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.