Levi and Clara--Life Span--Installment 1
The "Tribe of Levi" we sometimes call ourselves--those of us who were descended from my Miller grandparents, Levi D. and Clara.
This post will be a written form of some of the information on the life of Levi and Clara that was shared publicly at our reunion on July 13, 14, & 15 at Cedar Crest Church in 2012. It is, for me, a way to preserve and provide access to specifics I may want to reference in the future. That explains some of the details included. It will also enable family members who could not be present at the reunion a chance at sharing part of our experience together. For the rest of this blog's readers, I hope it's a prompt for you to make sure your own family's stories are preserved--on paper or in the ether--somewhere other than only in the memories of people who will die someday. Knowing our family stories helps us know our ancestors, but also helps us know ourselves, and helps our children learn to know us.
Some of what is written here will be plopped in from my notes in preparation for the presentation, and part of it will include things I learned or put together since the reunion. Part of it will be from my sister Linda's notes on what was shared by members of the audience. I had asked several people outside the family for their memories before the reunion and then created a presentation framework from that and what I already knew about Levi and Clara or could find from sources I had access to. Throughout the presentation, my uncles and aunts and others provided affirmation, clarification, and additions to what I had prepared. We talked about Levi and Clara's Life Span, Appearance, Challenges, Personality and Character, and Legacy of Faith.
I welcome any additions or corrections to this record--either in comments, in conversation, or in an email to me at miriam@iwashige.com.
***********************
First, some data on the 12 children born to Levi and Clara:
Name and Month and Year of Birth
Edwin–August, 1921
Willis–September, 1922
Elizabeth (Lizzie)–July, 1924
Harry and Perry–August, 1925 Harry died on May 3, 2012 at age 86..
David–October, 1927
Mary–May, 1929
Mahlon–September, 1930
Daniel–March, 1932 Daniel died on April 19, 2011 at age 79.
Paul–January, 1934
Fred–July, 1935
Emma–January, 1937
Notes: (Most of the information in this section on Levi and Clara's children was not shared at the reunion.)
--All 12 children were born in the span of less than 15 1/2 years--from August, 1921 to January, 1927
--Most of the boys in the family used "L" (for Levi) as a middle initial. Only Daniel used "C" (for Clara). None of the children had middle names.
--Note this gender pattern among the children: Two boys and a girl, three boys and a girl, four boys and a girl--just enough girls to keep hope alive that Clara would not forever be stuck with doing all the housework herself.
--Final gender count: 9 boys and 3 girls. (It sounds impressive at first if you say "each of the three girls had nine brothers.")
--The Center Church property is carved out of the Northwest corner of what was the original Levi D. Miller farm. Current address at the residence on that property is 7411 W. Morgan Ave., Hutchinson. Oliver and Emma Troyer and Dwight and Karen Miller live now on the farm "out west" which they moved to in the 1940s. The address there is 12205 W. Illinois Ave., Partridge. The second farm was about 4 miles west and one mile north of the first farm. The oldest child took over the first farm, and the youngest child's family eventually took over the second farm.
--While they lived at the first farm, the children attended Poplar School, located at the intersection of Whiteside Road and Illinois Avenue. This school was still in operation until about 1962. A few of the next generation of Millers attended there before it closed and the one-room school district was consolidated with others to become Elreka (now Pleasantview Academy on Dean Road just north of its intersection with US 50 and K61).
At the second farm, the children still in school attended at West Eureka, which was located along the west side of the same section as the Miller farmstead. It was across the road from where Gene and Doris Miller live now at 3811 S. High Point Rd., Partridge. My father, David, was his sister Emma's 8th grade teacher at this school. He must have been the last teacher before the school closed and the students went then to East Eureka, where Willard Masts live now at the corner of Illinois Ave. and Riverton Road.
--Baldness is a strong family characteristic among the men in the Miller family. Levi was very bald from my earliest memories. All the sons except Fred became bald relatively early in life--Daniel perhaps later than some of the others.
--Daniel was blond as a child. All the rest had red or black hair. Five of the boys had red hair and many freckles as children. All three girls and three of the boys had black hair. Daniel got tired of being told he didn't look like the rest of the family--perhaps taking it as doubtfulness about whether he really belonged in the family. One time when he was herding cattle along the road, someone stopped to talk to him and asked whose boy he was. "Ich bin dah datt sie boo," he said. "I'm Dad's boy." Emma said she thinks, in his mind, he was setting the matter straight once and for all with that comment.
