary as a traveling salesman. After the birth of three children and a brief stint living in Osage City, Edgar put together the financing to open his shop in Topeka in 1921. Mary Grace was born in 1923 and by 1926 the Burkhardts built their new home on Jewell which is still in the family.

On the left Edna with her brother-in-law, George Bale,
and Edgar in 1911.

  Coming up next, how Ray ended up in Topeka to meet Mary Grace.