--Many of Levi and Clara's children were apparently named for relatives. Here are the ones I could think of:
Elizabeth "Lizzie"--Clara's mother's name and Clara's sister's name
David--Levi's father's name, also his youngest brother's name
Mary--Levi's mother's name, also his younger sister's name
Daniel--Clara's father's name, also her brother's name, also Levi's brother's name. In each case, the name was shortened to Dan at some point. Levi and Clara's son Daniel was usually called by his full name within his parental family--at least until later years.
Fred--Clara's brother's name
Emma--Clara's sister's name
--Levi and Clara's children had 62 children born to them. Stepchildren and adoptions swelled the number of grandchildren to 70.
Life Span
Levi and Clara were both born in 1901. Clara was about six months older than Levi. She was born on June 22 and he was born on December 30. They were both 19 when they married on Feb. 10, 1921.
Levi. Levi was the oldest of the children born to David J. and Mary (Yutzy) Miller. Other children (going from memory here) were (Kid) Dan, Andy (Fritz), John (Hans), David M. (Davy), Fannie (Mrs. Val Headings and then Mrs. Roman Kauffman), Mary (Mrs. Alvin Helmuth). I still remember Levi's father, Davy Dawdy, who died when I was in my lower twenties. He was a deacon in the Old Order Amish church and died long after retirement--at the age of 96, I believe.
Levi died at Sunnyside nursing home in Florida on September 8, 1985, at the age of 83. He was buried beside Clara in the West Center Cemetery along US 50 near Partridge, KS. Levi married Orpha Miller from Indiana after Clara's death. During much of their marriage, they lived in Florida, where they had met--at first, only during the winter, then year-round. Orpha became a Licensed Practical Nurse after they married, and she was working at Sunnyside as a nurse while Levi was a patient there. Orpha was much younger than Levi.
So far, seven of Levi's children lived to be older than Levi was at the time of his death. No one seems to know of a specific diagnosis that caused Levi's death. "Died of old age" is about as specific as we got at the reunion.
Clara. Clara was fourth--about in the middle--of the family born to Daniel A. and Elizabeth "Lizzie" (Mast) Nisly. Others in the family--from memory again--were Edward (Ed), Daniel D. (Junior Dan), Fred (moved to Iowa), Levi ("Noee Mowtie's"--Noah Mary's--first husband), Rebecca (Becky--married to Will Miller), Emma (married to William Edward Miller--his first of three wives), Edna (married to Jake Yoder).
Clara was 16 when her mother died of cancer. The youngest in the family, Edna, was only three years old. Dan Nisly then married a widow, Katie (Headings) Helmuth. Her first husband was Eli. My dad referred to this woman as "Mommie Nissley" (Grandma Nisly). I still faintly remember her. She used to live in the house now occupied by Vera Mae Nisly on the Julian Nisly farm at the old Dan A. Nisly farmstead at 4311 South Herren Road, Hutchinson.
(Trivia: It was in Kansas where the European name pronounced Nissley (It means "little nut." Oh my.) was first shortened to Nisly and given a more English pronunciation, with a long "i." The shortening of the name was done to get rid of the "extravagance" of unnecessary letters, as I've heard it told. In Pennsylvania Dutch, Nisly is still pronounced Nissley. Abraham may have been the first to make the change. He was Clara's grandfather. If anyone anywhere has the Nisly spelling, you can be sure that person had ancestors in Kansas).
Clara's father was a minister, and two of her brothers, Levi and Fred, were ministers. Her Mast grandfather was the famous "Dawdy Mosht," Grandpa Mast, Daniel E. Mast, the much-loved and influential spiritual patriarch of the Amish of Reno County. He was a deacon, who moved here from Holmes County, OH. He wrote extensively. His book, Salvation Full and Free, translated and compiled after his death, is still available.
At the time of her youngest daughter's wedding (Emma) in August of 1959, Clara was already ill with cancer, but was still mobile and able to help with wedding preparations. She died at home on Easter morning, April 17, 1960, at age 58. I always thought she had stomach cancer. At the reunion someone else mentioned pancreatic cancer as the cause of her death. She did not seek treatment. Her main caretaker was her oldest daughter, Elizabeth (Lizzie), who was still single at that time. There are now 13 grandchildren older than Clara was when she died. All of Clara's children far outlived her. The youngest child is now 75--17 years older than her mother was at the time of her death.
A family picture taken at the time of Emma's wedding in the only family picture I know of that includes all twelve children and their parents. It was taken outside Levi and Clara's home--the house which burned down later, while Ollie and Emma were living there.
As I read over the "life span" section, I realize that much of this was not mentioned at the reunion either. The need for brevity was more obvious there than here.
(To be continued)
This post will be a written form of some of the information on the life of Levi and Clara that was shared publicly at our reunion on July 13, 14, & 15 at Cedar Crest Church in 2012. It is, for me, a way to preserve and provide access to specifics I may want to reference in the future. That explains some of the details included. It will also enable family members who could not be present at the reunion a chance at sharing part of our experience together. For the rest of this blog's readers, I hope it's a prompt for you to make sure your own family's stories are preserved--on paper or in the ether--somewhere other than only in the memories of people who will die someday. Knowing our family stories helps us know our ancestors, but also helps us know ourselves, and helps our children learn to know us.
Some of what is written here will be plopped in from my notes in preparation for the presentation, and part of it will include things I learned or put together since the reunion. Part of it will be from my sister Linda's notes on what was shared by members of the audience. I had asked several people outside the family for their memories before the reunion and then created a presentation framework from that and what I already knew about Levi and Clara or could find from sources I had access to. Throughout the presentation, my uncles and aunts and others provided affirmation, clarification, and additions to what I had prepared. We talked about Levi and Clara's Life Span, Appearance, Challenges, Personality and Character, and Legacy of Faith.
I welcome any additions or corrections to this record--either in comments, in conversation, or in an email to me at miriam@iwashige.com.
***********************
First, some data on the 12 children born to Levi and Clara:
Name and Month and Year of Birth
Edwin–August, 1921
Willis–September, 1922
Elizabeth (Lizzie)–July, 1924
Harry and Perry–August, 1925 Harry died on May 3, 2012 at age 86..
David–October, 1927
Mary–May, 1929
Mahlon–September, 1930
Daniel–March, 1932 Daniel died on April 19, 2011 at age 79.
Paul–January, 1934
Fred–July, 1935
Emma–January, 1937
Notes: (Most of the information in this section on Levi and Clara's children was not shared at the reunion.)
--All 12 children were born in the span of less than 15 1/2 years--from August, 1921 to January, 1927
--Most of the boys in the family used "L" (for Levi) as a middle initial. Only Daniel used "C" (for Clara). None of the children had middle names.
--Note this gender pattern among the children: Two boys and a girl, three boys and a girl, four boys and a girl--just enough girls to keep hope alive that Clara would not forever be stuck with doing all the housework herself.
--Final gender count: 9 boys and 3 girls. (It sounds impressive at first if you say "each of the three girls had nine brothers.")
--The Center Church property is carved out of the Northwest corner of what was the original Levi D. Miller farm. Current address at the residence on that property is 7411 W. Morgan Ave., Hutchinson. Oliver and Emma Troyer and Dwight and Karen Miller live now on the farm "out west" which they moved to in the 1940s. The address there is 12205 W. Illinois Ave., Partridge. The second farm was about 4 miles west and one mile north of the first farm. The oldest child took over the first farm, and the youngest child's family eventually took over the second farm.
--While they lived at the first farm, the children attended Poplar School, located at the intersection of Whiteside Road and Illinois Avenue. This school was still in operation until about 1962. A few of the next generation of Millers attended there before it closed and the one-room school district was consolidated with others to become Elreka (now Pleasantview Academy on Dean Road just north of its intersection with US 50 and K61).
At the second farm, the children still in school attended at West Eureka, which was located along the west side of the same section as the Miller farmstead. It was across the road from where Gene and Doris Miller live now at 3811 S. High Point Rd., Partridge. My father, David, was his sister Emma's 8th grade teacher at this school. He must have been the last teacher before the school closed and the students went then to East Eureka, where Willard Masts live now at the corner of Illinois Ave. and Riverton Road.
--Baldness is a strong family characteristic among the men in the Miller family. Levi was very bald from my earliest memories. All the sons except Fred became bald relatively early in life--Daniel perhaps later than some of the others.
--Daniel was blond as a child. All the rest had red or black hair. Five of the boys had red hair and many freckles as children. All three girls and three of the boys had black hair. Daniel got tired of being told he didn't look like the rest of the family--perhaps taking it as doubtfulness about whether he really belonged in the family. One time when he was herding cattle along the road, someone stopped to talk to him and asked whose boy he was. "Ich bin dah datt sie boo," he said. "I'm Dad's boy." Emma said she thinks, in his mind, he was setting the matter straight once and for all with that comment.
--Many of Levi and Clara's children were apparently named for relatives. Here are the ones I could think of:
Elizabeth "Lizzie"--Clara's mother's name and Clara's sister's name
David--Levi's father's name, also his youngest brother's name
Mary--Levi's mother's name, also his younger sister's name
Daniel--Clara's father's name, also her brother's name, also Levi's brother's name. In each case, the name was shortened to Dan at some point. Levi and Clara's son Daniel was usually called by his full name within his parental family--at least until later years.
Fred--Clara's brother's name
Emma--Clara's sister's name
--Levi and Clara's children had 62 children born to them. Stepchildren and adoptions swelled the number of grandchildren to 70.
Life Span
Levi and Clara were both born in 1901. Clara was about six months older than Levi. She was born on June 22 and he was born on December 30. They were both 19 when they married on Feb. 10, 1921.
Levi. Levi was the oldest of the children born to David J. and Mary (Yutzy) Miller. Other children (going from memory here) were (Kid) Dan, Andy (Fritz), John (Hans), David M. (Davy), Fannie (Mrs. Val Headings and then Mrs. Roman Kauffman), Mary (Mrs. Alvin Helmuth). I still remember Levi's father, Davy Dawdy, who died when I was in my lower twenties. He was a deacon in the Old Order Amish church and died long after retirement--at the age of 96, I believe.
Levi died at Sunnyside nursing home in Florida on September 8, 1985, at the age of 83. He was buried beside Clara in the West Center Cemetery along US 50 near Partridge, KS. Levi married Orpha Miller from Indiana after Clara's death. During much of their marriage, they lived in Florida, where they had met--at first, only during the winter, then year-round. Orpha became a Licensed Practical Nurse after they married, and she was working at Sunnyside as a nurse while Levi was a patient there. Orpha was much younger than Levi.
So far, seven of Levi's children lived to be older than Levi was at the time of his death. No one seems to know of a specific diagnosis that caused Levi's death. "Died of old age" is about as specific as we got at the reunion.
Clara. Clara was fourth--about in the middle--of the family born to Daniel A. and Elizabeth "Lizzie" (Mast) Nisly. Others in the family--from memory again--were Edward (Ed), Daniel D. (Junior Dan), Fred (moved to Iowa), Levi ("Noee Mowtie's"--Noah Mary's--first husband), Rebecca (Becky--married to Will Miller), Emma (married to William Edward Miller--his first of three wives), Edna (married to Jake Yoder).
Clara was 16 when her mother died of cancer. The youngest in the family, Edna, was only three years old. Dan Nisly then married a widow, Katie (Headings) Helmuth. Her first husband was Eli. My dad referred to this woman as "Mommie Nissley" (Grandma Nisly). I still faintly remember her. She used to live in the house now occupied by Vera Mae Nisly on the Julian Nisly farm at the old Dan A. Nisly farmstead at 4311 South Herren Road, Hutchinson.
(Trivia: It was in Kansas where the European name pronounced Nissley (It means "little nut." Oh my.) was first shortened to Nisly and given a more English pronunciation, with a long "i." The shortening of the name was done to get rid of the "extravagance" of unnecessary letters, as I've heard it told. In Pennsylvania Dutch, Nisly is still pronounced Nissley. Abraham may have been the first to make the change. He was Clara's grandfather. If anyone anywhere has the Nisly spelling, you can be sure that person had ancestors in Kansas).
Clara's father was a minister, and two of her brothers, Levi and Fred, were ministers. Her Mast grandfather was the famous "Dawdy Mosht," Grandpa Mast, Daniel E. Mast, the much-loved and influential spiritual patriarch of the Amish of Reno County. He was a deacon, who moved here from Holmes County, OH. He wrote extensively. His book, Salvation Full and Free, translated and compiled after his death, is still available.
At the time of her youngest daughter's wedding (Emma) in August of 1959, Clara was already ill with cancer, but was still mobile and able to help with wedding preparations. She died at home on Easter morning, April 17, 1960, at age 58. I always thought she had stomach cancer. At the reunion someone else mentioned pancreatic cancer as the cause of her death. She did not seek treatment. Her main caretaker was her oldest daughter, Elizabeth (Lizzie), who was still single at that time. There are now 13 grandchildren older than Clara was when she died. All of Clara's children far outlived her. The youngest child is now 75--17 years older than her mother was at the time of her death.
A family picture taken at the time of Emma's wedding in the only family picture I know of that includes all twelve children and their parents. It was taken outside Levi and Clara's home--the house which burned down later, while Ollie and Emma were living there.
As I read over the "life span" section, I realize that much of this was not mentioned at the reunion either. The need for brevity was more obvious there than here.
(To be continued)
posted by Mrs. I (Miriam Iwashige) at
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